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Urbanization in Africa: challenges and
opportunities for conservation
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Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
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Urbanization in Africa: challenges and opportunities for
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Burak Güneralp1,2,7 , Shuaib Lwasa3, Hillary Masundire4, Susan Parnell5 and Karen C Seto6
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Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States of America
Center for Geospatial Science, Applications and Technology (GEOSAT), Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843,
United States of America
Department of Geography, Geo-Informatics and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Botswana, Gaborone, 0022, Botswana
Department of Environmental & Geographical Science, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, United States of America
Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: bguneralp@tamu.edu
Keywords: development, urban growth, sustainability, urban planning, land use, biodiversity, ecosystem services
Abstract
Africa, a continent exceptionally rich in biodiversity, is rapidly urbanizing. Africa’s urbanization is
manifest in the growth of its megacities as well as that of its smaller towns and cities. The conservation
planning and practice will increasingly need to account for direct and indirect impacts of the
continent’s urbanization. The objective of our study is to pinpoint the outstanding challenges and
opportunities afforded by the growing cities on the continent to the conservation goals and practices.
While there have been many studies on the impacts of urbanization and development on
conservation in Africa these studies tended to focus on specific issues. Here, we provide a synthesis of
this body of work supported by new analysis. Urban areas, growing both in population and in land
cover, pose threats to the integrity of the continent’s ecosystems and biodiversity but their growth also
create opportunities for conservation. The burgeoning urban populations, especially in Sub-Saharan
Africa, increase the strain on already insufficient infrastructure and bring new governance challenges.
Yet, Africa’s ecosystems can serve as foundations for green infrastructure to serve the needs of its
urban populations while safeguarding fragile biodiversity. Overall, while worsening social problems
overshadow the concerns for biodiversity there are also promising initiatives to bring these concerns
into the fold to address social, institutional, and ecological challenges that emerge with the continued
urbanization of the continent.
1. Introduction: urbanization trends in Africa
Africa’s move into the ‘urban age’ is projected to be
without precedent in its swiftness. While the continent
is still largely rural, it is one of the fastest urbanizing
regions around the world. Africa’s urban population is
expected to more than triple over 40 years, from 395
million in 2010 to 1.339 billion in 2050, corresponding
to 21% of the world’s projected urban population [1].
Currently, the continent has seven megacities, that is
cities with populations over 10 million: Cairo, Kinshasa,
Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg–Pretoria, Khartoum, and
Nairobi. In 15 years, Luanda and Dar es Salaam will be
added to this list.
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Natural increase is estimated to be a more dominant factor in the increase in urban populations in many
African countries compared to migration [2, 3]. Urbanization projections indicate a slowing rate in Africa from
the 1990s high rates of up to 8% down to a range of
1.9%−2.2% from 2020−2050, with significant variation across its countries [3]. The total population in
the continent is projected to reach almost 2.5 billion
people by 2050 with about 55% living in urban areas
(figure 1). This is a significant increase given that less
than 10% of Africa’s population resided in urban areas
in 1950. Most of the increase in urban population is
taking place in small- and medium-sized cities in midlatitudinal Africa. The growth of existing villages and
Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
Figure 1. Historical trends and future projections for total population (a) and percentage of total population living in urban areas (b)
in Africa and its three regions. The regions are based on United Nations (UN) regional categorization; mid-latitudinal Africa is the
Western, Middle, and Eastern Africa regions. Grayed-out areas represent the projection interval. Data are from the United Nations’
World Urbanization Prospects, 2014 Revision [1].
towns is also transforming rural landscapes into urban
areas [4, 5].
Yet, despite clear physical evidence of urbanization, it must be noted there are large uncertainties in
Africa’s population projections [6]. National censuses,
demographic and health survey data, and population
databases are sources of population projections, and
each of these have significant uncertainties. Some of
these are inherent to survey and census data, but these
errors or omissions are amplified in a continent where
institutions to collect and store these data are often
underfunded and understaffed. Nevertheless, it is clear
that the growth of small and medium cities, some
of which were previously not designated ‘urban’, is a
major contributor to higher levels of urbanization [4].
The nature of spatial expansion and growth of smaller
settlements will significantly influence Africa’s urban
landscape and its ability to achieve targets associated
with the 2030 Agenda set out by the United Nations
(UN) [7] and the continent’s own vision for Africa in
2063 [8].
Despite high rates of urban population growth,
many African countries still have a high degree of urban
primacy. That is, one city—usually the capital—has the
population, economic activity, and political power that
are several times greater than the next largest city. In
2
the context of conservation, because governance and
institutions are also concentrated in a single city, there
is often disproportionately less attention given to, and
resources available for, governing other urban centers,
towns, and villages throughout the country. This concern with the overall structure of the urban system is
what led the African region to–successfully–push, in
the Habitat III process, for a focus on cities and also the
national territorial system [9].
Although Africa’s high urbanization rates make it
similar to other rapidly urbanizing places, it is important to underscore that the underlying processes that
shape urbanization in Africa are vastly different from
those experienced elsewhere. Much of urban expansion
in Africa is characterized by unplanned and unregulated growth, exacerbated by the legacy of colonialism,
structural adjustment, and neo liberalism that spawned
weak urban planning institutions [10]. In urban areas,
unemployment rates are high and about 60 percent
of jobs are in the informal or grey economy, neither
taxed nor monitored by the government [3]. Hence,
Africa’s GDP tends to underestimate the amount of
economic activity. There are also informal modes of
social protection [11] and unregulated land markets,
infrastructure and service provision [12]. Complicated
settlement–governance arrangements, with weak local
Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
Figure 2. Probabilistic forecasts of urban expansion by 2030 in Africa. We estimate the probability for each location by calculating
the percentage of 1000 spatially explicit simulations of urban growth, in which that location becomes urban. We generated the 1000
simulations using Monte Carlo techniques (see [15,17] for details). Probabilities vary from 1% to 100% from yellow to red on the maps.
High rates of urban expansion are expected along the Nigerian coast and within the Lake Victoria Basin. Even in relatively lower-fertility
countries such as South Africa, major urban centers are expected to grow well beyond their current municipal boundaries.
Table 1. Total urban land in PAs in 2000 and forecasted change in urban land within 50 km of PAs in Africa from 2000 to 2030.
Urban in 50 km of PAs (km2 ):
average (std dev)
Percent increase in urban in 50 km of
PAs: average (std dev)
Urban in PAs in 2000 (km2 )
Year 2000
Northern Africa
Mid-latitudinal Africa
Southern Africa
125
300
100
2800
5425
6875
14 182
107 110
23 312
(2518)
(20 862)
(3194)
407
1874
239
(190)
(485)
(146)
Africa
525
15 100
144 604
(25 416)
858
(68)
Regiona
a
Year 2030
Regions are based on United Nations (UN) regional categorization; mid-latitudinal Africa is the Western, Middle, and Eastern Africa regions.
authorities and poor land-use management capacity
mean that, even while there are examples of extreme
density in ‘slums’ and informal settlements, the overall
African urban form is low density [13]. In particular, unregulated peri-urban construction, often by the
urban middle classes or expatriates, has spawned lowrise sprawl or the suburbanization of the countryside,
cf [14].
The increase in urban population in Africa will be
accompanied with an expansion in urban land. Between
2000 and 2030, urban land in Africa is forecasted to
increase by nearly 600% [15] (figure 2). The forecasted
urban expansion in the continent is concentrated in
five regions: the Nile River in Egypt, the coast of West
Africa along the Gulf of Guinea, the northern shores
of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Uganda and extending
into Rwanda and Burundi, the Kano region in northern
3
Nigeria, and greater Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Except the
Nile River, all four regions are located in countries that
are identified among the high-fertility African countries
by the UN [16] (figure 2).
2. Urbanization impacts on African
biodiversity
Africa has several regions with exceptional biodiversity [18] and is dotted with protected areas (PAs) with
varying levels of protection status. The PAs cover an
area of about 4.5 million km2 across the continent
[19]. As recently as 2000, Africa was sparsely urbanized with only about 500 km2 of urban land within the
boundaries of its PAs (table 1). In contrast, by 2030,
total urban extent within 50 km of PAs on the continent
Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
is expected to reach more than 140 000 km2 . In midlatitudinal Africa, the nearly 20 fold increase in urban
extent, the largest forecasted proportional increase in
the vicinity of PAs across the world [17], will pose especially acute challenges for governance and management
of PAs and the surrounding lands in this region.
While large urban centers such as Nairobi, Kenya
and Ibadan, Nigeria dominate the continent’s urban
expansion patterns (figure 2), the ecological impacts of
the smaller cities and towns across Africa are also considerable. This is even the case for smaller cities such
as Gaborone and Windhoek, the capitals of, respectively, Botswana and Namibia. Both cities are located
in resource-poor areas and experience recurrent severe
shortages of water [20]. Gaborone, with a population of 232 000 in 2011 [21], relies, in part, on water
supplied from the Letsibogo Dam on the Motloutse
River, via a 400 km long pipeline. An extension of this
North–South Water Carrier is planned that will bring
waters from the Zambezi River—about 500 km from
Gaborone—to the relatively small but growing city.
Such long-distance water transfers are likely to become
more widespread as growing cities in Africa will seek
new sources to meet their increasing demand for water
[22].
It is often assumed that migration from rural to
urban areas and the resulting concentration of populations in cities would ease the pressure on natural
habitats. In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the
migration and subsequent concentration of people in
urban areas has indeed reduced rural populations, thus
leading to reduced rates of deforestation [23]. However, land speculation by wealthy urban residents has
also driven—abetted by lack of land-use planning and
control—loss and fragmentation of rangelands close
to cities and towns in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda
[24]. In Western Africa, the increased demand for
food in the cities has incentivized farmers to convert
forests to agricultural fields to meet this demand [25].
These examples suggest that any relief from pressure
on habitats from rural–urban migration may be overtaken by the increased demand for food and other
natural resources from rapidly growing African cities.
Furthermore, there are many instances of increasing
deforestation in spite of a rise in a country’s urbanization level as more complex dynamics—often involving
long-distance actors—start to play more prominent
roles [26, 27]. Importantly, there has been significant
foreign direct investment (FDI) aimed at land purchases in the continent to help secure food production
for urban residents in other parts of the world [28].
Therefore, conclusive evidence on ecological outcomes
of rural–urban migration on the continent is yet to
materialize [25].
Urbanization and economic development also
drive expansion of the transportation network, which
in turn often fragment habitats. Of particular concern in the context of biodiversity conservation are
the road and railroad infrastructure. Across Africa,
4
there are 33 major development corridors, either proposed or already under construction [29]. If and when
constructed, the road and railroad infrastructure in
current plans would cut through over 400 PAs and
could degrade about 2000 more. Moreover, large-scale
changes in transportation networks such as the one proposed around the Serengeti may significantly influence
future urban expansion patterns potentially increasing
the vulnerability of the PAs in that region [30, 31].
Another example for the far and wide-reaching
impact of urban residents is the bushmeat trade
[32, 33]. Demand for bushmeat, a traditional source
of animal protein for humans in much of Sub-Saharan
Africa is on the rise fueled by dietary preferences of
urban residents that are shaped by a combination of
urbanization and increased-income effects [34]. It is
shown that the high levels of human density, characteristic of urban and peri-urban areas, are negatively
correlated with bushmeat from ungulates and primates
sold in markets [35]. However, the bushmeat trade is
also linked to rural livelihoods [36]. Therefore, measures such as blanket bans are likely to be an ineffective
approach to address this complex issue; a more balanced approach that safeguards sensitive species as well
as the livelihoods of people that rely on bushmeat trade,
and one that recognizes the role of bushmeat in providing nutrition to millions of people along the urban-rural
spectrum is needed.
The negative impacts of urbanization are evidenced
in the expanding haloes of deforestation around cities
and transportation routes [37]. Such exploitation of
natural resources in expanding waves, progressively
from the most highly valued to less, is observed both
in large cities [38] and around smaller settlements
[39]. Peri-urban agriculture, though important for food
security in many Sub-Sharan African countries, can also
contribute to loss and degradation of habitats around
cities. Environmental degradation spreading out from
an urban center can be significantly enhanced in both
speed and intensity depending on the state of the transportation network [23, 37]. In the near future, the
regions that may experience such degradation most
rapidly and extensively are eastern and southern Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Cameroon, due
to their high rural population densities and high foreign
demand for their agricultural lands [37].
Ethnic conflicts and civil wars, some of which have
been going on for decades, also influence urbanization in several parts of the continent. Such conflicts,
as an underlying driver of urbanization, have arguably
the most prominent influence on the biodiversity in
central African countries [37]. The challenges faced by
habitats in peri-urban areas around major cities can
be intensified to the extent that refugees and internally
displaced people (IDP) settle in informal settlements
around the peripheries of these cities [40]. In particular, in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, an increasing
number of refugees and IDP are living in cities [41]. All
these add to the challenges faced by the governments of
Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
these cities. Furthermore, what has started as a temporary camp for refugees and IDP may morph into urban
areas over time whose demand for natural resources
such as fuelwood, building materials, fresh water, and
wild foods can be immense and result in significant
local environmental degradation [42].
Influences external to the continent too play significant roles in shaping the impact of the urbanization
on the biodiversity and ecosystems. Some of these are
financed by FDI from countries outside Africa, i.e.
increasingly from China, India, Malaysia, and Brazil in
addition to Europe and the USA that have been historical sources of FDI to the continent [40]. In recent years,
investment from another rapidly urbanizing country,
China, has been an important source of funding for
infrastructure projects in the continent. How to ensure
that such investments facilitate industrial diversification and urban development on the continent without
accelerating the decimation of Africa’s ecosystems is
an outstanding challenge [29, 40]. Demand for animal
parts as food, as ornament, or medicine has also been
on the rise with the increasing levels of income and integration with global markets in those countries where
such demand originates. These influences interact with
those internal to the continent to shape patterns of, not
only urbanization, but also, habitat degradation, loss,
and fragmentation [25, 43].
3. An urban perspective for ecological
governance and conservation
Ecological governance envisions the inclusion of ecological knowledge, science, and principles in all levels
of decision-making, development planning, and implementation. Implicit in this view is that there is adequate
ecological knowledge at all levels of decision-making
from the individual communities through continental scales. In this respect, two of the major limitations
in Africa with regard to ecological governance are the
lack of capacity and lack of involvement of ecological
experts in policy decisions. Multilateral environmental
agreements scarcely include an ecological perspective
even if it is increasingly recognized that decisions
in economic, social, and political spheres will have
major impacts on ecosystems. Furthermore, urban
areas are integral to ecological landscapes; ecosystem processes and services change in character along
a rural–urban continuum but do not cease to exist
towards the urban end. This provides a good case for
extending the management of natural resources beyond
the confines of contemporary protected-area-based
conservation [25].
While there has been an increasing realization of
the dependency of humans on ecosystem services [44],
this realization does not seem to have had an extensive influence in national or regional policy positions
on urbanization in Africa. One reason for this is that,
although the regional interest in knowledge about
5
ecological landscapes in urban areas is growing
[45, 46], both conservation scholarship and practice
still largely ignore urban areas and fail to see them as
integral parts of the landscape. One exception is South
Africa where the concept of ecosystem services has been
put to use both at the national and sub-national level to
explore strategies for sustainable water resource management [47]. One of the sub-national projects focus
on Olifants Grassland Catchment that includes major
urban centers and heavy industry but is also home to
Kruger National Park. In this project, scenario analysis and green-infrastructure planning were employed to
simultaneously manage demand for water and preserve
biodiversity by giving explicit attention to ecosystem
services.
The challenges that urban areas in Africa are facing are among the biggest in the world. The provision
of basic urban services has already been lacking across
most cities on the continent even before the latest surge
in urbanization. The reasons for poor governance and
inadequate service infrastructure in urban areas can be
traced back to colonial institutional arrangements and
persistent political instability [25]. Some African countries do not have any urban planning and development
departments while the rigid zoning in central areas of
many cities inadvertently contribute to proliferation of
slums and sprawling development of residential areas
[25]. The social problems are liable to further deteriorate as the demand for services and the cost for delivery
both rise jeopardizing achieving even the minimum
targets of the Millennium Development Goals. Under
these conditions, it is especially hard for the responsible
agencies to put due emphasis on biodiversity conservation even though there are practical reasons for urban
planning and governance to heed conservation of the
habitats and biodiversity [48].
Studies on the interactions among biodiversity,
ecosystem services, and urbanization conclude that
they are multifaceted and elude simplification [49, 50].
This complexity poses both opportunities and challenges for conservation in urban landscapes. While it
is hard to accurately value the services provided by
ecosystems there are promising developments towards
valuation of these resources to inform their sustainable and equitable management [51]. One problem
in the case of African cities, as in most other developing country cities, is the lack of data to generate
these monetary valuation estimates [52]. A more fundamental problem is that many of these services are
common or public goods. This means that benefits
they provide are not necessarily limited to those who
can pay for them, but are typically freely available to a
larger group [48].
Conservation has implications for ecosystem services [53]. African cities can benefit from ecosystem
services such as provision of clean air and water while
developing their economies [9]. In this sense, riparian
zones can serve as critical parts of green infrastructure for purposes such as protection from floods,
Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
provision of recreational spaces, and cleaning water
while safeguarding biodiversity. Including riparian
zones along with non-riparian areas within a system of
urban parks is especially important to reflect maximum
heterogeneity in native vegetation types [54]. Therefore, valuation of services provided by these ecosystems
need to be given due attention in urban development
initiatives [55]. The potential value of biodiversity and
ecosystem services as foundations for a green infrastructure to meet the demands of urban residents has
been showcased in a study on Johannesburg [52]. In this
sense, urban agricultural plots can be used to increase
green cover and enrich biodiversity in urban areas while
improving food security and overall socio-economic
condition of urban residents [56]. For this to happen
though, more attention needs to be given to the extent
urban agriculture contributes to enhanced biodiversity
in African cities and towns [57, 58], which has been
a relatively lesser studied aspect of urban agriculture
[59].
Africa has recently adopted its own new urban
agenda, in which cities are seen as drivers of development and keys to future prosperity of the continent.
The African Urban Agenda (AUA), a UN-Habitat initiative to facilitate sustainable urbanization practices in
the continent [9], provides an opportunity to incorporate ecological governance and conservation into
urban governance and planning. The AUA program
does not make any explicit reference to biodiversity
and ecosystems [8] but, by providing a framework
for African governments to address urbanization challenges with an emphasis on urban resiliency, regional
integration, and quality of life of urban residents, it
presents potential entry points for biodiversity conservation to be integrated in broader urbanization
strategies across the continent. Should such strategic
integration takes place, however, coordination among
governments across local, regional, and national levels would be essential for the efficient management
of ecosystem services and conservation of biodiversity
through regulatory mechanisms and infrastructure systems. There has indeed been some movement in this
direction.
The participation of three African countries,
Botswana, Madagascar, and Uganda, in the WAVES
(Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services) initiative is an encouraging sign in that WAVES
is a World Bank-led global partnership to ensure that
natural resources are explicitly recognized in development planning as natural capital [60]. To the extent
that the partnership is successful in its aim of mainstreaming natural capital in development planning, it
can lead the participating countries to devote more
effort to ecological governance and serve as role models for others in the continent to follow. However,
the links to governance and infrastructure planning
in urban areas where most people will live and where
most demand for these services will originate are currently missing in this initiative; such links are also
6
somewhat muted in larger deliberations about the
future of African cities [9].
The Integrated Land-Use Planning initiative of
the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) in four countries (two of which, Tanzania
and Zambia, are in Africa) presents an opportunity to
achieve more sustainable management of urbanization
and improved biodiversity conservation though spatial
planning [61]. Lake Victoria Environmental Management Program (LVEMP II) is another regional initiative
formed by the local governments of the countries within
the basin of Lake Victoria [62]. While agricultural conversion appears to be the biggest threat [31], with
the economic development of the larger Lake Victoria
region and population increase, urban areas especially
in the countries that surround Lake Victoria (Uganda,
Tanzania, and Kenya) increasingly place an undue burden on the lake. One of the goals of the LVEMP II
initiative is rehabilitation of the lake’s ecosystems on
which livelihoods of millions of people depend. Several other freshwater ecosystems in Africa face similar
challenges that require international and inter-urban
collaboration [40].
The African Union (AU) is the continental body
responsible for giving direction to various policies
in Africa—including economic development. The
AU-affiliated African Ministerial Conference on the
Environment, is tasked with providing continent-wide
leadership by promoting awareness and consensus on
global and regional environmental issues, especially
those related to international conventions on biodiversity, desertification, and climate change. Another
AU-affiliated body, the African Ministers’ Council on
Water provides political leadership, policy direction,
and advocacy in the provision, use, and management
of water resources for sustainable social and economic
development and maintenance of African ecosystems.
An important consideration in any of these initiatives is the quality of data. In studying the interactions of
urban areas and biodiversity, not only the uncertainty
in future rates and patterns of urban expansion but
also the uncertainty in PA and other critical-habitat
boundaries need to be considered. The uncertainty
in these boundaries may be significant due to errors
and biases in the selection of biodiversity indicators,
species ranges, and ecological processes [63–65]. Consequently, PA extents may not necessarily overlap with
the ranges of species that are in need of conservation
[66]. On the other hand, there are inherent uncertainties in future projections and forecasts of growth in
urban populations and urban land [2, 17, 67]. All these
uncertainties have implications on the governance of
sensitive habitats and confound attempts to reconcile urbanization and biodiversity conservation on the
continent. Further, the interactions between urbanization and ecosystems are subject to the influence of
any significant changes in regional and continental climate. These changes may play out through changes
in ecosystem processes, in species adaptation, and in
Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 015002
intensification of socio-economic pressures. The efforts
by many agencies and universities to better understand
the drivers and impacts of climate change across Africa
may produce useful information on how these influences may unfold in different parts of the continent
over the next few decades [68, 69].
4. Conclusion
Encroachment of urban areas towards natural habitats
and increasing demands of growing urban populations
on natural resources put direct and indirect pressures
on ecosystems. Notwithstanding the physical expansion of urban areas, concentration of people in urban
areas would seem to ease off the pressure on natural
habitats; yet, the effect of urban residents can be far and
wide-reaching, e.g. through extension of transportation network, transfer of water over long distances,
and increased demand for bushmeat. Supra-national
or regional bodies have the potential to contribute to
ecological governance in Africa, though understandably given Africa’s economic challenges, much of the
current focus is on opportunities that urbanization can
deliver for structural transformation. Still, urbanization in Africa, if well managed, can act as a catalyst
to move the local, regional, national, and international
governance mechanisms in the continent towards more
effective conservation of biodiversity. The continent,
having several regions with exceptional biodiversity,
has much to offer to its urban populations in terms of
recreation, a legacy of natural history, and a source of
national pride. Its biodiversity and ecosystems can also
serve as foundations for green infrastructure that can
meet the needs of burgeoning urban populations while
not ravaging these very ecosystems on which both rural
and urban livelihoods ultimately depend.
Acknowledgments
This research was partially supported by NASA LCLUC
grant NNX15AD43G to Güneralp and Seto.
ORCID iDs
Burak Güneralp
0630
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5825-
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