Meeting the Infrastructure Challenges of African Cities

Today, less than 10% of the world's urban population lives in African cities. By the end of this century that ratio is on track to swell to more than a third of the world's total (a growth of 2.2 billion urban residents). Today, just seven of the world's 100 largest cities are in Africa, by 2050 that will increase to 21, and by 2100, 40 of the world's 100 largest cities are expected to be in Africa and five of the world's largest 10 cities will be in Africa, each with more than 50 million residents. In addition to the $20 trillion needed over the next 40 years to build the cities for more than 2 billion people, by 2040 Africa also needs the equivalent of about 600,000 engineer graduates per year to design and manage the services underpinning these cities. When assessing Africa's urbanization trends and the acute need for finance, stability of macroeconomic and social conditions, institutional strengthening, efficient urban form, and capacity - this paper asserts that a critical need is capacity, especially domestic engineering capacity. The scale of Africa's capacity needs will necessitate new models of collaboration and urban management.