The Future of African Cities: Beyond Complex Policies to Localized Policies and Action

Human Rights Research Center
May 26
9 min read

May 26, 2026

Picture of illegal dumpsite in a residential suburb in the city of Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng Province, South Africa. [Image credit: Kudzaiishe Seti]

Introduction

African urban and rural spaces face unprecedented pressures in the 21st century. Population growth and economic ambitions have brought development, but this development has come with multiple challenges to service delivery and decent human habitation. Each area has its own unique challenges in relation to its geography, population size, economic activities, and other anthropogenic and biophysical environments (biogeochemical processes). Urban and rural spaces have distinct problems even if they are part of the same country or region within a country. The incessant growth of these problems calls for varying approaches to the challenges these communities face. Development partners in the form of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have unearthed the backbone of the causes of these challenges.

While some solutions have flourished, donor dependence syndrome and communities’ inability to continue best practices show that there is a need to do more beyond simple aid. Communities struggle to maintain intervention practices introduced by NGOs and are unable to achieve scalability or replicability. This lack does not diminish the work the NGO sector is doing, but rather calls for an inclusive approach to development by ensuring that public office bearers are equipped with best practices on addressing challenges affecting communities. The development sector, private sector, and central government can work within the same framework to ensure sustainable and lasting solutions to communities.

The Problems

African challenges in the 21st century need to move from overreliance on donor funds and interventions to learning and practice. There is a need for sustainable learning, innovation, and increased citizen and leadership participation in the day-to-day operations of human settlement systems. In most areas of sub-Saharan Africa, significant parts of places of habitation are subject to communicable diseases propagation, flooding, and extreme disturbances on the ecosystem and biogeochemical processes, including waste management, infrastructure, and climate change.

The continual cholera outbreak in over ten sub-Saharan African countries illustrates how settlement challenges affect development. In most middle-income and even in some low-income countries, cholera has been eliminated, signifying that disease prevention in these countries can be addressed with adequate resourcing, knowledge sharing, and prioritizing. Addressing the root causes of urban rot and related issues in rural areas can reduce the propagation of communicable diseases. Sharing knowledge of best practices with locals can help more than simply donating money and/or goods.

Flash floods devastate even rich cities and towns in countries south of the Sahara. Capital cities of African countries still face perennial flash flood occurrences, which are exacerbated by poor drainage, unplanned settlements, and weak disaster management strategies. Capital cities and other important cities in Africa often witness flooding in low-income areas, but recent data show that even high-income areas are bearing the brunt of weak waste management and drainage systems, resulting in increased losses in property damage in flood-prone areas. Such challenges highlight selective approaches to infrastructure development to arrest flooding either by design or by affluence that still fail to address pressing challenges in communities.

African countries are losing economic opportunities due to poor waste management strategies. Africa is endowed with perfect weather for digital nomads from temperate climates. Data from recent years show that Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Cape Town are emerging as key destinations for digital nomads. Research shows digital infrastructure, weather, and public infrastructure are key to attracting digital nomads. Some countries have set objectives to make certain cities world-class, but have failed to meet set deadlines due to inequitable development within cities. Certain strategies are crumbling not because of weak financing but because of a lack of inclusivity and the inability to harness small steps to achieve the broader visions. As such, some cities in certain countries cannot compete with top-tier cities within the continent. In an interconnected and competitive world, some cities are losing opportunities despite their strategic positioning. Effective waste management is key in countries south of the Sahara to drive investment in industries that thrive on cleaner environments and biodiversity conservation. Tourism and the digital nomad economy may not reach their full potential in cities with poor waste management, further impoverishing them and limiting growth.

Most African countries have vibrant climate change policies. Many cities, however, lack their own blueprints on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience. Such policies are critical to address pressing local challenges in the advent of increased climate change-induced disasters. Local climate policies help merge local endeavors and harness opportunities on how to address cross-cutting challenges embedded within the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Policies born out of participatory processes and citizen assemblies more often guarantee citizen buy-in and localized successes than policies led by experts. Lack of such cooperative policies has thwarted cities’ abilities to address these developmental problems effectively. In the rural hinterland, tourism and agriculture opportunities have been hampered by a lack of participatory processes to address community challenges and lay a clear roadmap to development.

Proposed Roadmap

The solutions to the challenges affecting cities and rural areas south of the Sahara do not come from fancy textbooks or scholars. The solutions lie in addressing the cross-cutting issues with as many stakeholders as possible. Some of the key pathways to address these difficulties are discussed below.

Development of Participatory Policies and Platforms
Cities and rural areas are guided by policies to improve livability and livelihoods. Most policies in sub-Saharan Africa continue to rely on colonial policies, which lacked inclusion and equitable development. To rectify this, local authorities need to advance participatory policy-making to enable amplification of citizen voices. Citizen voices are not only there for aesthetics, but they also address underlying issues. Citizens from low-income communities need solutions that they can relate to socially, economically, and culturally. Most policy interventions fail in low-income areas because of an overreliance on expert consultation and policy drafting, which leads to unintended results, such as underutilized infrastructure leading to a negative return on investment. Given that most Africans live in economically disadvantaged areas, what happens there affects both the Central Business Districts (CBDs) and high-income areas. Behaviors such as uncontrolled street vending, which usually start from low-income areas, are transferred every day from low-income areas to the CBDs. In order to affect behavior change, every citizen should be responsible for being a custodian of the policies, infrastructure, and behaviors of that settlement, providing a clean environment and collective effort in both urban and rural spaces. Participatory policymaking is a proven strategy that has worked in both world-class cities and small settlements to bring lasting development. Relatable policies ensure equitable development as citizens can use policies and infrastructure that relate to their needs rather than those imposed on them. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution can be led by residents/citizens to advance the livability, safety, and aesthetics of a city/town or rural area.

Learning for everyone
Oftentimes, learning has focused on citizens and centered around the underprivileged, low-income, and underserved communities, sometimes ignoring duty bearers. It is well known that Africa has some of the most unequal communities in the world, which calls for strategic development programs for those who are underprivileged. There is a need, however, to realign the relationship between development and community dynamics and understand it not only from a point of resource privilege but also from a point of knowledge privilege. Political office holders from the highest offices down to the local authorities seek to make a change in the communities they serve, but they lack knowledge. Just like development practitioners, political leaders need mentorship and training on climate change, climate finance, circular economy, participatory democracy, and overall development strategies. There is a notion of leaders resisting change and learning, but efforts have to be made to educate local authorities on the aforementioned critical areas. Local authorities not only need aid, but they also need to connect more with the communities they serve. They need innovation more than ever. They are not business enterprises, but they need to innovate like the private sector in order to address social, economic, and ecological problems. Empowering communities should move in tandem with enabling office bearers.

Equitable and Localized Development
Development of public amenities that affect or influence drainage, flooding, pollution, and ecological well-being should focus on tailor-made options for both low-income and high-income areas. Selectively developing one area on the basis that they can afford to pay higher rates may prove costly for the entire town, city, or rural area, as flooding, pollution, and ecological damage affect everyone. It is important to innovate to address infrastructure and ecological challenges within each local area, irrespective of the economic value they present to the local authority. Governance, policing, and development frameworks need to be created and implemented to ensure equitable development, which guarantees progress and safety. Drainage programs, for instance, should not only focus on rich areas where they can pay higher rates, but innovative models can be invented to ensure that the whole area has working drainage.

Robust Waste Management Policies in the Context of Each City/Rural Area
Each local authority should have its own policies unique to its needs, developed by the people. Experts’ policies have often undermined citizens’ needs. The ripple effects are often catastrophic as they result in underutilized facilities, ecological damage, tax burden on citizens, and, in some instances, greenwashing. Residents of an area should have a say in how they intend to respond to these challenges and opportunities. Experts can develop the framework, while citizens co-create strategies for a decent update of a newly introduced service. In a world faced by ever-growing threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, and rampant pollution, ecological policies should not play second fiddle but should be central to communities’ survival. Waste management solutions should enhance incomes, grow business synergies, increase community health, and foster ecological revival. Irrespective of how small or big a city, town, or village is, demographic, economic, and geographic factors should be considered to produce sustainable and effective waste management policies that can bring lasting and transformational change in communities.

Conclusion

African cities face a myriad of challenges. Donor funding without knowledge transfer is not the solution. African cities should innovate. Innovation does not mean machines only, but a change in systems that ensures citizens and cultural ingenuity are explored. Participatory policy-making provides the necessary buy-in to achieve lasting change. Learning and development should not be reserved for the rich or poor but should be inclusive to advance ecological well-being, health, and socio-economic development.

Glossary

Anthropogenic: Environmental changes, processes, or materials derived from human actions rather than natural processes.
Biodiversity Conservation: Integration of species-centric and process-based approaches to boost ecosystem resilience amidst global changes
Biodiversity Loss: The rapid decline in the variety of life on Earth due to human activities like habitat destruction, human-induced climate change, and pollution.
Biogeochemical Processes: The processes, pathways, and mechanisms that drive the movement, transformation, and recycling of chemical elements and compounds between living organisms and non-living components.
Biophysical Environment: the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) surroundings of an organism or ecosystem that influence its survival, development, and evolution over time.
Central Business District: The commercial, office, and financial core of a city, characterized by high accessibility, dense high-rise development, and intense land use
Circular economy: An industrial and economic model designed to eliminate waste and pollution by keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible
Citizen Assemblies: Bodies of randomly selected, demographically representative citizens convened to learn about, deliberate on, and formulate evidence-based recommendations on specific policy issues representing public opinion.
Digital Nomads: Technology-enabled, remote professionals who merge work with travel.
Donor Dependence Syndrome: A phenomenon where recipients of aid, mostly individuals, organizations, or nations, become psychologically and financially reliant on external assistance, losing the initiative for self-sufficiency
Greenwashing: The intersection of poor environmental performance and positive, yet deceptive, communication about environmental practices where there is misleading of consumers regarding a firm's environmental practices or a product's benefits, often creating a discrepancy between green claims and actual, often harmful, actions.
Human Settlement Systems: Organized, interdependent networks of human habitations, ranging from small rural villages to major urban metropolises.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO): A non-profit organization, group, or institution that operates independently from a government and has humanitarian or development objectives.
Participatory democracy: A model of governance emphasizing the direct, active involvement of citizens in decision-making processes, rather than relying solely on elected representatives
Triple Planetary Crisis: Refers to the three main interlinked issues that humanity currently faces: climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss

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