New Democrat (Monrovia)
Tom Kamara
13 October 2009
opinion
There was a simple psychiatrist test doctors performed on patients to determine their mental state of being, one doctor recently said in a discussion over Mary Broh's clean Monrovia crusade. A bucket would be placed in a room along with a mop in it. A stream would be created leading into the room. Doctors would then pour the water through the little stream into the room. If the patient mopped the water continuously, often until he or she drops with exhaustion, the conclusion of insanity would be reached. But of the patient sought to discover the source of the water to stop its flow into the room, then there was no trace or evidence of insanity.
This test, as simple as it seems, is relevant to Liberia and many countries. For decades, they have applied the same solutions to serious socio-economic problems, receiving the same results, if not worst. They have applied the same laws, used the same bureaucratic methods, re-deployed the same minds, all with the same results as expected.
Getting Monrovia what its should be in the eyes of those dreaming of a more organized and clean city is far more difficult than occasional smashing of structures soon rebuilt. According to released census figures, about a third of the population lives in the city, the other two thirds scattered around the country. And yet this is a city that was not built as a city, as most African cities are. Houses are not built with sanitation in mind, so the overwhelming majority of city dwellers do their thing outside and throw it in the neighbourhood. The city was not built with a sewer system as a priority because the elite at the time had their human sewer system-boys and girls from rural areas, wards, who took care of their human waste in return for life in Monrovia and perhaps, if lucky, some form "education". With its population rising faster as opportunities in rural areas were wiped out by the "Great Patriotic War", it would seem that Monrovia is now in its glorious days with all signs that things will get worst for several reasons.
One is the land ownership system that the Governance Commission is battling with against the odds, and with predictions that it is a latent bomb soon to explode. The few families that own prime land in central Monrovia, the epicentre of slums, are not prepared to develop them because they lack the finance to do so or heirs are no longer interested, having discovered life in America. And if they cannot develop the land, then no one should because they are not willing to sell, tying hopes to rising value of the land with dreams of millions of dollars to come one day. Their option, as the state and shape of the city indicates, is surrendering the land to squatters for fees they (landlords or caretakers) can live on. These squatters then construct shacks on the land, for these is what they can afford. Others with the means find the lease agreements totally unfavourable, except, of course, the Lebanese, the real owners of central Monrovia by long-term lease.
One landlord, for example, demanded from a Liberian the construction of a skyscraper with him owning 50%. Landlords often dictate what types of buildings they want on the land, except when it comes to squatters given freedom to build their temporary structures.
All this brings in the controversial Mary Broh solutions to giving Monrovia a facelift. The Monrovia mayor-designate, with presidential applause followed by many others, is using methods that have long been tested and used by others before her, mainly the police. They storm an area, break up shacks, seize goods, with the hope that multitudes of squatters and street peddlers would vanish forever. But the next day, they return in greater numbers, determined to stay. The police return, repeating the same act they enjoy because of the financial rewards, since they end up taking the goods for themselves in most cases. The President personally intervenes and gives the street peddlers an ultimatum. It is ignored. "You our ma!"
Ms. Broh has only copied the past with fanfare. But in the absence well built systems, the individual with perceived solutions becomes the system. Hence, whatever the drawbacks of Ms. Broh's methods in cleaning-up the city sinking in filth, there are certainly many who admire here unconventional solutions to unconventional problems.
There are reports that many communities now call on her to visit their filth-laden environments as proclaimed liberator from dirt. They see her as the solution and increasingly, she sees herself as the ultimate solution. "I'll commit today", she angrily told a man pleading with her in over-populated Duala over he weekend, where she stormed.
If the perception is that Ms. Broh is the final solution, a perception gaining momentum because alternatives are lacking, then what is reality in Africa as a whole?
The reality is that slums and Africa are synonymous, with UN figures putting the number of Africans living in slums to 62%. Even with this, urbanization is expected to rise 2050. At the moment, according to the UN, "More than 70 per cent of the populations of Europe, North America and Latin America are already urban areas."
Africa is yet at the lower end, registering 39 per cent and Asia 41 per cent. But the report warns:
. However, if current trends continue, half of Africa's population will be urban by 2050. Africa will have an urban population of 1.2 billion, or nearly a quarter of the world's urban population.
. The rate of change of the urban population in Africa is the highest in the world. Despite some signs that urban growth is slowing down, the potential for further urbanization is still huge: the region is in the early stages of its urban transition, with an estimated 38 per cent of its population classified as urban; urban growth rates in Africa are the highest in the world (3.3 per cent per year between 2000 and 2005) and are expected to remain relatively high; and fertility rates in 2007 were still high (4.7 per cent) compared to the global average (2.5 per cent).
This UN report identifies the problems. Whether one individual can solve them is left to debate, but the report provides an opportunity for another look at the urban dilemma:
Growing cities
. The main cause of urban growth in most countries is natural increase when births in cities outpace deaths. In countries with low levels of urbanization, migration is often the primary engine driving city growth, as is the case in various countries in Africa and Asia. In many countries, the largest movements of population are taking place between cities and not from rural to urban areas.
. Urban-to-urban migration is also becoming more common in African cities. In South Africa, approximately 3 million urban residents have migrated from one district or metropolitan municipality to another in the last five years.
. A common historic pattern observed in virtually all developing countries is urban primacy: the concentration of a significant proportion of the national urban population, and the control of flows of capital, financial transactions, industrial production, national revenue, and other similar indicators in one city. But urban primacy is also bad for business it distorts the economy, creates imbalances in the distribution of populations and resources and gives rise to different forms of socio-economic disarticulation.
. The highest growth rates for primate cities were recorded in Africa (3.65 per cent per year), including in Nairobi, Kenya; Niamey, Niger; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Lom‚, Togo, all of which grew at an annual rate of 4 per cent or more. Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is the only primate city that experienced soaring annual population growth of 8.6 per cent from 2000 to 2005.
Shrinking Cities
. In African cities, signs of decline are almost negligible. Some urban areas, however, are either experiencing slow growth or are suffering from population loss. This phenomenon is confined mainly to small towns and cities. The UN-HABITAT analysis of urban growth from 1990 to 2000 reveals that of the 11 African cities that experienced declining populations, 10 were small cities. It is possible that some cities lost populations as a result of war, disasters or civil conflicts, but in most cases, population loss has been a transitory process. Recent studies on migration and urbanization in Africa have produced empirical evidence demonstrating new patterns of return migration from urban to rural areas that may have an impact on population decline in the future.
For richer or poorer: Urban Inequalities
. Many countries in the developing world are enjoying rapid, positive economic growth, but a large majority of their populations are not benefitting from the new wealth. Income inequalities in cities are generally high, with some regions, notably Africa, exhibiting exceptionally high levels of urban inequality. African countries in which cities exhibit extremely high levels of inequality are Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana.
. Sub-Saharan African countries have the highest levels of urban poverty in the world.
Although rural poverty is pervasive in the region, more than 50 per cent of the urban population in the poorest countries lives below the poverty line. Poverty often manifests itself in inequality in access to adequate housing. In 2005, six out of every ten urban residents in the region were slum dwellers nearly double the proportion of the rest of the developing world, and four times that of Northern Africa, where slum prevalence is approximately 15 per cent, and where slum growth is slowing.
. Northern Africa, on the other hand, shows a relatively egalitarian pattern of income distribution. The differences in urban poverty and slum prevalence between Northern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa are reflected in the distribution of income, with the former having a moderate urban Gini coefficient of 0.37, compared with urban sub-Saharan Africa, where the Gini coefficient has an average value of 0.46, above the international alert line of 4%.
. Freetown in Sierra Leone, Dire Dawa in Ethiopia and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania are among the most equal cities in sub-Saharan Africa, with Gini coefficients of 0.32, 0.39 and 0.36, respectively.
. In urban Kenya, for instance, the Gini coefficient rose from 0.47 in the 1980s to 0.575 in the 1990s largely as a result of Structural Adjustment Programmes poor governance and other factors that adversely affected the urban poor.
. In Nigeria, the urban Gini coefficient increased from 0.37 to 0.416 for similar reasons, and in Abidjan, adverse economic conditions culminating in the devaluation of the currency provoked an increase in the income Gini coefficient from 0.497 in 1992 to 0.529 in 1998.
. In South African and Namibian cities, inequalities are most pronounced and extraordinarily high, despite the dismantling of apartheid in the early 1990s. In fact, urban inequalities in these two countries are even higher than those of Latin American cities.
. The average Gini coefficient for South African cities is 0.73, while that of Namibian cities is 0.62, compared to the average of 0.5 urban Latin America. Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, also stands out as a city with high levels of consumption inequality, with a Gini coefficient of 0.52.
. Surveys in 17 small cities and towns around Lake Victoria in the three East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda show that levels of inequality in these towns are almost the same as those of big cities, largely because of high urban growth rates that are not accompanied by increased provision of infrastructure and basic services, such as water and sanitation. The Gini coefficient for income in these towns did not vary much between countries (0.56 for the Kenyan towns, 0.57 for the Tanzanian towns and 0.55 for the Ugandan towns).
Inequalities in Access to Education and Employment
. This is true in several of the countries included in UN-HABITAT's analysis, especially in Western and Central Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, and Senegal. In all of the countries analyzed here, more than 75 per cent of the children of primary school age in large cities attend school, but in rural areas, the proportion drops to less than 50 per cent.
. This pattern is most pronounced in Niger, where 73 per cent of children in the capital city attend school, compared with 17 per cent in rural areas; in Niger's small cities and towns, 53 per cent of children of primary school age are enrolled.
. In countries such as Senegal, Mozambique and Niger, there are more jobs and schooling opportunities in small cities and towns than in large cities. For example, in Senegal's large cities, 41 per cent of young women are neither working nor attending school, compared with 33 per cent in small cities and towns. The nonemployment rates are 30 per cent in large cities and 21 per cent in small cities and towns in Mozambique, and 51 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively, in Niger.
Slums
. Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of city dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa live in a slum. This proportion is particularly high in countries such as Ethiopia, Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea- Bissau, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Sudan, where slum households are likely to lack clean water, improved sanitation, durable housing or sufficient living space; in many cases, slum dwellers in these countries not only suffer from one shelter deprivation, but from three or more.
. A second group of countries in sub-Saharan Africa has large slum concentrations but fewer instances of multiple shelter deprivations. Among these countries, are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya, Ghana, and Senegal. Although the majority of urban households in these countries can be classified as slums, most suffer from only one shelter deprivation. This means that a simple programme tackling the lack of improved water, sanitation or housing can contribute significantly to improving the lives of slum dwellers.
. In Central African Republic, Chad and Ethiopia, slum cities are more entrenched and underserved, with as much as 91 per cent of even non-slum households living in extremely deprived settlements. In Guinea and Madagascar, where the urbanization process is led by small cities and towns, large proportions of non-slum households live in slum areas. Rwanda and Uganda offer a different scenario, in which the majority of non-slum households live in non-slum areas.
. Surveys in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, GuineaBissau, Sudan, and Sierra Leone reveal that more than 60 per cent of slum households in these countries experience at least two shelter deprivations, while more than 25 per cent are extremely deprived, with more than three shelter deprivations. Improving the lives of these slum dwellers requires investing in basic services to overcome the multiple shelter deprivations experienced by so many slum households.
. The Northern Africa region has the lowest concentration of slums in Africa, with slum households comprising 15 per cent of all urban households. In this region, nine out of 10 slum households suffer from only one shelter deprivation.
Urban Environmental Risks and Burdens
. In high-income industrialized countries, cities are dealing more with the "green agenda", including non-point source pollution and consumption-related burdens, including greenhouse gas emissions.
. In developing countries, cities tend to struggle most with localized, immediate and health-threatening environmental issues belonging to the "brown" agenda, such as lack of safe water, inadequate sanitation and poor waste management.
Emissions at the city level
. In Benin, less than 50 per cent of urban households benefit from collection of household wastes either through a public or private system. A 2001 Demographic and Health Survey showed that the prevalence of diarrhea among children under the age of five years was 18.5 per cent in urban households where the garbage is dumped in the yard against 7 per cent in urban households where the garbage is collected.
. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, only 35 to 55 per cent of the urban solid waste is collected; uncollected waste is illegally dumped in open spaces, water bodies, and storm-drainage channels, buried, burnt or deposited along the streets or roadsides.
. A 2003 survey in Kenya showed that one out of every four children living in households where garbage is dumped within the yard suffered from diarrhea compared to less than one in ten children living in households where solid waste is regularly collected.
. In Ethiopia the prevalence of acute respiratory infections is six times higher among children living in households where the waste is uncollected than among children living in households that benefit from regular waste collection.
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