Getting Slums Out of African Cities

Millions of Africans live in slums, and the rapid growth of African cities is compounding the problem.

Africa faces the huge challenge of “improving the lives of slum dwellers, but also preventing the formation of new slums,” says Joan Clos, executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).

Africa’s housing ministers, who last met in Rabat, Morocco, in September 2011, are well aware of this challenge.

Gathered under the auspices of the African Ministers Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD), they outlined new policies for housing and urban development across the continent, in line with the “cities without slums” initiative they originally adopted in 2005.

Some slum dwellers fear this may be mostly talk. “I am only interested in being removed from here, to live in a more decent environment,” says Mr Rachid Lashab, who lives in the Essekouila slum in Casablanca.

“I am not interested in the many conferences that our leaders attend.”

But in Rabat, the ministers at least laid out broad goals.

These included improving urban planning, making service land (for public buildings) more available, developing industrial, agricultural and crafts towns, and slowing down rural-to-urban migration of people in search of job opportunities.