Covid-19: A good test of Africa's Urban Governance

As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its toll on the world, the World Health Organization continues to send warnings on the possible dangers of its spread on the African continent. It is, however, very imprudent to categorize the continent as a single block. The continent has social, economic and spatial diversities that provide both opportunities to curb the spread of the virus and others that can bring out the worst of the pandemic. Previous cases of epidemics like Ebola and Cholera provide lessons towards this within the realm of urban and regional planning.

The growing urban centres on the continent exhibit the most concern. These range from small towns, market centres, large municipalities to expansive metropolises. The most evident characteristic of urban areas is the socio-economic disparities that co-exist. Spatial divisions along income levels are scandalously evident as communities in two different worlds live side by side of each other. It’s very common to have a poor underserved community with over 60,000 people per square kilometre living right next to a well-served affluent neighbourhood that has a population density of less than 500 people per square kilometre. Cities have not seen much attempts at reducing or transforming these disparities and on occasions when efforts are put, they almost always end in failure. Good examples are some of the attempts at slum upgrading projects that witnessed newly built houses allocated to non-deserving affluent people. Additionally, among the poor who were allocated houses, the dire economic and financial struggles at household level forced many to either lease out part of their houses or the entire house in return for much needed income.Transport management projects and economic empowerment projects also offer good examples. 

One of the causes for this failure is the continuous Top—Bottom approach adapted by those in charge of executing such programmes. They tend to follow a methodology that fails to utilize proper participatory approaches and struggles with predetermined notions about problems and challenges. This leads to a misunderstanding of how the existing ecosystems function and eventually lack of ownership by the communities who the projects are expected to serve. In the eyes of bureaucrats, public participation is a legal hurdle that is best used to rubber-stamp projects. 

The other visible challenge that exists in urban areas across the socio-economic ladder is shortage or complete lack of basic services. Urban areas serve complex mixes of multi-cultural and social communities. These communities exhibit different income levels, social activities, work and play schedules, family sizes, ages etc. Within these complexities, basic needs such as health, education, nutrition, water and mobility are priorities. It is a well-known fact (even to a point of being stated by public officials) that in places like Nairobi City water supply is under the control of ‘cartels’ or ‘cabals.’ These groups are known to control the supply of water in order to enhance their own private businesses supplying the same. The same model exists on a wider scale in health, education, garbage collection, urban environmental management and urban mobility (public transport). In all these sectors, public services are intentionally sabotaged or neglected in order to enhance private businesses that provide similar services at escalated prices.

Epidemics and pandemics at times give birth to change in the way cities are planned and managed. The cholera outbreak in London and the Spanish Flu in New York are examples of pandemics that forced cities to change the way they are planned and managed. Many times, the mismanagement of cities leads to an acceleration in the growth and spread of disease. This is due to the close link between urban design, planning and public health. The necessity for the provision of public space, recognition of plot area coverage and land use allocation for essential services comes out clearly during epidemics, pandemics, lockdown and quarantine.

The sprawling sections of the city (the small ever-growing townships at the border of the city) provide an even worse scenario. Examples of these in Nairobi include Rongai, Githurai, Kinoo and others. These places are poorly served as they are not within the city jurisdiction. They have grown as dense neighbourhoods characterized by multi-storey tenements. These neighbourhoods are not known to have public health facilities, public water supply or public space. An outbreak of a pandemic in sprawling areas would be a disaster. Most who live within these areas, must access the city centre for either work, to access certain services or to move to other parts of the city.

What is the Way Forward for urban centres?

This pandemic provides an opportunity to review the necessity to provide urban services at devolved levels. Those living in rural areas may not have as easy access to certain services like health centres but their setting (this may vary from place to place) enables them to have access to nutrition, observe social distancing and a clean environment.

The zoning of urban areas uses different approaches from political boundaries (constituencies, sub countries, wards etc) to neighbourhood levels (estates, courts, villages etc). Within all these boundaries there are a mix of political, administrative, community, charity and neighbourhood groups that ensure that different systems function for the betterment of the society. Many times, the political and administrative units are known to work for their own interests (and those who support them) or to take direct orders from above in implementing policy. There is the danger of working purely with the government administration while ignoring local players who have full understanding and appreciation of the local functionalities of urban neighbourhoods.

It is necessary to map out all players in urban areas with a clear understanding of the various functions they play. This mapping should include those who are both in poorly serviced areas (informal settlements) and those in more affluent areas. Public spaces, public and private health centres, water collection points and other facilities are well known and should form part of the inventory. Demographic data is already available from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and this can guide in knowing how many people have access to basic supplies and services.

It is therefore possible to execute decisions based on the characteristics of an area, cordon off certain areas when necessary and ensure that everyone gets adequate basic supplies and necessities. With the necessary resources, it is also easier to test for the virus at these local levels where there is lower risk of spread.

At time of writing, the Covid-19 fatality rate lies at less than 5% and has mostly affected older people and those with pre-existing conditions. One advantage of this is that the demographic trend here is different from other parts of the world. The population pyramid here depicts a much larger youthful population. At the same time, due to poor healthcare services and high levels of poverty, regular health checks are not the norm which at times leads to late detection of conditions. Well executed preventative measures within urban areas can save many lives. They, however, require consideration of sustenance of existing livelihoods. Where possible, consideration can be put into the option of people moving up-country. This can help those urban dwellers who are not active at this time and are not affected by the virus.

In the long term this episode offers us an opportunity to re-think on how we can decentralize high level services in our urban areas. It gives us an opportunity to reconsider the necessity to re-define the neighbourhood’s unit where access to health centres, schools, public space, shopping and public transport is available within walkable distances. It offers us to see how planning in our urban centres must go beyond ‘Precedent based Development Control,’ ‘Mega-Projects’ and obnoxious ‘Decongestion Programmes’ that do not create liveable environments for people to live and work in. The Covid-19 episode will be a good test in urban governance on the continent.