he increasing emergence of urban slums in Africa has been attributed to unplanned rapid growth of cities and the perennial landslide rural - urban migration. This two factors have been shown to be twin problems that generates inequitable access to land as well as poor mobilisation of resources for housing development and other infrastructural provisions.

This was some of the findings at the recent meeting by Ministers of Housing and Urban Development from 34 African countries who converged in Abuja to seek ways to minimise the rise in urban slums on the continent.

It was discovered by the forum that the bulk of African cities have less than 40 percent access to pipeborne water, less than 60 percent sanitation and also consistent epileptic power supply.This is in addition to widespread enviromental degradation, escalating rate of crime, unemployment, high mortality rate, illiteracy, underemployment and devaluation of traditional social values such as the extended family system.

According to the organisers of the continental ministerial conference, it was a reaction to a recent report released by the UN-HABITAT, the global organisation which promotes sustainable environment and human settlement.

The report indicates that sub-Saharan African countries host the highest number of urban slum households in the world.

UN-HABITAT, in that report, states that between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of urban residents in the region live in slums.

It says further that slums are emerging as dominant settlements in many cities.

‘’Contrary to conventional wisdom, we now know that slum dwellers are just as vulnerable as their rural counterparts to the incidence of hunger and diseases.They have less education and very high unemployment rates,’’ the report adds.

In his address to the conference, President Umaru Yar’Adua blamed African cities for failing to act as engines of economic development in addressing the situation.

‘’The cities should provide avenues for national prosperity, but instead of that, they only breed slums,’’ he said.

According to him, the cities should evolve and implement policies that will attract industrial investments.

‘’They should be centres of opportunity and creativity and not the centres of misery, squalor, crime, violence, insecurity and social exclusion that they have become,’’ he said.

He advised African cities to take a cue from urban centres in the Middle East and Asia which lead in terms of commercial, trade, tourism and technological drive.

According to Yar’Adua, ‘’African cities must bestrengthened to generate substantial income if city managers are to meet the ever increasing demand for better infrastructure and enhanced services.’’

He called for new approaches to urban governance and city management that would improve the delivery of facilities such as water, education, sewage and health services.

‘’We must take the urban slum crisis seriousbecause tackling it is critical to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),’’ the Nigerian leader said.

Painting a picture of the situation, UN-HABIBAT Executive Director, Dr Anna Tibaijuka, said that about eight per cent of African populations hadno homes.

She said that the situation was ‘’particularlyserious’’ in large cities such as Lagos and Kinshasa whose populations would reach arecord high of 12 million and 11 million people respectively by 2025.

‘’There is a housing deficit of 12 million, yet our policies to tackle that have been rather haphazard,’’ she said.

Tibaijuka explained that more than half of African urban dwellers lacked one of the five basic conditions required for a decent housing.

She listed the conditions as water supply, adequate sanitation, durable housing, adequate living space and secure tenure.

‘’Even if the rate of slum formation drops, we need to be under no illusion that the continuing fast expansion of towns and cities will make it difficult to improve living conditions quick enough to meet the MDGs,’’ she said.

Tibaijuka, however, said that her organisation was prepared to work in active collaboration with African governments to develop and implement programmes capable of eliminating slums on the continent.

‘’UN-HABITAT has designed the Slum Upgrading Facility to test the assumption that lending to community groups of the urban poor is not as risky as many people believe,’’ she said.

Nigeria’s Housing and Urban Development Minister Chuka Odom, decried the rising number of such settlements in the country, noting that they had become centres of miseryand poverty, as well as a breeding ground for social ills.

Odom said that the menace of slums, if not properly tackled, could aggravate cases of crime, disease and poverty.

For Mrs Soita Shitanda, Kenya’s Minister of Housing, Africa’s best solution to the slum issue is for governments to invest substantially in low income housing.

Shitanda suggested that African governments should dedicate five per cent of their GDP to the building of massive decent housing for their citizens.

She also called for incentives and measures that would attract active participation of the private sector in the provision of houses.

‘’There is a need to remove taxes from building materials.

‘’We must also ensure adequate support for research on low cost materials and building technologies,’’ she said.

Shitanda said that Kenya was poised to improve the livelihood of 5.4 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Already, Kenya has signed an MOU with UN-HABITAT for the formulation and implementation of a nationwide slum upgrading programme.

‘’The programme is aimed at improving the lives of people living and working in slums and informal settlements in all urban areas of Kenya,’’ the minister said.

She said that the Kenyan government had contributed more than 14 million dollars to the programme so far.

In his remarks, Mr. Roy Commsy, Malawi’s Deputy Minister of Transport, said that the home government acknowledged the prevalence of slums and the dangers they posed since 2002.

Commsy said that a slum dwellers association had been set up to partner with government on ways to tackle the problem.

‘’We are doing that with the active participation of the civil society groups,’’ he said.

As part of measures to address the problem, the Malawian government had developed building standards and regulation that supportedlow-cost housing for slum dwellers, he said.

But the South African government appears already on top of the situation.

Its Minister of Housing, Mrs. Lindiwe Sisulu, told the meeting that the country had committed six billion dollars to tackle the problem of slums and low income housing.

Sisulu said that government was partnering with the financial sector by augmenting loansgiven to slum dwellers to build houses.

‘’We have established significant partnership with a number of banks and developers who are already developing housing projects that will be sold at subsidised costs,’’ she said.

To effectively tackle the issue in Nigeria, the Minister of Housing, Environment and Urban Development, Mrs Halima Alao, suggested a joint effort by states, local governments and the private sector.

‘’All stakeholders must be directly involved in decision making because cooperation and partnership are fundamental and crucial in getting a solution to the problem of slums,’’ she said.

But as a first step, she suggested that everything must be done to minimise the growth of slums in Africa.

To do this, the minister called for improved facilities that would keep people in the rural areas and minimise the temptation to move to the cities in search of non-existent white collar jobs.

Analysts suggest better remuneration that will make it possible for workers in the lower rungs to afford better living conditions.

As African governments strive to check the menace of urban slums, special attention should given to policies that minimise poverty and enable the average citizen to own decent accommodation. (NAN Features).