United Nations Radio

Urbanization in Africa is driven by poverty, a new study from UN Habitat reports.

And it warns that unless poverty is addressed, there may be significant humanitarian consequences. The 2008 State of African Cities report was launched Wednesday in the southern Chinese city of Nanjing, where the Fourth World Urban Forum is being held. UN Radio's Maoqi Li is attending and filed this report.

The State of African Cities 2008, a daughter publication of UN-HABITAT's flagship World's Cities series report, was launched in a fully-packed press conference at the Nanjing World Urban Forum. It is projected that by 2030 the African urban population will double its 2007 level. The report, nevertheless, points out that Africa's rapid urbanization does not necessarily mean a boon for the continent, and Africa now exhibits an extremely high level of urban inequality. Inga Bjork-Klevby, Deputy Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, explains that poverty and the lack of capacity-building have made a city-by-city study impossible.

"Our first state of the African cities report initially tried to focus on describing 50 major cities around the African continent. This soon proved to be somewhat less than feasible, as accurate and reliable city-level information for most of these 50 cities was simply not available."

African governments should undertake more concerted efforts to generate, collect and analyze accurate and reliable city-level data to better inform local and national decision-making processes. This is one of the key recommendations offered by the State of African Cities report 2008.

Maoqi Li, reporting from the 4th World Urban Forum, Nanjing, China

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