Ahead of the World Urban Forum (WUF) to be held in November 2024, the African Development Bank (AfDB) wants to revitalise its cities so that the assessment of the growth of the continent's metropolises, to be presented in Cairo, Egypt, is less alarmist than in the past. To this end, 4.5 million dollars were recently made available to 14 municipalities to train their municipal staff and speed up projects in the areas of water and sanitation, transport and climate change.
The Urban and Municipal Development Fund (UMDF) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group is releasing $4.5 million to support the economic and sustainable growth of 14 African cities. The funding is divided into three components, the first of which is funded to the tune of $500,000. It concerns initiatives to improve urban governance through “a capacity-building and monitoring/advisory programme to improve the finances and solvency of local authorities”, according to the MEDF. The beneficiary cities are Nairobi in Kenya, Dakar in Senegal, Abidjan in Ivory Coast, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Kigali in Rwanda and Lagos in Nigeria.)
At a cost of 900,000 dollars, the second component is dedicated to improving urban planning as part of the extension of the African Cities Programme to include six new municipalities out of the 13 already in existence. For the institution based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the aim will be to support local authorities in drawing up effective urban action plans and in identifying “priority investments that can provide a basis for donor interventions”. Emphasis will therefore be placed on initiatives such as the development of the rail network in Lagos, Nigeria, to enable the local economy to adapt to the ever-growing population (22 million inhabitants).
Funding for concrete urban projects
The third component is essentially aimed at carrying out feasibility studies and detailed technical studies with a view to “maturing a series of urban infrastructures”, particularly in the areas of water and sanitation. Part of these funds will be made available to a number of municipalities, including Maroua in Cameroon, which has undertaken rainwater drainage work in response to the floods of 2020, Accra (Ghana), where sewerage networks are being rehabilitated, and Cairo (Egypt), where vast water treatment projects have been launched.
Read also-
The other part of the $2.8 million from the AfDB is earmarked for local councillors in Cape Town in South Africa and Nouakchott, who are increasingly powerless to deal with the devastating effects of climate change. The pan-African envelope should enable them to invest in coastal development. The 700 km long coastline of the Mauritanian capital (at the interface of the Sahara and the Atlantic Ocean) has been undermined for two decades by coastal erosion.
Benoit-Ivan Wansi
