Africa Keywords: urbanisation, rural-urban migration, labor market, informal sector, unemployment, consumption, urban infrastructure, urban governance

The African continent occupies a special place in the global economic and social space. The same can be said about the process of urbanization in Africa: while repeating with varying degrees of accuracy numerous trends inherent in other States, this process also reveals a number of specific features specific to the African context.

AFRICAN CITIES IN THE GLOBAL URBAN SPACE

The rate of urbanization in Africa is 3 to 4 times higher than in Europe during the Industrial Revolution and has not decreased for four decades. Despite the fact that sub-Saharan Africa experienced only 88.6% urbanisation in 2012 (compared to 45.9% in developing countries and 54.6% in North Africa), urban growth rates in the Sub-Saharan region were the highest (4-5% in the 1980s and 1990s).At the same time, the urban population grew most rapidly in Burundi, Reunion, Uganda, Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau (on average, by 4-6% annually).¹.

Currently, the African continent is undergoing a phase of quantitative and qualitative demographic changes, one of which is the process of accelerated urbanization. As recently as 1990, two-thirds of the African population lived in the countryside, and by 2030, 760 million Africans, or more than 50% of the African population, will live in urban areas. By 2050, the continent's urban population will exceed 1.2 billion. a person is more than the entire urban and rural population of the West ².

Since the population level of the African continent is highly differentiated, the level of urbanization in Africa also varies from country to country and from region to region.

As can be seen from Table 1, East Africa remains the least urbanized sub-region of Africa, with less than a quarter of the total population living in cities, although the urban population growth rate is higher than in Africa as a whole. Only in North Africa and Southern Africa do most of the population now live in cities, and the growth rate of both the urban population and the general population is the lowest. However, in all parts of the continent, the growth rate of the number of urban residents

Table 1

Key indicators of urbanization in sub-regions of Africa

Calculated by the author for: State of World Cities 2012/2013. Prosperity of Cities. UN-HABITAT. Nairobi, Kenya. 2012; The State of African Cities 2010: Governance, Inequality and Urban Land Markets. UN-HABITAT. Nairobi, Kenya. 2010.

Table 2

Distribution of African cities by size in 2010 and 2025

Calculated by the author in: The State of African Cities 2010: Governance, Inequality and Urban Land Markets. UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya. 2010, p. 244 - 247.

higher than the growth rate of the entire population. This means that the level of urbanization in Africa will grow quite rapidly in the coming years.

Almost two-thirds of the urban population (61.7%) of the African continent live in cities with a population of less than 750 thousand inhabitants (in the world, this indicator is 52%), i.e. in small, by world standards, cities (see Table 2). For Africa, these "small cities" are quite large. They will be the main contributors to the growth of Africa's urban population in the coming years. This means that it is important to strengthen the management functions of such cities in order to effectively address the problems of their accelerated growth, urban planning, housing construction, social infrastructure and the well-being of their residents.

Of course, this does not mean that major cities in Africa should be given less attention. They will also continue to grow at a fairly high rate, although not as fast as small and medium-sized cities. In absolute terms, it is the population of large cities that will increase significantly in the coming years. They will account for more than a third of all urban population growth in Africa.

In 1950, there were only two cities in Africa with a population of more than 1 million people-Cairo and Alexandria. In 2010, there were 50 such cities, and the average size of an African millionaire city was 2.8 million people, and the total population of these cities exceeded 144 million people. By 2015, there will be 59 "millionaire cities" on the continent, with an average of 3.1 million inhabitants, and the entire population of African megacities will exceed 170 million.³

The largest African agglomerations today are Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria) and Kinshasa (DRC), and the growth rates of these giant cities are among the highest in the corresponding category of cities in the world. Today, the number of residents in Cairo (excluding Giza and other suburbs) is 12 million, in Lagos - 10 million, and in Kinshasa - 8 million. In 2015, Cairo will be home to 13.5 million people, Lagos to 12.5 million, and Kinshasa to 11.3 million, ranking them 11th, 17th, and 19th, respectively, among the world's 20 largest metropolitan areas.

As can be seen from Table 3, the largest absolute contribution to the growth of its own urban population in the coming years will be made by the capital of the DRC Kinshasa (more than 4 million people), the largest city in Nigeria Lagos (+3.6 million) and the capital of Angola Luanda (+2.3 million), while the number of residents of Cairo-the largest city in Africa to date, it will increase by only 1.5 mli4. Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, Niger's capital Niamey and Uganda's capital Kampala will grow at the highest percentage rates.

By 2025, the largest African city will be Kinshasa with a population of 16.7 million (11th place in the world), followed by Lagos (15.8 million, and 12th place) and Cairo without suburbs (15.5 million, and 13th place).

Table 3

Ten fastest growing African cities

Source: The State of African Cities 2010, p. 54-55.

In addition to the accelerated growth of giant cities, there is a tendency in Africa to create large urban systems, which, concentrating around one, two or three large cities, gradually involve nearby cities and rural areas in the orbit of their influence. This process has a strong synergistic effect, when the addition of numerical values, in this case the population of large and small cities, leads to important qualitative shifts in their development, manifesting itself in accelerated socio-economic growth of these urban regions and at the same time separating them from the rest of the country or group of countries.

Examples of such urban systems are: the Nile Delta region in Egypt with a population of 67 million people, which includes Greater Cairo (more than 20 million inhabitants), Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, and many medium and small cities; the Gauteng region in South Africa with a population of 10.5 million, including Johannesburg, Pretoria/Tshwane and Emfula/Vereeniging; and finally, the Gulf of Guinea urbanisation system of 25 million people, including Ibadan, Lagos, Cotonou, Lome and Accra. It is in these urban regions that enormous human, natural, financial and other resources are concentrated, allowing them to develop at a high rate compared to other areas of the African continent. The importance of these systems in Africa's development will only increase in the coming decades.

HOW DOES AN AFRICAN'S LIFE CHANGE WHEN THEY MOVE TO A CITY?

Of course, the process of urbanization in Africa cannot be reduced solely to the accelerated growth of the urban population and its predominant concentration in megacities. This is a complex structural phenomenon that affects the quality of life of both the city and the country as a whole.

The process of urbanization is usually accompanied by an increase in per capita income. This trend is evident in Europe, North and Latin America, and most of Asia. However, Africa, unlike other regions of the world, did not show this trend in all countries and at all time intervals. Particularly negative in this regard was the period from 1970 to 1995. It was during this period that the urban population of Africa grew by an average of 4.7% per year, while GDP per capita decreased by 0.7% annually. This inverse relationship between urbanisation and per capita income is unique, even among the world's poorest countries.

At the same time, the accelerated growth of African cities was not accompanied by an increase in industrial production, as was the case in developed countries in Europe and America. Just over 9% of the African labor force was employed in industry during this period, compared to 18% in Asia, which experienced a comparable rate of urbanization5. At the same time, while not the result of industrialization, the urban explosion of recent decades in Africa, with few exceptions, has not been associated with any significant increase in labor productivity in the agricultural sector.

Until the early 2000s, the peculiarity of African urbanization was that the continent's urban population continued to grow rapidly, despite the low and (in some cases) negative growth rates of social production. The stagnation of the African economy did not deter the pace of urbanization, and the latter, in turn, did not stimulate economic growth.

In this regard, in the 1980s and 1990s, the concept of so-called "false urbanization" or "hyperurbanization" became quite widespread, according to which cities in Africa were not considered as engines of economic growth and structural transformation. Instead, according to proponents of this concept, they were partly the cause and one of the main manifestations of the economic and social crisis that engulfed the continent.⁶

The author of this study is not a supporter of the concept of "false urbanization". Despite all its contradictions, the process of urban growth in Africa stimulates socio-economic development, albeit in distorted and different forms from traditional forms, and cities themselves, in conditions of limited material, financial and other types of resources, become a kind of "outpost of growth", while simultaneously connecting African states with the world market.

At the same time, the author agrees that the trend towards urbanization in Africa in the absence of economic growth is partly due to distorted incentives that encourage migrants to move to cities for subsidies and other social benefits, rather than for the opportunity to find better-paying jobs. Cities in Africa benefited from food price and trade policies that favored urban consumers over rural producers.

National Governments in most African countries have often tried to influence the pace of urbanization or where and how it occurs. However, these efforts have often been limited to shifting resources from agriculture to finance the development of" modern " economic sectors concentrated in cities. In fact, a significant part of the funds was spent on creating a public sector that is characterized by low efficiency, but allows you to create a significant number of jobs. In the formal sector, urban workers and employees had access to food and housing subsidies, as well as pension schemes and employment funds, while rural populations were forced to sell their products at low prices and had limited access to government support. Subsidies for basic necessities in cities were also politically motivated: they guaranteed relative social stability in large cities, where large concentrations of the population made it difficult for them to survive.-

in the case of conflicts, not so many reasons and occasions were needed.

MAIN INCENTIVES FOR RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION

Although several African Governments have tried to narrow the urban-rural divide, the process of widening the gap has gone too far and has already led to excessive rates of rural-urban migration. In other words, rural-urban migration in Africa was based not only on factors of economic "attraction" of cities, but also, to a large extent, on factors of "pushing" out of rural areas, including mass destruction of peasant farms, land hunger, and relative and absolute agricultural overpopulation.

At the same time, wars and civil unrest on the African continent have forced millions of people to flee to the cities for decades. Migrant flows were also affected by weather conditions, such as droughts. In Mauritania, Nouakchott's population doubled in just one year of drought in mid-1985.

It was in the capitals and major cities - commercial, financial, administrative and cultural centers - that the main flows of migrants from the African village were directed. In the 1980s, the contribution of migration to urban population growth in Africa reached 50%⁷. Since the early 1990s, the share of migrants in the total increase in the number of urban residents has begun to decline, and currently does not exceed 40%⁸. The African city is increasingly formed due to self-development, i.e. the natural growth of the urban population.

Still, the outflow of residents from the African village is not expected to abate in the near future. The trend of reverse urban-rural migration that began in the early 1990s in Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, and some other countries, due to the high cost of living in cities, turned out to be unstable.

During the period of structural adjustment of the economy, as well as at the stages of socio-economic shocks, migration flows do not decrease. On the contrary, the scale of migration, both legal and illegal, is significantly increasing. Another thing is that these flows are beginning to focus more and more on foreign labor markets in the context of globalization, crossing not only national, but also continental borders. At the same time, the bulk of these flows will be absorbed by the "world city". Migration from crisis-stricken agricultural areas in Africa will continue to fuel both African and global urbanization, while exacerbating urban development challenges and exporting them to the developed world.

Administrative attempts to stop migration to cities prevent the African poor from improving their economic situation and may create other problems for migrants. For example, the introduction of restrictions on migration in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)has increased the vulnerability of the poor to corrupt officials who demand bribes for issuing permits to enter the city (a situation very similar to issuing permits for registering migrants in Russia for a bribe) ^.9

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONTRASTS

Urbanization processes in Africa are becoming increasingly critical in the context of a low level of economic development, high population growth rates and the degree of its mobility.

The crisis affected almost all aspects of life in an African city-employment, education and health, food and social security for its residents, the environmental situation, access to urban social services, and much more.

The problem of widespread urban poverty and destitution has come to the fore in its complexity and acuteness. The World Bank (WB) estimates that urban dwellers accounted for 29% of all Africans living in poverty in the 1980s and 40% in the 1990s.¹⁰ The gap between the African continent and the developed world persists and even tends to increase. In 2010 The GDP of the Western countries with a population of 890 million people (including 700 million urban dwellers) was 16 times higher than that of Africa, while the number of inhabitants of the latter was already greater than in the West (1033 million people, including 420 million urban dwellers). By the end of the 2000s, more than 15% of Africa's urban population continued to live on $1 a day, and as a result of the global financial and economic crisis, this number has undoubtedly increased.¹¹

It should be noted, however, that the average income of a resident of an African city is higher than that of a villager. Data on migrants collected in our field studies from 2005 to 2012 show conclusively that poor Africans respond more effectively to economic incentives, especially higher wages, when migrating, and tend to be better off after moving. According to our calculations, the incomes of migrants before and after migration are correlated as 1: 1.5 ¹². In other words, the process of urbanization objectively contributes to the growth of the standard of living of Africans, providing better opportunities for increasing earnings. However, urban spending in Africa is also significantly higher and more diverse than in rural areas.

Absolute poverty means the inability to meet the most basic needs. At the same time, the increase in relative and absolute poverty of the inhabitants of an African city occurs in the context of an ever-widening gap between the richest and poorest segments of the population. Wealth and income are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small urban elite - the bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie, and highly qualified specialists, who received new opportunities for enrichment during the years of structural adjustment of the economy. Due to the inconsistency of existing statistics on the distribution of income of the population, incompleteness in the source materials of the study, as well as the lack of data on the distribution of income of the population.-

Using different calculation methods, you can try to identify only the most general trends.

According to V. A. Melyantsev's calculations, the average unweighted quintile coefficient of income differentiation increased in Tropical Africa from 9-11 in the 1980s-1990s to 14.9 in the 2000s. ¹³ According to our calculations, the Gini index for income distribution in Africa as a whole increased from 2000 to 2010. from 43% to 51%. At the same time, it showed higher values in some countries. For example, in 2010 it was 64.3% in the Comoros, 61% in Botswana, 58.6% in Angola, 57.8% in South Africa, 52.5% in Lesotho, and 51% in Swaziland.¹⁴ It is quite remarkable that the rate of income inequality is higher in countries with high rates of urbanization. According to our AP calculations, the Gini index was 46% in urban areas and 39% in rural areas ^.15 Consequently, it is in cities that the concentration of wealth at one pole of African society and poverty at the other is most pronounced.

The gap in the standard of living of the urban "upper" and "lower" primarily affects consumption - both on the quantitative and qualitative side of it. At the same time, the contradiction between the new needs of the population and the real level of consumption in cities is also more pronounced because urban life, in comparison with rural life, gives a wider scope for the emergence of qualitatively new requests, and the low standard of living of the majority of citizens objectively limits the possibilities of meeting them. At one extreme of African society, there is rampant unproductive consumption; at the other, the demand of the poorest strata falls below the most extreme limits of their physical needs.

During the years of structural adjustment, as well as during periods of financial and economic crisis, it is the poor strata of the city that are the first to feel a noticeable decline in the standard of living. Between 2008 and 2010, real incomes and consumption rates of low-income families in urban areas in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa fell to the level of a simple biological existence, and the life of the destitute turned into a daily struggle for survival.¹⁶

"URBANIZING POVERTY"

The expansion of slums and squatter settlements on the outskirts of African cities is another clear indication of the expansion of urban poverty and misery. In two-thirds of African States, more than half of the urban population lives in slums. In the Sudan, Central African Republic, Chad, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, their share exceeds 80%. Even in relatively prosperous countries such as Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria, a significant proportion of urban residents continue to live on the outskirts of urban life and do not have proper housing (see Table 4).

The inability to pay for constantly rising housing prices with scanty incomes or even in the absence of them increases the risk of losing a roof over your head. For example, in Luanda, the capital of Angola, the cost of a one-room apartment in a not very good area without electricity, but with running water is $5 thousand per month, and a decent apartment in a prestigious area - $15 thousand per month. Such money can only be paid by foreigners or the local elite. Most of the population lives just on the street in structures built from improvised materials.

In African slums, unimaginable filth and unsanitary conditions prevail, there is no electricity and water supply, as well as garbage disposal systems and sewerage. The population density here is out of control, with thousands of homeless people sleeping on the streets.

The problems of urban development, landscaping, transport support, sanitary services, etc. are becoming more acute. The deepening environmental and social crisis is particularly dangerous. The environmental factor reduces the already low social indicators. Only in North Africa and South Africa do the majority of large cities have access to clean drinking water and sanitation.

In Tropical Africa, we see a very different picture. So far, only 63% of residents in Luanda, 60% of residents in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, and 30% of residents in Ibadan, Nigeria, have running water and sanitation facilities.¹⁷ Nesmot-

Table4

The spread of urban slums in Africa

Source: The State of African Cities 2010, p. 29-30.

Despite the fact that in the 2000s, thanks to the efforts of African Governments and international assistance, access to clean water and sanitation on the continent was increased by an average of 20-30%, a significant proportion of Africans are still deprived of these essential benefits.¹⁸

Environmental degradation (accumulation of sewage and waste products, water and air pollution, etc.) affects slum dwellers with particular force. It can be stated with a high degree of probability that the expansion of environmental disaster areas at the expense of cities and their negative consequences for African cities will have a long-term nature, especially given the global financial and economic crisis.

Many countries in Africa are characterized by a phenomenon that can be called "urbanisation of poverty". Rural poverty flows through migration channels to the cities, and the rural poor become urban. The spread of poverty in African cities is accompanied by a kind of "restructuring" through changes in employment.

URBAN LABOR MARKET: LIMITS TO GROWTH

A rapid increase in the number of urban residents means an increase in the proportion of people of working age in the city's population, i.e., the potential labor force. The army of workers in the cities of Africa is constantly growing at a high rate. In the 1990s, the growth rate was 3%, and in the 2000s it increased to 4-5%. At the same time, the urban labor market in most African countries was experiencing an unfavorable situation, as new workers were not in demand. According to some reports, in a number of countries in Tropical Africa, up to 70% of the urban amateur population does not have a permanent job, and, consequently, stable incomes necessary for a full life.¹⁹

High rates of urbanisation in African cities have led to a reallocation of labour in urban sectors, particularly the rapid growth of services and the informal sector (NFS). Employment in this sector itself is complex and controversial. Unstable forms of employment, underemployment, low levels of labor productivity and income, and a focus on specific demand prevail. In some African countries, especially the poorest, the informal economy absorbs up to 60% of urban employment.²⁰

The income level of the vast majority of employees in the NSF, as a rule, does not exceed the survival threshold. The most common types of activity in the NSF are primitive street trading and traditional types of services. At the same time, the combination of various types of activities is widespread (hawker-watchman, temporary worker - small trader, etc.). Migrants who join the ranks of the NSF retain not only traditional standards of life, but also a craving for their usual rural work. In a difficult economic situation, not only migrants, but also the poor of all urban strata, including civil servants and intellectuals, are engaged in farming and gardening in the city (in gardens, vacant lots, on the outskirts). This typically marginal activity is located at the intersection of economic sectors, ways of life, and urban and rural lifestyles.

This kind of economic activity, which provides only an irregular income, is often associated with begging, begging, theft, and vagrancy. In conditions of large-scale urban unemployment, the prospect of turning into a lumpen is quite real, and into a modern worker is extremely low. The visible growth of employment in the NFS does not remove the problems of urban poverty and pauperization. The city becomes the center of the marginals of that broad social category characterized by destitution, absolute poverty, vegetating on the sidelines of economic life and social existence. Thus, on the basis of the NFS of the urban economy, social categories swell, which are characterized by unstable and low-productive employment with an income level not higher than the survival threshold.

Of course, in the upper strata of the NSF, which are located at the junction with the modern sector of the economy (small business, etc.), social groups are formed that are in transition to modern ones. However, the pressure of an ever-growing population on the urban labor market in the face of a shortage of jobs increases hidden unemployment, unemployment and underemployment in the informal sector. Pauperism and poverty are constantly being reproduced here, and the category of people in a state of extreme social decline is growing numerically. Thus, Africa at the turn of the century is characterized by a type of urbanization associated with the marginalization of a significant part of the urban population.

The growth of the marginal mass in cities, which is not involved in modern economic relations, outstrips the formation of new social structures. Nevertheless, the African city plays a significant and even decisive role in the social transformation of society, forming those layers that represent the modern sector of the economy. In the process of urbanization, employment in the national economy increases and the efficiency of using labor resources increases due to the redistribution of labor between the city and the countryside, agriculture and urban sectors of the economy. According to the World Bank, over the past 40 years, the share of agricultural employment in African countries has fallen from 77% to 60%, including from 85% to 75% in sub-Saharan Africa and from 51% to 32% in North Africa.²¹

Cities also contribute to improving the quality of the labor force as a result of increasing its education and training. Urbanization significantly expands the scope of wage labor in the economy and thus makes a significant contribution to the formation of a modern employment structure. Women's employment is also increasing in African cities: cities provide more opportunities for African women to work and study.

Thus, the formation of modern sectors of the economy and types of employment is taking place in African cities.-

but, however, the growth rate remains not high enough and lags behind the growth rate of the number of people who are not connected with the new economic relations. As a result, their share in urban employment in African countries is usually less than 50%.

The structural macroeconomic adjustment initiated by international financial institutions did not create the basis for the growth of social strata, including employees associated with modern economic structures. In the first years after independence, the main incentive to increase the number of people working for hire, primarily in cities, was the formation of the public sector of the economy. The size of the army of hired labor in that period increased in Africa by 2 times.

Due to the measures initiated in most African countries to reduce the direct participation of the State in the production sector, the number of employees in the modern sector of the economy has significantly decreased. This affected all spheres of public production - industry, energy, infrastructure, the state apparatus, health and education services. As a result, the share of hired labor in modern urban employment began to decline. By the end of the 2000s, according to ECA, only 8% of the labor force was ^concentrated in the modern economy of most African countries22.

The latest global financial and economic crisis has also had a huge impact on urban employment in African countries. Job cuts in the modern sector of the urban economy, including in the public sector, disruption of employment stability, and a sharp deterioration in living conditions accelerated the pauperization of workers in the modern sector. Numerous groups of the middle class are also marginalized, including social workers-teachers, doctors, etc., as well as part of the national bourgeoisie.

Young people find themselves in a particularly difficult situation. The majority of urban unemployed (up to 50-75%) are people under the age of 25. The young intelligentsia, represented by graduates, is also being lumpenized, and after the abolition of the distribution of university graduates that existed in a number of countries in the 1980s and 1990s, it is difficult to find a suitable job. In these circumstances, the "brain drain"becomes significant. Those who have not been able to travel abroad continue to be dependent on relatives or friends, join the ranks of the NSF, or become unemployed. Thus, the army of "new marginals" is being replenished by layers of intellectuals who have received education and professional training.

Women and children are in the most desperate situation. According to the UN, by 2025, more than 50% of children in Africa will be urban dwellers, and more than 60% of them will be living in poverty.²³

The growing number of angry, desperate people in African cities, and the swelling of the lumpenized population to a critical mass complicate the overall socio-political situation in many African countries. Slums and squatter villages, where socially unsettled and unprotected lower strata, mainly young people, accumulate, represent a kind of" risk zone", being a source of constant economic and social tension in society. A wave of crime has swept through African cities, where prostitution, theft, and banditry flourish, especially among young people. Destructive processes in the consciousness and mood of the marginal mass do not pass without a trace for any society, threatening if not a complete rupture of the social fabric, then its significant weakening and spreading.

Marginal masses of citizens participate in mass riots, widespread unrest and riots of the urban population, which have become ubiquitous on the continent. It is enough to recall the events of winter-spring 2011 in North Africa. African conflicts are increasingly transcending national borders, and African refugees and illegal migrants have become one of the main global problems.

CAN URBAN GROWTH BE REGULATED IN AFRICA?

The negative consequences of rapid urbanization processes on the continent have made African Governments face the need to find effective ways to solve the problem. The Governments of most African countries are trying to purposefully influence the processes of urbanization.

However, as practice shows, this effect is not always successful. In trying to regulate urban growth in Africa, Governments in a number of African countries have often distorted the objective processes of urbanization, choosing locations for the construction of State-owned enterprises and creating special economic zones for political rather than economic reasons. Thus, the largest state - owned enterprise in Egypt, the Helwan steel complex, was located near the capital of the country, and not near the source of raw materials. As a result of this choice, the dirty steel industry operates almost in the center of the largest concentration of people in the country (Greater Cairo), which not only increased the cost of transporting raw materials, but also created huge environmental problems for the local population.

African States that have created and continue to create special economic zones by offering a preferential tax system, in fact encourage economic activity in one or another privileged area to the detriment of others. After all, if, for example, trade liberalization was initially carried out in coastal areas, which was typical, for example, for a number of West African States, their internal regions were at an extreme disadvantage. In fact, the policy of preferential development of certain areas or cities contributes to the consolidation of a dual economy - with modern cities on the coast and other parts of the country at a disadvantage

position. Egypt's coastal cities, for example, which were the first to benefit from the "open door" policy, as well as cities such as Port Sudan, Lagos, Accra and a number of others, still retain their advantages, despite the fact that their special status has been abolished.

But the most important hidden form of distortions introduced by the government of a particular country in the process of territorial distribution of production and urban growth is bureaucratic centralization of decision-making and large-scale corruption. They are common to most African countries. Bureaucrats in the central government would like to tightly control the process of issuing various licenses, permits, loans and loans. Under these conditions, manufacturers tend to be located in capitals or other bureaucratic centers in order to be able to effectively solve their problems. In the 1990s, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia liberalized capital markets and export-import operations, creating new opportunities for small and medium-sized companies. However, the functions of issuing business permits have remained centralized, and the concentration of small and medium-sized companies in large cities in these countries has increased.

The disappointing results of previous attempts by African Governments to prevent rural-urban migration or accelerate urban growth in specific areas make it clear that most African executive bodies are currently unable to make decisions about where people should live and where production should be located.

An ideal government policy would be to ensure a level playing field so that large, medium and small towns and rural areas can compete equally with each other. However, the implementation of such a policy requires more than just the elimination of subsidies and tax incentives. As the country becomes more urbanized, more investment in public infrastructure should be made. Industrial production in remote cities and districts requires modern communication facilities, roads and electricity supply, so that it is possible to produce competitive products there, export them to the main markets and communicate with buyers and sellers. It is the central government that plays a key role in deciding whether to make such investments, and if so, where and when. To resist the pressure to concentrate investment in the capital or one or two major cities, institutional mechanisms are also needed to allow other regions to participate in decisions on the allocation of funds. The task of creating such mechanisms should also be assigned to the State.

Experience has shown that other repressive measures by African Governments to regulate urban processes - such as the destruction of slums, the destruction of urban vegetable gardens, the prohibition of street trade, vagrancy and begging, etc. - also do not have the expected effect. Emphasis may need to be placed on developing comprehensive demography and human resources policies to mitigate the effects of unemployment and poverty. This includes the legislative regulation of migration flows, the promotion of small businesses and entrepreneurship, the promotion of labor-intensive industries, the organization of public works, the development of small and medium-sized cities, the growth of professional training of labor resources, and much more.

The growing contradictions of urbanization in African countries, the peculiar interweaving of traditional and modern, internal and external factors of urban growth largely determine the need for a radical transformation of many components of the socio-economic structure in the countries of the continent, as well as their position in the system of world economic relations. The acute problems associated with the accelerated urbanization of Africa and its consequences can only be addressed through an integrated approach that requires a change in the dynamics, nature and direction of reproduction processes throughout the African economy.

It is obvious that solving the problems of African cities, which are increasingly becoming international in nature, will require the efforts of the entire international community.

¹ State of World Cities 2012/2013. Prosperity of Cities. IJN-IIABITAT. Nairobi, Kenya. 2012, p. 29 - 30.

² The Stale of African Cities 2010: Governance, Inequality and Urban Land Markets. UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya. 2010, p. 19.

³ Calculated by author no: The State of African Cities 2010.., p. 244-247.

⁴ Let us emphasize once again that we are talking about Cairo itself, and not about the Voltoi Cairo agglomeration, which includes Gila, Heluam and a number of other suburbs, and whose population exceeds 20 million inhabitants.

⁵ World Urbanisation Prospects. The 2000 Revision. DIlSA, United Nations. N.Y. 2001, p. 6 - 7.

⁶ See, for example: World Bank. World Development Report 1999/2000. Wash., 2000; Turner J.I). Urbanization in Africa: A Handbook. L, 1995.

^{Todaro M.} 7 Ixonomic Development in the Third World. N.Y., 1989, p. 286.

⁸ The State of African Cities 2010.., p. 23 - 24.

⁹ The data were obtained by the author during a survey of migrants from Tanzania in 2009-2011.

¹⁰ Urbanization in the Developing World: Current Trends and Need Responses. Wash., 1992, p. 1.

¹¹ The State of African Cities 2010.., p. 29.

^Abramova 12 I. O. Afrikanskaya migratsiya: opyt sistemnogapalila [African Migration: a systematic experience]. Moscow, 2009, p. 67.

^{Melyantsev I. A.} 13 Developing countries in the Era of Change, Moscow, 2009, p. 163.

¹⁴ Human Development Report 2011. UNDP, Vienna, 2011, p. 95 - 97.

¹⁵ Calculated by: Abramova I. O. Arab City at the turn of the Millennium, Moscow, 2005, p. 169; The State of African Cities 2010...

¹⁶ African Exonomic Outlook 2010. OIXD/ADB. Addis Ababa, 2010, p. 35.

¹⁷The State of African Cities 2010.., p. 180 - 183.

¹⁸ Human Development Report 2011, UNDP, p. 176.

¹⁹ The Journal of Development Studies. I.., 2006. Vol. 42, No 5, p. 675.

²⁰ Africa Development. Dakar. 2005. Vol. XXX, No 2, p. 87.

²¹ Africa Development Indicators 2012. The World Bank. Washington, 2012, p. 309.

²² Human Development Report 2011.., p. 97.

²³ Economic Report on Africa, 2010. U.N. I-:CA. N.Y., 2010, p. 58.

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