The number of people living in African cities will triple over the next 40 years and by 2050 60% of Africans will be city dwellers, a UN report has said.
In five years Lagos in Nigeria is set to overtake the Egyptian capital Cairo as Africa’s biggest city.
Some 199.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in slums, the highest number in the world, the UN said earlier this year.
According to UN-Habitat’s State of African Cities 2010 report, urbanisation is happening faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world.
Mr Clos, UN-Habitat’s executive director, said that cities were attractive places for those wanting to relocate.
In 2015 it is estimated Lagos will have 12.4 million inhabitants.
The UN also forecasts that the population of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, will increase by 46% over the next 10 years to become the fast-growing city.
By 2050, Africa’s population is expected to reach 1.23 billion.
The report warns that climate change is causing a serious problem for some cities.
With many of Africa’s cities built by the sea, millions of people risk losing their homes in the coming decades because of coastal flooding.
It says the West African coastline is retreating by between 20m and 30m every year.
- Lagos to be Africa’s largest city in 2015 with 12.4 million inhabitants
- Kinshasa to overtake as biggest city in 2020
- Ouagadougou’s population is set grow by 81%, from 1.9 million in 2010 to 3.4 million in 2020
- Africa’s population will be 1.23 billion by 2050
- 60% of all Africans will be living in cities in 2050
- Slum dwellers in Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia fell from 20.8 million in 1990 to 11.8 million in 2010
