Using a wide range of technological tools and data collection expertise, United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) in collaboration with Canada-based CitiLQ have ranked 60 African cities on health and well-being and opportunities for implementing sustainable development.
Algiers, Oran, Tripoli, Nouakchott, Rabat, Casablanca, Tunis, Cotonou, Ouagadougou, Abidjan, Accra, Lomé, Dakar, Niamey, Bamako, Bangui, N’Djaména, Brazzaville, Kinshasa, Libreville or Yaoundé. In total, 60 African cities are at the top of the new ranking jointly produced by United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) and the Ontario, Canada-based company CitiLQ.
Most of these are intermediate cities, home to more than half of the world’s urban population, and whose empowerment of local governance would be essential in the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Increasingly, the health and well-being of people around the world depend on the effectiveness of their cities. As a result, municipal leaders face immense challenges and benefit greatly when comprehensive and comparable data can guide their decisions,” says Don Simmonds, president of CitiLQ.
According to the authors of this global land measurement standard, 85 cities have populations of 500,000, 380 cities have populations of 300,000, 564 cities have populations of 100,000 and 56 cities have populations of up to 1 million. This constant population growth creates a challenge between African regions.
East Africa takes the cake for sustainable growth
With 16 metropolises in the ranking, the eastern part of the African continent seems to have laid the groundwork for exemplary sustainable growth, especially in terms of environmental preservation and sustainable development. The cities of Kigali, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Port-Louis, Maputo, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi want to place health and well-being at the heart of their development policies.
Read also:AFRICA: Mayors launch « Healthy Cities » for urban health and well-being
It is in Kenya, in the intermediate city of Kisumu, that the next Africities Summit will be held from 17 to 21 May 2022. According to UCLG Africa, the results of this ranking conducted in partnership with CitiLQ will be presented at this 9th edition organized around “the role of intermediate cities in Africa in the implementation of the United Nations Agenda 2030 and the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063.
For more information on the cities noted, click here.
Benoit-Ivan Wansi
