DECENTRALIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN WEST AFRICA Edited by Dickson Eyoh and Richard Stren Comparative Urban Studies Project Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Comparative Urban Studies Project Decentralization and the Politics of Urban Development In West Africa Edited by Dickson Eyoh and Richard Stren 2007 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org ISBN 1-933549-05-X WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director BOARD OF TRUSTEES We are grateful to the Urban Programs Team of the Office of Poverty Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair Reduction in the Bureau of Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, David A. Metzner, Vice Chair U.S. Agency for International Development and the African Institute for Public Members: James H. Billington, The Librarian of Congress; Bruce Cole, Chairman, National Urban Management (IAGU) for making the Dakar workshop and this pub- Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, The Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and lication possible. We would also like to thank Claude Stren for translating Human Services; Tami Longaberger, designated appointee within the Federal Government; the papers written in French, Leah Florence for copyediting the chapters Condoleezza Rice, The Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, The Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Margaret Spellings, The Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Allen and Laura Richards for proofreading the manuscript. We would also like to Weinstein, Archivist of the United States Private Citizen Members: Robin Cook, Bruce S. Gelb, thank Lisa Hanley, Karen Towers, Mejgan Massoumi and Allison Garland Sander Gerber, Charles L. Glazer, Susan Hutchison, Ignacio E. Sanchez for their superb assistance with the crucial organizational and editorial work that led up to the publication of this book. ABOUT THE CENTER The Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute for advanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relationship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees. In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, sup- ported financially by annual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of founda- tions, corporations, and individuals. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. | v | TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 1. Decentralization and Urban Development in West Africa 1 Richard Stren and Dickson Eyoh II. CHALLENGES OF DECENTRALIZATION IN WEST AFRICA 2. Decentralization and Urban Governance in West Africa 23 Dele Olowu 3. One Century of Municipalization in Cameroon: 53 The Miseries of Urban Democracy Charles Nach Mback 4. Implications of Fiscal and Financial 77 Decentralization in Senegal Abdoul Wahab Ba III. CITIZENSHIP,IDENTITY AND PARTICIPATION IN URBAN WEST AFRICA 5. Social Crises and Political Restructuring 95 in West African Cities Mamadou Diouf 6. Politics of Urban Identity in Anglophone Africa 117 Dickson Eyoh 7. Urban Issues and Local Powers: 135 Who Can Speak for the Community? Michèle Leclerc-Olive IV.PARALLELS FROM OTHER REGIONS 8. Decentralization in the United States 155 Ronald K. Vogel | vii | 9. Decentralization and Urban Political Experiences 171 in Other Regions: Asia Aprodicio A. Laquian I. INTRODUCTION V. V OICES OF STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY 10. The Role and Place of Mayors in the Process of Decentralization 197 and Municipal Management in Senegal Mamadou Diop 11. Local Associations and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: 209 a Framework of Intervention and Operational Logistics in Urban Areas El Housseynou Ly VI. ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 233 | viii | DECENTRALIZATION AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN WEST AFRICA: AN INTRODUCTION RICHARD STREN AND DICKSON EYOH THE CITIES OF WEST AFRICA Urbanization is one of the most powerful, and insistent, emerging realities of the early twenty-first century. Although the developed countries have been largely urbanized for many years, developing regions are quickly narrowing the gap. Africa, one of the least urbanized continents, is urbanizing rapidly. In 2003, Africa’s total population (estimated at 851 million) was 38.7 percent urbanized—the lowest of any major continental region. During the next five years, however, the United Nations projects an annual average growth rate for urban Africa of 3.35 percent, the highest in the world by a substantial mar- gin for the same period. Dividing Africa according to its five subregions (Eastern, Middle, Northern, Southern, and Western Africa), Middle Africa will grow at the highest rate, followed in order by Eastern, Western, Northern, and Southern Africa. This order is the inverse of the current levels at which these subregions are urban. West Africa—or Western Africa in the demographic tables—is conven- tionally made up of 17 countries. In 2003, the subregion had an aggregate population of 244,381,000, with an overall urban population of 42.2 percent of that total. (Sometime between 2015 and 2020, the subregion will have over half of its population living in urban centers.) The seven largest countries in the West African group are (in order) Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal. The first two are Anglophone; the last five are Francophone countries. In these major countries in the subregion, levels of urbanization vary from a high of 49.6 percent in Senegal to a low of 22.2 per- cent in Niger (United Nations 2004, Table A1). Unlike the pattern in most developed countries, urban growth in individ- ual African countries has not always been accompanied by parallel economic growth for the country as a whole. And for the continent in the aggregate, over the last two decades, total factor productivity, labor productivity, and agricultural productivity per worker have been either declining or stagnant, | 1 | Richard Stren and Dickson Eyoh Decentralization and Urban Development in West Africa while real GDP growth in per-capita terms has been only marginally positive some time, its application to local and, especially, urban policy issues has (Kessides 2005, 1–2). There have been some positive stories (which include been largely unexplored—both in the scholarly literature and in terms of Ghana, Senegal, Benin, and Burkina Faso), although most countries “are more practical implications. mired in place” economically (ibid., 1). As is well known, civil strife, the There is no doubt that decentralization has made an impression on African HIV/AIDS pandemic, natural disasters, and adverse terms of trade have not countries, and on their cities. Although there is general agreement among helped. At the same time, to the extent that growth is taking place, it is main- scholars that, following James Manor, decentralization “has quietly become a ly urban based (ibid., 11). In Ghana, for example, where 45.4 percent of the fashion of our time” (Manor 1999, 1), the dynamics and application of this population lived in cities and towns in 2003, the average GDP growth per apparently straightforward policy initiative are by no means straightforward capita from 1990 to 2003 was 1.9 percent, of which 71.3 percent was or self-evident. Like other major tendencies of the late twentieth and early explained by growth in the (largely) urban sectors of industry and services. For twenty-first century, such as globalization, democratization, and the growth Senegal, another country that showed net growth during the same period, 86.8 of major international movements such as environmentalism and human percent of its 1 percent yearly growth can be explained by urban sectors (ibid., rights, decentralization has operated at many different levels and in different 71). In order to be more precise, one could calculate the proportion of the total ways in particular local contextual situations. population represented by a particular city, and compare this with an estimate We can argue that, from the perspective of African countries, there have of the proportion of the GNP for that city. The figures so calculated would been different “waves” or periods of decentralization beginning almost a cen- invariably show that large cities contribute disproportionately to national tury ago. Here, we define decentralization as the transfer of significant pow- income, although this does not “prove” that the cities alone are responsible for ers and functions, along with the fiscal responsibility to carry out these pow- that income. Nevertheless, it is legitimate to argue that, at the very least, cities ers and functions, from the national to the local level of government. (Some are a necessary condition for innovation, social change, and economic growth writers distinguish among political, administrative, and fiscal decentraliza- (Freire and Polèse 2003). How this happens in each case is a complex story. tion, but for us the three aspects relate in an interconnected fashion.) As cities have become a more prominent part of the social and economic Understood in this way, there have been three historical