Raphael Obonyo: Include youth in policies on urban growth

As Kenya hosts the Africities Summit in Kisumu, it should offer a reflective moment to the continent’s leaders on how Africa can re-engineer its policies to accommodate an increasingly transforming urbanisation and the challenges coming with it.

Policymakers must take all the needed measures to develop new plans to draw the full benefits of urbanisation. These should mainly focus on job creation, industrialisation, trade and commerce, and innovation.

Experts and scholars have ranked urbanisation as one of the most significant global trends in the 21st century. It has recorded unprecedented growth. By the end of this century, for instance, 13 of the world’s 20 biggest urban areas will be in Africa.

Urban areas are crucial for the national development of African countries. For instance, in Kenya, economic activities in urban areas account for 55 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. It’s projected that 80 per cent of future economic growth will be in the cities. Like other countries in Africa and elsewhere in the world, Kenya’s development policies and plans should integrate the contribution of urban areas to ensure that they generate prosperity for all. The continent should also address the problem of youth joblessness, for they hold the key to the future of cities.

Kenya must engineer sustainable urbanisation by supporting labour and skill-intensive economic activities to create jobs for its unemployed young people. Policy and institutional interventions should ensure that productivity in the manufacturing sector increases at the pace of urbanisation.

Urbanisation presents realities that require thoughtful management to fulfil expectations and provide better lives for the people. The government must do everything possible to ensure that urbanisation works for the youth, not against them.

Mr Obonyo is a public policy analyst. Email: [email protected]