Countries of the Global South are undergoing unprecedented demographic restructuring involving a rapid shift of their population from rural to urban areas. According to the UN-Habitat, urbanisation in Africa is progressively rapid.
The continent’s rate of urbanisation soared from 15 percent in 1960 to 40 percent in 2010, and is projected to reach 60 percent in 2050. Ghana’s situation is this region is synonymous to the region-wide experience with the 2010 Census capturing a 50.9% urban population.
The West African region has experience urbanisation since pre-colonial times. It was one of the main three major regions in Africa in which large urban conglomerates appeared prior to European contact, the others being Egypt and Sudan region and the Maghreb Region.
Urbanisation is nothing new to the present geographic space called Ghana but it appears the dividends expected of this phenomenon pales in comparison to the deficits we currently see around us in our urban areas.
FIRST PHASE
Urbanization prior to European contact occurred mainly as a result of long-distance Trans-Saharan trading that started before the Christian era, the development of indigenous handicraft industries and political overlordship.
Elmina along the coast, Kumasi at the centre and the urbanization of the western and eastern portions of Northern Ghana (Walewale, Savelugu, Lawra, Larabanga) all benefitted immensely from the trading between this geographic space now called Ghana and by extension West Africa and Western Sudan States via the Trans-Sahara Trade serving as stopping places or market centres.
Urbanization here was founded in connection with the Trans-Saharan Trade and located mainly inland along trade routes and the benefits was obvious due not to only the trade of goods but also the transfer of crafts (weaving, cloth making, earth construction) which broadened the range of non-primary occupation and skills and specialization and as a result broadening the economic base of beneficiary settlements.
SECOND PHASE
The presence of the European down the coast from end of the 17th Century onwards led to a reorientation of trade southward to the coast, as opposed to Western Sudan, via the Trans-Atlantic Trade and this led to the growth of small fishing villages that served as hosts to European trading posts.
These villages increasingly assumed some urban function as trade flourished in the forts and castles of the Europeans (examples being Axim, Elmina, Cape Coast, Accra). Coastal settlements became important markets centres for neighbouring areas with some becoming administrative headquarters for the Europeans or for the states to which they belonged.
The shift of especially the Trans-Atlantic Trade from only raw materials to large numbers of humans had some negative effects on human agglomerations. Slave trade grew to portions that it distorted the economy and decimated population.
The Atlantic slave trade stimulated the growth of cities on the Guinea Coast which were structurally similar to those of the Western Sudan, except that few members of the classes exploiting the city actually lived there due to presence of unknown and without cure Tropical diseases.
THIRD PHASE
Most African countries experienced very rapid urbanisation in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and urbanisation took off again during the colonial period in particularly Ghana and Nigeria. The development of medical technology enabled large settlements to prosper in coastal areas where previously the population had been kept down by various tropical diseases.
These cities (founded on small fishing villages) became centres of commerce and administration, and points from which Western culture traits were transmitted throughout West Africa.
The colonial regime came to give new meaning to declining urban centres, due to the cessation of slave trading, and inject advanced technologies, already developed elsewhere, into their traditional existence.
The advent of national independence meant the substitution of native elites for colonial rulers. The new nations had to continue the national boundaries set up by the colonial powers, because these boundaries were inextricably connected with the cities on which the national economy depended on.
Early post-colonial periods still saw the flocking in of large numbers from the hinterlands to the few cities especially Accra due to the allure colonial imprints left (amenities, modern job opportunities). New towns like Tema and Akosombo were developed after the importation of technical innovation to help spur the development of the new nation.
TODAY
Mabogunje A L (1990) posits that urbanization in many African countries is more a measure of despair than hope; rather than economic development, it is the symbol of the failures to achieve that goal.
Whereas urbanization has led to the development of many nations especially in the Global North, the story of the African example appears elusive with concentration of heterogenous population in a geographic area without the expected development and Ghana is no exception.
With the exclusion of few bright spots, most urban areas are sprawling uncontrollably, many without basic services and amenities and still dependent on a core miles away from residences without proper and adequate connection means, not to mention the army of youthful population without decent jobs.
PROPOSAL
A common denominator to all the urbanisation phases in Ghana is the primacy of Trade especially and Cultural Contact from without, as opposed to Technical Innovation.
Any introduction of technical innovation aside the first phase and early and late parts of the second phase, has been at the national level and imported without permeating deep enough to the community level for which trade and cultural contact appear to do nor the deliberate nurturing of traditional technical innovations to meet every day urban needs.
The bottom-up approach to altering our urbanization proposes the nurturing of existing technical innovations to grow and the deliberate infusing of technical innovation from without to the community level in urban areas.
This will mean encouraging the urbanites to look around them and see what innovations they can birth using traditional knowledge and the internet as stepping stones to solve immediate urban challenges;
‘Operation Make Something’ akin to ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ of the Acheampong regime to encourage the set-up cottage/mushroom industries at their backyards, set up demountable cottage industrial setup on school compounds after school hours and weekends at the community level and post any such innovations on social media for traction and education.
Also, the use national days like Independence Day at the district, regional and national levels to celebrate such innovations should stem the necessary evil of proliferation of street front shops laden with imported goods that come with importing the unemployment of countries of origin of the goods(a continuation of urbanization on the wheel of trade).
This should lead to meeting some immediate needs of urban areas through local solutions and local hands, and possibly lead to the development of growth poles and satellite CBDs, especially for successful innovations or application of existing innovations which could become a proper pedestal on which One District 1 Factory (1D1F) Initiative could develop.
All these should be pursued within the framework of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11which seeks to germinate Sustainable Cities and Communities with specific focus on inclusive and sustainable urbanisation.
Urbanisation is the largest influencer of development in the 21st century; no country has ever developed without it. As a nation we must be deliberate in putting up local structures of growth so as to benefit from the dividends of the phenomenon so we do not continue to urbanise without commensurate development.
By Michael Farkye Agyemang.
Centre for Urban Management Studies
University of Ghana, Legon
omfagyemang@yahoo.com
