AFRICAN CITIES REPORT

The report compares 10 SADC cities, revealing stark disparities in economic wealth and infrastructure. While South African cities like Johannesburg and Cape Town are the wealthiest, they face high inequality and unemployment. Most other cities are characterized by high proportions of informal housing (60-86%) and a heavy reliance on national parastatals for engineered services. Sanitation remains the most critical service gap, with sewered sanitation being rare outside of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Local government finance varies wildly, with some cities relying heavily on national transfers while others, particularly in Zimbabwe, receive no transfers despite high service obligations.

• There is a significant disparity in economic wealth and inequality among the studied cities; Johannesburg and Cape Town are the wealthiest but exhibit high Gini Coefficients (0.60 to 0.64), whereas poorer cities like Maputo and Dar es Salaam are less unequal.
• Informal housing is prevalent in most SADC cities, with Maputo reporting the highest rate at 86% of households. Other cities including Lusaka, Luanda, Dar es Salaam, Ndola, and Lilongwe see 60% to 75% of households in informal settlements, while South African cities have the lowest proportions at 10-12%.
• Sanitation is the most neglected urban service; sewered sanitation is largely limited to South African and Zimbabwean cities, with 18% or fewer citizens having access to sewered systems in the other eight cities.
• Water service provider effectiveness is generally poor across the region, with non-revenue water (water not billed to consumers) exceeding the 30% benchmark in all cities except Cape Town; Bulawayo and Ndola report figures above 60%.
• Institutional responsibility for services varies by country: Harare and Bulawayo have the highest functional allocation for both engineered and social services, while cities in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia rely primarily on national parastatals for engineered services.
• Local government financial capacity is extremely varied, with budgeted expenditure per capita ranging from US$704 in Johannesburg to US$1.5 in Lilongwe.
• Revenue sources differ by city wealth and policy; Harare and Bulawayo receive no national transfers and rely heavily on property rates (up to 50% of revenue), while Dar es Salaam, Luanda, Ndola, and Lusaka depend on national transfers for 45-50% of their operating budgets.
• Air quality in all 10 cities fails to meet the WHO recommended limit of 5 µg/m³ for PM2.5 concentrations, with Johannesburg being the worst performer at 44 µg/m³.
• Private sector involvement is most significant in social services and small-scale engineered services for the poor; for example, 79% of schools in Lilongwe and 58% in Dar es Salaam are privately run.

APA

Palmer, I. (2025). AFRICAN CITIES REPORT. Good Governance Africa. https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2026/04/10-SADC-cities-comparison.pdf

Chicago

Palmer, Ian. AFRICAN CITIES REPORT. Good Governance Africa, 2025. https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2026/04/10-SADC-cities-comparison.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Palmer |first1=Ian |title=AFRICAN CITIES REPORT |publisher=Good Governance Africa |date=2025 |url=https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2026/04/10-SADC-cities-comparison.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{palmer2025african, author = {Palmer, Ian}, title = {{AFRICAN CITIES REPORT}}, institution = {Good Governance Africa}, year = {2025}, url = {https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2026/04/10-SADC-cities-comparison.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }