Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-vmslq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-19T07:04:52.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

URBANIZATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA AND THE CHALLENGE OF ACCESS TO BASIC SERVICES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2017

William Parienté
William Parienté*
Affiliation:
IRES, UCLouvain and J-PAL
Get access

Abstract

The majority of the urban population of Sub-Saharan Africa lives in slums where access to basic services, such as water, sanitation, or electricity is low. There is a growing body of evidence showing that access to these basic services has significant effect on the well-being of the poor. As the progress to universal access is still very slow, this essay contributes to the understanding of the persistence of the situation by reviewing the recent empirical evidence on both supply and demand issues related to the provision of basic infrastructure in urban areas of developing countries.

Keywords

Public goodsdeveloping countriesslumsmarket failurespoverty

Information

Type
Essays
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 83 , Issue 1: Short Essays on African Demography and Economic Development , March 2017 , pp. 31 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Banerjee, Abhijit. V. and Duflo, Esther (2007) The economic lives of the poor. Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, 141–168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnard Sharmani, Parimita Routray, Fiona Majorin, Rachel Peletz, Sophie Boisson, Antara Sinha, Thomas Clasen. (2013) Impact of Indian Total Sanitation Campaign on latrine coverage and use: A cross Sectional study in Orissa three years following programme Implementation. PLoS ONE 8(8).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy (1995) Property rights and investment incentives: Theory and evidence from Ghana. Journal of Political Economy 103, 903–937.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy and Ghatak, Maitreesh (2006) Public goods and economic development. In Banerjee, Abhijit, Benabou, Roland and Mookherjee, Dilip (eds.), Understanding Poverty, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, David S. and Mobarak, Ahmed M. (2009) The transforming power of democracy: Regime type and the distribution of electricity. American Political Science Review 103, 193–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, Robin, Jedwab, Remi, Miguel, Edward, Morjaria, Ameet and Miquel, Gerard Padro i (2015) The Value of democracy: Evidence from road building in Kenya. American Economic Review 105, 1817–1851.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra and Duflo, Esther (2004) Women as policy makers: Evidence from a randomized policy experiment in India. Econometrica 72, 1409–1443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, Paul (2017) Africa's prospective urban transition. Journal of Demographic Economics, March, 83 (1), 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dafe, Florence (2009) No Business Like Slum Business? The Political Economy of the Continued Existence of Slums: A Case Study of Nairobi. WPS LSE Development Studies Institute (DESTIN) 09-98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devoto, Florencia, Duflo, Esther, Dupas, Pascaline, Pariente, William and Pons, Vincent (2012) Happiness on tap: Piped water adoption in urban Morocco. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4, 68–99.Google Scholar
Dinkelman, Taryn (2011) The effects of rural electrification on employment: New evidence from South Africa. American Economic Review 101, 3078–3108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duflo, Esther, Galiani, Sebastian and Mobarak, Ahmed M. (2012) Improving Access to Urban Services for the Poor: Open Issues and a Framework for Future Research Agenda. J-PAL Urban Services Review Paper. Cambridge, MA: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.Google Scholar
Duflo, Esther, Greenstone, Michael, Guiteras, Raymond and Clasen, Thomas (2015) Toilets Can Work: Short And Medium Run Health Impacts Of Addressing Complementarities And Externalities In Water And Sanitation. NBER working paper 21521, Urban Services Initiative.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupas, Pascaline (2011) Health behavior in developing countries. Annual Review of Economics 3, 425–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durand-Lasserve, Alain, Fernandes, Edesio, Payne, Geoffrey and Rakodi, Carole (2007) Social and Economic Impacts of Land Titling Programmes in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas: A Review of The Literature. Washington DC: World Bank Urban Research Symposium (May 2007)Google Scholar
Durand-Lasserve, Alain and Selod, Harris (2007) The Formalization of Urban Land Tenure in Developing Countries. Paper prepared for the World Bank's 2007 Urban Research Symposium, May 14-16, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Estache, Antonio, Serebrisky, Tomas and Wren-Lewis, Liam (2015) Financing infrastructure in developing countries. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 31, 279–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Erica (2005) Property rights and investment in urban slums. Journal of the European Economic Association 3, 279–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Erica (2007) Entitled to work: Urban tenure security and labor supply in Peru. Quarterly Journal of Economics 122, 1561–1602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galiani, Sebastian, Gertler, Paul and Schargrodsky, Ernesto (2005) Water for life: The impact of the privatization of water services on child mortality. Journal of Political Economy 113, 83–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galiani, Sebastian and Schargrodsky, Ernesto (2010) Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling. Journal of Public Economics 94, 700–729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamper-Rabindran, Shanti, Khan, Shakeeb and Timmins, Christopher (2010) The impact of piped water provision on infant mortality in Brazil: A quantile panel data approach. Journal of Development Economics 92, 188–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco and Quintana-Domeneque, Climent (2016) Paving the streets for the poor: Experimental analysis of infrastructure effects. Review of Economics and Statistics 98, 254–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guiteras, Raymond, Levinsohn, James and Mobarak, Ahmed M. (2015) Encouraging sanitation investment in the developing world: A cluster-randomized trial. Science 348, 903–906.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guiteras, Raymond, Levine, David I., Polley, Thomas and Quistorff, Brian (2016) Credit Constraints, Discounting and Investment in Health: Evidence from Micropayments for Clean Water in Dhaka. Unpublished working paper.Google Scholar
Hodler, Roland and Raschky, Paul A. (2014) Regional favoritism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, 995–1033.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Energy Agency (2016) World energy outlook.Google Scholar
Jack, B. Kelsey and Smith, Grant (2015) Pay as you go: Pre-paid metering and electricity expenditures in South Africa. American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings, 105 (5) 237–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jedwab, Remi, Christiaensen, Luc and Gindelsky, Marina (2015) Demography, urbanization and development: Rural push, urban pull and. . . urban push? Journal of Urban Economics forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosek, Katrina (2014) The child health implications of privatizing Africa's urban water supply. Journal of Health Economics 35, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laibson, David (1997). Golden eggs and hyperbolic discounting. Quarterly Journal of Economics 42, 861–871.Google Scholar
Lanjouw, Jean O. and Levy, Philip I. (2002) Untitled: A study of formal and informal property rights in urban Ecuador. Economic Journal 112, 986–1019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipscomb, Molly, Mobarak, Ahmed M. and Barham, Tania (2013) Returns to electricity: Evidence from quasi-random placement of hydro-electric power plants in Brazil. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5, 200–231.Google Scholar
Lipscomb, Molly, Houde, Jean-François, Johnson, Terence and Schechter, Laura (2017). Measuring and addressing market power issues in the desludging market in Senegal. Presentation at the American Economic Association Annual Meeting (2017), Chicago.Google Scholar
Marx, Benjamin, Stoker, Thomas M. and Suri, Tawneet (2013) The economics of slums in the developing world. Journal of Economics Perspectives 27, 187–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrick, Thomas W. (1985) The effect of piped water on early childhood mortality in urban Brazil, 1970 to 1976. Demography 22, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miguel, Edward and Gugerty, Mary K. (2005) Ethnic diversity, social sanctions, and public goods in Kenya. Journal of Public Economics 89, 2325–2368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor (2011) Reflections on some unsettled problems of irrigation. American Economic Review 101, 49–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prüss-Ustün, Anette, Bartram, Jamie, Clasen, Thomas, Colford, John M., Cumming, Oliver, Curtis, Valerie, Bonjour, Sophie, Dangour, Alan D., De France, Jennifer, Fewtrell, Lorna, Freeman, Matthew C., Gordon, Bruce, Hunter, Paul R., Johnston, Richard C., Mathers, Colin, Mäusezahl, Daniel, Medlicott, Kate, Neira, Maria, Stocks, Meredith, Wolf, Jennyfer and Cairncross, Sandy (2014) Burden of disease from inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene in low- and middle-income settings: A retrospective analysis of data from 145 countries. Tropical Medicine and International Health 19, 894–905.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rud, Juan Pablo (2012) Electricity provision and industrial development: Evidence from India. Journal of Development Economics 97, 352–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Aandrew and Seth, Prachi (2013) The Political Economy of Electricity Distribution in Developing Countries: A Review of The Literature. Overseas Development Institute. Politics and Governance, London, UK.Google Scholar
Straub, Stéphane (2011) Infrastructure and Development: A Critical Appraisal of the Macro-Level. Journal of Development Studies, 47, 683–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trémolet, Sophie (2012) Sanitation Markets: Using Economics to Improve the Delivery of Services Along the Sanitation Value Chain. Technical report. SHARE, London, UK.Google Scholar
UN-Habitat (2016) Urbanization and development: Emerging futures. World Cities Report 2016.Google Scholar
UNICEF and World Health Organization (2015) Progress on sanitation and drinking water – 2015 update and MDG assessment.Google Scholar
Wolf, Jennyfer, Prüss-Ustün, Anette, Cumming, Oliver, Bartram, Jamie, Bonjour, Shopie, Cairncross, Sandy, Clasen, Thomas, Curtis, Valerie, De France, Jennifer, Fewtrell, Lorna, Freeman, Matthew C., Gordon, Bruce, Hunter, Paul R., Jeandron, Aurelie, Johnston, Richard C., Mäusezahl, Daniel, Mathers, Colin, Neira, Maria and Higgins, Julian P. T. (2014) Systematic review: Assessing the impact of drinking water and sanitation on diarrhoeal disease in low- and middle-income settings: Systematic review and meta-regression. Tropical Medicine and International Health 19, 928–942.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed