Author:

Keywords:

strategic urban planning, Congo

Abstract:

In November 2010 UN Habitat, the Nairobi-based agency that monitors the world's built environment, published a report on ‘The State of African Cities 2010. Governance, Inequality and Urban Land Markets.’ (UN Habitat/UNEP 2010). In this detailed and substantial report, it is noted that Africa has joined India and China as the third region of the world to reach a population of 1 billion people, and that the continent is expected to double its numbers by 2050. By then, there will be three times as many people living in Africa's cities, and the continent that had fewer than 500,000 urban dwellers in 1950 may have 1.3 billion. The breakneck transformation of a rural population into a predominantly urban one is neither good nor bad on its own, says UN Habitat. But simultaneously it implores African countries to plan their cities better, to avoid mega-slums and vast areas of deprivation developing across the continent. Conditions in African cities are now the most unequal in the world. The pattern remains that of “ oceans of poverty containing islands of wealth.” states the UN Habitat report. Whatever the value of the figures put forth by UN Habitat , it is clear that the speed of growth of some cities on the African continent indeed “defies belief.” Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, and the city upon which the current paper focuses, is one of the fastest growing urban conglomerations on the African continent today. This megalopolis, which some describe as ‘the quintessential postcolonial African city’ (Pieterse 2010a: 1) and ‘one of the most drastic cities of the world’ (Simone 2010a: 291), is expected to be the continent's second largest city by 2020, and it is the fastest-growing city in absolute terms, with 4 million extra people expected in the next ten years, a 46% increase for its 2010 population of 8.7 million. This means that the city of Kinshasa is not only facing the huge responsibility of ameliorating the already very poor living conditions of its urban residents, but it also implies that it has to develop a new policy to stop or prevent the further spread and growth of (the already substantial) slum areas in and around the city. This will necessitate a big effort on the part of the government (on the level of the municipalities, as well as by the governor of Kinshasa, the various provincial ministries, the national government and the presidency itself) to arrive at a strategic urban planning which takes the needs of the poor (and that includes the vast majority of this city) into account. How can and should a city such as Kinshasa, with a yearly municipal budget under US$ 23 million, barely enough to cover its administrative salaries (Simone 2010: 127), with more people living on a daily income that does not exceed 1 US$ than anywhere else in the world, and with 75 % of its population under the age of 25, cope with such a growth? How should or a country such as the DRC, which, in spite of recent attempts at administrative reform, is often viewed as a case example of a ‘failed’ state (cf Trefon 2004, 2007, 2009) respond to such an enormous challenge? During the campaign leading up to the 2006 presidential elections, President Kabila launched his ‘Cinq Chantiers’ program, his Five Public Works. The concept summarizes Kabila’s efforts to modernize education, health care, road infrastructure, access to electricity, and housing accommodation in DR Congo. In 2010, the year in which Congo celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence from Belgian colonial rule, and a year before the next presidential elections, the ‘chantiers’ were geared into a different speed, especially in the country’s urban agglomerations, and in Kinshasa in particular. For the first time, perhaps, since the ‘Plan décennal pour le développement économique et social du Congo’, the 10 year program which the Belgian colonial administration put into practice between 1949 and 1959, there is an encompassing project on a national scale which, even if it is not a fully fledged Marshall Plan to secure the country’s future, seems to present something of an attempt towards an overarching governmental plan or programme to respond to some of the nation’s most pressing and urgent needs, specifically with regard to its urbanisation. My contribution deals with the impact of the ‘5 chantiers’ program on the current management of the city, through a critical analysis of the government's urban policy and its plans concerning the future expansion of Kinshasa.