Conclusion

The old belief that secondary growth centers could reduce the rate of rural-to-urban migration should be abandoned. Urban management should adapt to the likelihood of continuing inflows from the countryside. If the population and water supply figures are correctly reported, then the inhabitants are surviving on less than thirty liters per day, well the minimum for maintaining an urban population in an acceptable state. The fact is clear that urban management is often not sufficiently adaptive even in those cases where the change would cost very little money. For African governments – both central and urban – the favored organizational form is sectoral. The African urban management crisis has highlighted the inefficiencies of the sectoral approach. In the Francophone countries, as in the cases of Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire, a serious effort to decentralize urban administration began as early as 1978. For a number of reasons, most African governments nationalized urban land soon after independence.