Exploitation and short-sightedness in Africa’s slums

STANDING on a muddy patch of grass in Mathare, a district in the eastern part of Nairobi, Kevin surveys his handiwork. From an electricity pylon, a thick bundle of crudely twisted wire hangs down into a tin-roofed shack. From there it spreads to a dozen more. Single wires run perilously at eye level over open sewers, powering bare light-bulbs, kettles and blaring speakers. In exchange for a connection, Kevin and six of his friends collect 200 shillings per month each (about $2) from about a hundred shacks in his corner of the slum. To protect the business, the gang pays off police officers and intimidates the competition. The connections, Kevin insists, are cheaper than official ones, and safer too. The rotting body of a fried rat near one of the lines suggests otherwise.

So goes the provision of public services in Nairobi’s poorest districts. These warrens of shacks and crudely built apartment blocks are home to 40% of the city’s population, according to one recent World Bank survey (others put the figure even higher). As the city’s population has exploded—from a third of a million at independence in 1963 to over 4m now—so too have the slums. Across Africa, they are the primary way by which hundreds of thousands of people have escaped even greater poverty in the countryside. By 2030, half of Africa’s population will live in cities, up from a third in 2010. According to the UN, two-thirds of that growth will take place in slums. Between 1990 and 2014, the continent’s slum population more than doubled, to some 200m people. Finding ways to improve slums will be one of the most pressing problems of the 21st century for African governments.