Africa's fast-growing cities need more and better-trained planners, World Bank says
A new report cites a University of Nairobi course as an example of training that barely changed for decades.
Nairobi — Sub-Saharan Africa has far too few urban planners for its fast-growing cities, and universities must keep their training up to date, according to a new World Bank report, Managing, Financing, and Governing Sub-Saharan Africa's Rapid Urbanization.
The numbers
- About 0.01 urban planners per 1,000 people in the region, based on 2019 data from selected countries, against 0.33 in the United Kingdom.
- In a 2005 OECD review of 130 urban plans from 47 countries, more than half failed to anticipate growth or misjudged how fast cities would expand.
The Nairobi example
The report cites a 2015 UN-Habitat review that found the University of Nairobi had made only minor changes to its master's curriculum in urban planning between the programme's launch in 1971 and 2015. That review does not show whether the course has changed since. The university's published information indicates its Master of Arts in Planning syllabus has been revised, without saying when.
The course today covers urban and regional planning, environmental management, infrastructure and research, and the university says it prepares graduates for the challenges of urbanisation and population growth.
The World Bank's argument is that training more planners, architects and engineers will help African cities only if their skills keep pace with how those cities are actually growing.
Source: Capital FM, 2 November 2026.
