The future of Sub-Saharan Africa is urban. The numbers don’t lie. By 2050—just 25 years from now—at least 60% of the population will be living in cities. We need to be planning for that reality. Actually, scratch that. We need to be acting on it now.

This surge in urban density is putting enormous pressure on local governments. They’re not just expected to provide infrastructure, basic amenities, and social services anymore—they also need to create environments that actually enable economic development, all while tackling rising poverty and inequality. Business-as-usual simply won’t cut it. National governments can no longer be the sole providers of the leadership that this growing urban constituency demands. Some real transfer of powers and funding from national to local government is essential if we want genuine progress.

While a notion of devolution has floated around Sub-Saharan Africa since precolonial times, it only gained real momentum post-independence when the structural adjustment reforms of the late 1980s made decentralisation a buzzword. Bringing decision-making and services closer to citizens, the idea was to foster a stronger social contract between local governments and their communities. But entrenched interests largely hijacked the process, and what we got was not true devolution of powers, but mostly deconcentration of administrative functions. Institutional weakness, financing constraints, and a ruling elite motivated by the desire to protect its interests all conspired to prevent real devolution across most African countries.

Building autonomous local governments free from the interference of entrenched interests won’t be easy, but it’s essential if cities across Sub-Saharan Africa are going to achieve a sustainable and equitable future. It’s going to be a long road. First, cities need to develop their own stable and reliable revenue sources—augmented by, rather than completely dependent on, central governments.

For this to work, national governments need to actually commit to transferring national resources to appropriate, devolved, and robust city or state-level entities. At the same time, local governments should build up or strengthen their local revenue collection capacity, and embed strong cultures of consistency and accountability in the institutions tasked with collecting revenue and delivering services. Citizens need to see their tax money at work if they’re going to have faith in the system. Collection efforts need to be digitalised—both to ensure efficiency and to foster accountability. With these foundations in place, diversifying revenue bases to include property taxes, municipal bonds, and private sector partnerships actually has a
chance of succeeding.

It’s easy enough to find initiatives aimed at improving local government capacity across the African continent. The problem is they’re barely suited to the task at hand— mostly reduced to piecemeal “workshops and training activities” rather than actions that truly build sustainable institutional capacity at the local level.

Transferring functions from central to local governments requires careful coordination, ensuring the right mix of competencies is in place along with the necessary resources. Where resources are lacking, local governments have options: they can combine resources to establish pooled service provision for critical functions like data collection, shared monitoring and analytics capacity, financial services, knowledge-sharing platforms, and innovation hubs.

In 2000, Rwanda embarked on a phased reorganisation and decentralisation of its entire governance structure. Beyond all the mechanics of redrawing administrative maps, consolidation, and creating decentralised administration units, some critical constitutional imperatives had to be put in place. In Rwanda’s case, a constitutional provision mandates that the central government transfer 30% of the country’s national revenue to its 30 districts, which have both legal and financial autonomy.

Rwanda has a unique, tragic recent history that accelerated many of these reforms, but it’s not alone in this effort. Senegal has also made strides in transferring national revenue through the Fonds de Dotation de la Décentralisation (FDD), which automatically transfers national resources to the country’s communes and départements. It’s a step in the right direction, but in contrast to Rwanda, only a measly 3.5% of national VAT revenue is set aside for this purpose—to fund everything from education and housing to health, urban planning, and youth development. Kenya, South Africa, the DRC, and Nigeria are among other African states that have made similar commitments in an effort to fast-track development.

The achievements so far are modest but promising. Kenya’s localised climate fund, the County Climate Change Funds (CCCF), has enabled climate action at the local level by providing financial resources to local governments. The fund has enabled Kitui County government to establish an early warning system and train communities on climate resilience. Wajir County’s government has implemented water harvesting and storage projects with some success. Niger and Mozambique have both used performance-based grants, empowering districts to design flood mitigation projects in Niamey and mangrove restoration in Quelimane, respectively.

Johannesburg, expanding at a rate of 3.2% annually since 1998, is South Africa’s largest metropolitan municipality and a continental economic hub. The City has leveraged its limited autonomy to accelerate access to basic services through various initiatives. It digitalised its building approval processes, leading to a remarkable reduction in approval times for building projects. This has contributed favourably to the delivery of housing units and approvals of land claims that will benefit more than 100,000 residents, among many other initiatives that promote access to basic services.

In June 2025, the African Development Bank granted a US$139 million corporate loan to the City of Johannesburg aimed at enhancing the City’s capacity to provide energy, improve water and sanitation, and upgrade waste collection services. What was remarkable about this announcement was that it marked the first time since its founding in 1964 that Africa’s biggest lender had extended financing to any subnational government on the continent without requiring a national government guarantee. It remains to be seen what will come of this loan, but it’s an important signal that empowered cities can do more to improve their residents’ lives when they’re freed from the constraints of a centralised system.

Only by giving more power to mayors and city leaders can the potential of cities across the continent truly be unleashed.