Global Urban Poverty Research Agenda: The African Case

This paper, however, argues that the situation in sub- Saharan African deserves special attention both because the region presently has the fastest rate of urbanization in the world but also because, unlike elsewhere in the world, the incidence of poverty continues to deepen in most countries of the region.
The paper is divided into five parts. The first begins by raising the question of what is “urban” about poverty? It examines attempts that have been made to identify the special characteristics of urban poverty whilst the second part goes on to consider the special case of sub-Saharan Africa. A third part then attempts to provide a conceptual framework based on a political economy approach for understanding the situation.