"Up to 90% of people in countries like South Sudan and the Central African Republic live in informal areas that lack basic services," as Ángela Abascal, an architect and researcher at the University of Navarra, pointed out at a seminar on urbanism in developing countries that she coordinates within the Navarra Center for International Development (NCID).

In the framework of World Urbanism Day, celebrated on November 8, Abascal recalled that more and more the most disadvantaged areas in the world are reaching a saturation point "because their populations grow faster than their cities." Thus, she mentioned the example of Nairobi, where "75% of new inhabitants will end up living in newly formed, unregulated parts of the city."

The expert points out two keys to explain this phenomenon. The first is that "people migrate from rural areas because they believe that the city has work and, therefore, guarantees a better life." The second, she notes, involves conflicts like Boko Haram, which generate unsafe conditions in rural areas. "People perceive that there is more protection in cities," she explains.

Ángela Abascal says that these places "grow like weeds" and are usually set up near where people work because they tend to commute on foot. "Many people end up living near industry zones or wealthy neighborhoods," she adds, "and they often work for families with high incomes."

Quantitative and interdisciplinary approach

These are some of the challenges addressed at a seminar on “Urban issues in developing countries,” which took place on November 9. It involved three specialists in various disciplines including Reinhard König, professor of Computational Architecture at the Bauhaus University of Weimar (Germany), who works on the optimal design of cities through programming tools, in addition to Belén Gesto, director of the Institute for Cooperation on Basic Habitability (ICHaB), which has developed a methodology to prevent future urban settlements. And finally the seminar included Primoz Kovacic, an engineer and director of Spatial Collective, whose work focuses on the problem of settlements in Nairobi.

This seminar was organized by the Navarra Center for International Development (NCID), which is part of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at the University of Navarra. The 2017 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, prepared by the University of Pennsylvania (USA), includes NCID on its list of the best think tanks in the world.