Government should curb rural-urban migration

May 21, 2002

Members of Parliament are right to be concerned with the drift into the city from all parts of the country. Population growth in Uganda as a whole is 2.9% per annum. In Kampala, it is around 9-12 % per annum.

Members of Parliament are right to be concerned with the drift into the city from all parts of the country. Population growth in Uganda as a whole is 2.9% per annum. In Kampala, it is around 9-12 % per annum.There is some diurnal, weekly and seasonal emigration, but insupportable population growth stretches all social services and public utilities. Kampala’s population is probably over 1 million, as the next census will show.Overcrowding is itself a contributor to poverty, human misery, disease and crime. If housing, utilities and employment opportunities were expanding fast enough, urban drift from the country might be tolerable. But they are not.As it is, national development requires urban drift to be stopped, and to be reversed. In comparing the advantages of living in a village or living in a town, the allure of the town is seen as overwhelmingly attractive, with its society, its bright lights, its cash incomes. By contrast, in the rural areas life is tedious, and you are a member of a small community with few or no amenities.But in Africa as in Europe these relative advantages are often illusory.People arrive from their villages seeking work in Kampala, but don’t get it. They join the unemployed. Housing is scarce. Food and water are expensive. Disease levels rise. Crime waves grow. The more the City Council restores Kampala as a model City with every modern amenity, the more the villagers pour in. The trend towards greater urbanisation is likely to continue, but good economic and social reasons for living in the rural areas are also increasing, and can be made to increase faster.in places with infrastructure and a productive potential a long way from the capital, rural centres rapidly become rural towns. With Government help through overlay planning, they can become key growth centres where people enjoy the best of both worlds, rural and urban.Economist Michael Lipton of IDS in the UK characterised these places as ‘rurban” -neither one thing nor the other. He observed that rurban growth centres have economic growth rates 8- 15% higher than the national average. This is no surprise because housing, services and food are cheaper in such settlements than they are in the cities.Developing country governments are eager to exploit the population holding capacity of rurban growth centres. They plan to ensure their towns are not overloaded by urban drift. They work hard to create stable terms of trade for farmers and the urban factory workers who buy the farmers produce.Some authorities even hike transport into the city twice the cost of outbound trips, and make outbound transport free! This is the pricing equivalent of the pass laws which in colonial , Africa denied rural populations free access to the cityVivian Cradock WilliamsTricontinental Development Consultants

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