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Africa currently has a low proportion of its population living in cities and towns. This is rapidly changing, however, and by the middle of this century it is predicted that the majority of Africans will be urban residents. Understanding the connections between rural areas and cities is thus vital for planning for the future needs of the residents of sub-Saharan African countries. For this purpose, the overall objective of the African Rural-City Connections (RurbanAfrica) project has been to explore the connections between rural transformations, mobility, and urbanization processes and analyze how these contribute to an understanding of the scale, nature and location of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. This has included critically scrutinizing the assumption that migration from rural areas to cities is one of the major development challenges faced by national and local governments in their efforts to stimulate economic growth and curb poverty.
The project has been in operation from April 2012 to March 2016 and has focused on four sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Cameroon, Rwanda and Tanzania. Research was led by the University of Copenhagen and organized into four thematic work packages; Agricultural Transformation, Rural Livelihoods, City Dynamics, and Access to Services; and two work packages working on dissemination and policy dialogues and management and syntheses.
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