The Administration of Urban Services

This chapter examines a number of urban services, with special emphasis on how they are delivered and administered and on the fluctuating balance between public provision and private need. The gradual shift toward private supply of urban services that seems to be taking place across the continent is also a response to an array of urban market forces on the one hand, and to the failure of governments, on the other. The effective provision of water to urban consumers in Nairobi has, in any case, come under severe public criticism in the 1980s. Explanations for the low and irregular level of urban water supplies cannot be attributed to the shortcomings of local government authorities in Nigeria. The Nigerian case dramatically illustrates the systemic interaction between different levels of government with respect to urban services. Countries with less of a foreign exchange constraint than Tanzania have a wider range of options in the management of urban refuse removal.