African countries should start measuring their economic performance by city to enable them to design programmes that are tailor-made for the needs of their main centres of development, a senior UN official has said.
Speaking during the launch of a report on the economic performance on the Lesotho capital Maseru on Wednesday, UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) acting director for gender, poverty and social policy Edlam Yemeru said African cities contribute a large share to their national economies and have the potential to drive economic growth and social development.
She, however, said “this potential can only be unlocked if cities are adequately planned and managed, for which economic data at the city level plays a crucial role.”
Despite its role in supporting evidence-based decision-making, only a few countries have estimated city gross domestic product (GDP) in Africa to date, she said.
“At ECA, we believe putting collective efforts in measuring city GDP in Africa can drive economic growth and transformation,” Yemeru said.
ECA has been supporting selected African cities – Accra, Harare, Kigali, Lusaka, Maseru and Yaoundé – with their GDP estimation, according to the official.
“Drawing on the learnings from these experiences, we plan to expand and scale up our support for city GDP estimation to more cities to inform urban planning, economic policymaking and investment decisions.”
The inaugural report on Lesotho revealed that Maseru, which accounts for only 17 percent of the country’s population, generates about half of the country’s annual GDP.
The services sector is the main contributor to Maseru’s economy at 57 percent, while the manufacturing industry’s contribution stood at 27.8 percent.
The findings further showed that Maseru’s GDP per capita of US$3,470 was on average five times higher than the rest of the country (US$687) and three times higher than the national average of US$1,149 between 2016 and 2020.
This demonstrates the high living standards in the city compared to other parts of the country.
JN/APA