Governance for Pro‐poor Urban Development: Lessons from Ghana. By Franklin Obeng‐Odoom. (London: Routledge, 2013). ISBN: 978‐0‐415‐83376‐9. 258 pages. Hardback: US$145.00 (eBook also available)
| Author | Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1720 |
| Date | 01 August 2015 |
| Published date | 01 August 2015 |
BOOK REVIEW
Governance for Pro-poor Urban Development: Lessons from Ghana. By Franklin Obeng-Odoom. (London: Routledge, 2013).
ISBN: 978-0-415-83376-9. 258 pages. Hardback: US$145.00 (eBook also available)
Governance for pro-poor urban development:lessons from Ghana by Franklin Obeng-Odoom is a very comprehensive analysis
of the urbanization process in Ghana along the years with insights from other urbanization experiences in Africa. Ghana is an
exemplary case, as pointed by the author, because the country is considered by many an island of relatively good democratic
governance as compared with other parts of Western Africa. Ghana also offers an interesting focus for study as the country
has gone through various waves of urbanization. These have been based on policies derived from several conceptual frame-
works influenced by different theories on urbanization and public management before and after independence. The author un-
covers the stark contrasts between theories and ideas (sometimes well-intended initiatives) of urban governance and
management and the impacts and results of applying them in practice.
After a short introduction to position his setting, the book (Part I, Chapters 2 and 3 particularly) includes an extensive review
of the main theories and policies related to the fashionable concept of “urban governance.”The author brings perspectives on
urban governance from a wide range of fields such as urban economics, public management, political economy, urban studies,
and their links with poverty debates. This makes the publication a useful source for students, practitioners, and scholars who
need a good summary of the main relevant discussions on contemporary urban issues in developing countries. He also makes
a critical analysis of the motivations and impacts of the different urban policies, notably those which influenced Africa. Using
a rich set of theoretical and empirical analyses, Obeng-Odoom explains the key limitations of the mainstream urban economics
and justifies how political economy is more suitable to examine urban governance in Africa. In so doing, he relies on the seminal
works of urban thinkers such as David Harvey, Manuel Castells, and David Drakakis-Smith.
The Part II of the book (Chapters 5–8) brings Obeng-Odoom’s analytical framework of urban governance to its application
to a large span of the different urban problems, services, and policies in the case of Ghana. He examines urban employment,
inequality, poverty, transport, housing, and land under a “neoliberal”urban governance model that allows and promotes an in-
creasing participation of the private sector in the urban economy. The author reveals with numbers that there has been a large
increase in private investments in different urban sectors and wealth creation in Ghana. Questions remain, however, as to how
have the poor benefited from the economic boom in Ghanaian cities. The author argues and shows evidence that prosperity came
to just a few and the benefits were not divided equally among all sections of the growing urban population. Ghanaian cities show
a rising trend in income inequality and in access to public services and land, as well as in the exacerbation of disgruntlement
with urban problems common in many cities of the developing world. These include congestion, lack of sanitation, pollution,
and, to a lesser extent, rising crime.
Using the analyses of Parts I and II, Part III (Chapters 9–11) evaluates the experiences of urban governance in Africa and its
prospects in tackling urban problems in the continent, particularly those concerning the poor. In Chapter 9, he questions whether
democratic urban governance or political leadership alone could be a panacea for the myriad of African urban problems.
However, he concludes that there are structural barriers in the electoral processes and political systems, reflecting for example
the inadequacy of local and national elections to make pro-poor advancements in urban areas and therefore keeping the poor
powerless.Even in the so-called best cases of urban governancein Africa, such as some in South Africaor Uganda, these countries
were unable to transform the urban structures that lock the poor into deprivation of rights to adequate urban services.
The book makes several contributions to the public administration and urban development debate, particularly related to ur-
ban political economy of social justice in Africa and recent ex-colonies, although it also left us without many answers. Firstly, as
the authors clearly argues, “one cannot reasonably argue that all problems of development in cities in Africa were the result of
colonialism”(p. 54). It is undeniable that colonialism and imperialism interfered heavily and are some of the roots of many ur-
ban problems in Africa and elsewhere lie therein. But we cannot keep blaming colonialism forever for all the problems in cities
and elsewhere in the developing world. Thus, he also argues that contemporary factors and local actors and institutions are par-
tially responsible for the situation (and have to be certainly part of the solution?). Many of the policies put forward after the
independence in Ghana were led by African leaders and experts. However, have not some countries that were less heavily in-
fluenced by colonizers (like Ethiopia), or where decolonized long ago (such as in Latin America), had the same (and even worse)
kinds of problems in urban governance? Or, on the other hand, have not some countries that were decolonized around the same
time (such as Singapore) been able to urbanize quite sustainably (at least regarding local problems)? How were they able to
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 35, 219–220 (2015)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1720
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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