City limits : urbanisation and vulnerability in Sudan : Juba case study

Sudan is urbanising rapidly. Although the trend is not new (and is consistent with a trend towards greater urbanisation across Sub-Saharan Africa, the pace in Sudan appears to be accelerating. For a country of its size Sudan has relatively few cities, which means that the population drift from rural areas is focused on a small number of urban centres. The Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Develop-ment Institute (ODI) has been commissioned by the Department for International Development (DFID) to carry out a study on urbanisation in Sudan. The study focuses on four urban centres, Nyala, Khartoum, Port Sudan and Juba, and a case study report has been produced for each city. This paper constitutes the Synthesis Report. Together with seasonal and economic migration, forced displacement has been a key driver of the exponential growth of Sudan’s cities and towns. Rapid urbanisation has been accompanied by growing numbers of poor and vulnerable urban dwellers – a significant proportion of whom are displaced populations – who live in abject poverty, are vulnerable to a range of threats to their physical and mental wellbeing and face acute challenges in accessing livelihoods, basic services and land. The economic boom of recent years has mainly benefited an emerging economic, social and political elite, and has offered very little to the majority of the urban population. [authors abstract]