MALAIKA MAHLATSI: AFCON and the politics of urban mobility in Africa

Since last weekend, the eyes of millions of Africans in the continent and the diaspora have been glued to the riveting 34th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) football tournament. For the next four weeks, 24 countries from all regions of the African Union (AU) will be battling it out in the Ivory Coast for a chance to be crowned the champions of Africa – a title that is currently held and defended by The Lions of Teranga, as the Senegalese national team is affectionately known.

While only seven matches have been played thus far, as of the morning of 16 January 2024, it is already evident that this instalment of the tournament will also be plagued by the same problem that has characterised all others before it – a low turnout of supporters at the matches. The current attendance rate stands at 108,141, translating to 15,449 people per match. And while this number might improve slightly as the tournament moves beyond the group stages, it is unlikely to reach the levels seen in other continental football tournaments where tens of thousands of supporters fill the stadiums in every match.

This is even though most of the stadiums for the AFCON 2023 tournament have a fairly low capacity. Of the six stadiums that will be in use for the tournament, three have a seating capacity of 20,000. Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium is next, with a seating capacity of 33,000. It is followed by Stade de la Paix in Bouakè with a seating capacity of 40,000. The biggest stadium in the tournament, Alassane Outtara Stadium, situated in the Ivorian capital of Abidjan, has a seating capacity of just 60,000.

Consider that the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, the biggest stadium that will be used in the upcoming UEFA European Football Championship (known informally as the EURO) scheduled for June 2024, has a seating capacity of 75,000 for domestic matches and 70,000 for international matches. The smallest stadium that will be used for the said tournament is RheinEnergieStadion (formerly Müngersdorfer Stadion) with a seating capacity of 50,000. The average seating capacity of the stadiums to be used for the EURO is almost 65,000. And based on historical data, the attendance rate will be sizeable. Consider that in the previous instalment of the tournament, between June and July 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the attendance was 1,099,278, translating to 21,554 people per match.

There is an argument to be made that the economic situation in Africa is so dire that many people simply cannot afford to spend money on tickets for football matches. West Africa, where the Ivory Coast is situated, is populated with low-income economies and has some of the poorest countries in the world. Nearly 40% of the Ivorian population lives below the poverty line, while an even greater number lives on less than US$3.20 or R60 per day. The cheapest tickets for the Burkina Faso vs Mauritania match cost US$1.61 or R30, while the most expensive, in the west wing of sector 1 level 2.2 cost a staggering US$161.29 or R3,000. There is no question that costs are a huge factor impacting the attendance rate of the AFCON. But the other costs involved, which this article is more concerned with, are the costs of mobility across the African continent. The crisis of urban mobility in Africa is a very serious issue that not only impacts the attendance rate at important sporting tournaments such as AFCON but also the ease of doing business and tourism on the continent.

Urban mobility is a very serious challenge in Africa – one that I did not fully appreciate until I emigrated to Germany a few months ago. The public transport infrastructure in Europe, particularly the railway, is so advanced that in most cases, train travel is preferable to any other mode of transportation, not only within countries but between them. And though we could argue that this is made possible, in part, by the fact that continental Europe is the second smallest continent in the world in terms of land area (despite having the third biggest population behind Asia and Africa) and that the economic development of Europe was built on the backs of colonised countries in the developing world, there is also an argument to be made about recognising the importance of developing and maintaining integrated public transport systems and enabling free movement.

Travelling within Africa is made difficult not only by the poor transport infrastructure but also by policies and practices that prevent free movement. The visa regimes of most African countries are unreasonable. Kenya recently introduced the electronic system for travel authorisation (e-TA) which was intended to make entry into the country easy for passport holders of African countries. The move was celebrated as revolutionary. Instead, the system has worsened the administration of travelling - particularly for countries that did not previously need visas - and also made it more expensive.

This is not the case for Europe where 27 countries are part of the Schengen area, which means only a single visa is required for all of them. The same visa is used to travel to non-Schengen countries that are part of the European Economic Area, such as Switzerland. In Africa, multiple visas are often required even for the same region by citizens of other regions of the African Union. These challenges of free movement and mobility pose a serious problem that is evidenced in the AFCON tournament.

African cities are facing an unprecedented challenge of urbanisation. In just 30 years, the number of cities in Africa has doubled. In 1990, there were 3,300 on the continent. By 2022, this number had increased to 7,600. According to Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2022: The Economic Power of Africa’s Cities report published by the African Development Bank, the cumulative population of African cities has increased by 500 million people since 1990.

Africa’s cities are the most rapidly growing cities in the world. According to the United Nations World's Cities in 2018 Data Booklet, the ten fastest-growing cities in the world are all located in Africa and the urban population will increase by around 900 million people by 2050. An important point to note is that African cities are also the youngest demographically, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 30. This growth, occurring in the context of rising levels of inequalities, has presented significant problems for African cities as they are growing fast and in sprawling ways that have resulted in the unequal provision of services, particularly transport. A lack of financing, investments and infrastructure for sustainable public transportation has resulted in the high use of private vehicles. This has resulted in Africa having fast-rising greenhouse gas emissions and the highest rates of road fatalities in the world.

There is a need for investment in sustainable urban mobility in Africa because our cities play a crucial role in the growth and development of our economies. Africa’s cities significantly outperform the countries in which they are located. The gap between the performance of African cities and the national averages is larger than in many other parts of the world. If we do not improve mobility in our cities, we will never reap the benefits of having tournaments like AFCON that can have a positive impact on our economic growth and social cohesion.

Malaika Mahlatsi is a geographer and researcher at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Bayreuth in Germany.