Nonprofits and Social Enterprises as Vehicles for Participation and Resilience in African Megacities

Abstract

Africa’s urban transformation is among the most consequential demographic processes of the twenty-first century. By 2050, the continent’s urban population is projected to more than double, and cities such as Lagos, Kinshasa, Nairobi, Cairo, and Johannesburg will absorb hundreds of millions of new residents into landscapes already marked by infrastructural deficit, spatial inequality, and institutional fragility. Yet for all the attention that urbanisation commands in global development discourse, one dimension of this transformation remains remarkably under-researched: the role of nonprofit organisations, social enterprises, and civic engagement as governance resources, service delivery mechanisms, and instruments of community resilience in African megacities. The scholarly literature on civil society and social entrepreneurship has been overwhelmingly generated in and about the countries of the global North, principally the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe, where rich traditions of associational life, stable philanthropic ecosystems, and generous research funding have sustained decades of inquiry. In Africa, this strand of research remains in its infancy, constrained not by a shortage of civic innovation on the ground but by the persistent failure of the established scholarly community and its funders to recognise African civil society as a site of analytical and practical significance.