Introduction
Tour Itinerary
Destinations
Kitwe
Chingola
Mufulira
Urbanisation
Shanty Town(1)
Shanty Town(2)
Informal Sector
Popn Growth
Inflation
Issues
Theories
Worksheets
Resources

Home Field Trips Copper Tour Mufulira

Mufulira

Urbanisation

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Few tourists visit the Copperbelt for its own sake. They tend to head to Victoria Falls and the Wildlife Parks. The towns of the Copperbelt such as Kitwe, Ndola, Mufulira and Chingola do not appear of most tourists' itinerary. They have grown up to service the growing copper industry. Ndola situated 320km north of the capital Lusaka, is the gateway to the Copperbelt and a main mining and commercial centre. Kitwe lies 64km to the west of Ndola. In the 1950s Kitwe grew from being a small township to being the second largest city in Zambia behind Lusaka. Its good central position within the Copperbelt means that the city has developed as a major commercial centre with many industries unrelated to mining such as furniture manufacture and cement production, being attracted into the area.

Informal Sector

Whilst walking down in the central business districts of Kitwe and Ndola there are many modern factories, offices and shops. It is sometimes difficult to tell you are in a country that has a GDP per capita of US$370 and over 70% of the population living in poverty.

It is perhaps easy to understand why the streets of the cities and towns of the Copperbelt are seen by many people from the villages to be paved by gold. It is the prospect of jobs and wealth that attracts many from rural Zambia and those made redundant from the privatised copper mines. They are some of the fastest-growing urban areas in Sub Saharan Africa. Their population grew rapidly in the immediate post-independence era and continues to expand daily. This inward migration of people has been unchecked and their infrastructure is insufficient to cater for the numbers of people.

However, once you move to the periphery of the towns and cities you experience the impact of the inward migration. Shanty settlements have grown up. One such shanty town, Muambe, lies on the edge of Mufulira town. It is an illegal settlement and not recognised by the government. As such it not provided with any social services such as schools and hospitals. Most people living within the squalor of the shanty town are unemployed.

This does not mean that people remain idle. Many work in the informal sector. These are people who undertake a whole range of business activities unrecorded outside the formal or registered sector. Many of the people who work in the informal sector earn very little and live in conditions of extreme poverty. In addition to the inward migration the conditions of poverty result in a rapid natural growth rate in the population.

Next issue - Life in Shanty Towns >>

Related Glossary Items:
Informal Sector
Rural Urban Migration
Gross Domestic Product

Related Issues:
Life in Shanty Towns
The Causes and Impact of Population Growth

Related Theories:
Models of Economic Growth and Development:
Fisher Clark's Theory of Structural Change
The Harrod-Domar Model
The Lewis Model of Development
Rostow's Model - The Stages of Economic Development
Models of Demographic Transition