Malawi is among the most rapidly urbanising countries in the world. According to a study released by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) in 2004, Malawi was in fact first among the most rapidly urbanising countries in the world, with an urban population growth rate of 6.3%. Statistics published by UN Habitat estimate that there were 1,101,000 people living in urban areas in Malawi in 1990. This figure is projected to grow to 2,691,000 people by 2010, representing a 144.4% increase in just 20 years. An unprecedented 25.1% of the national population (i.e. 4,188,000 people) is projected to live in urban areas by 2020 (UN-Habitat 2008)1. As Malawi’s population increasingly becomes urbanised, a number of key policy challenges have emerged, and none could arguably be as pressing as the challenge to ensure that there are adequate structural frameworks in place to foster sustainable urban development. The phenomenon of rapid urbanisation has not escaped the attention of the country’s key policy makers. The strategies adopted have embraced a variety of urban planning policy responses aimed at addressing the problem, such as slum upgrading, review of urban housing policies, urban land tenure reform, among others. It is logical for policy makers to look at strengthening the role of urban planning in addressing rapid urbanisation. However, urban planning policies that are articulated in an
environment that is short on democratic participation at the grassroots level are bound to have no lasting imprint on the fabric of the societies they are purporting to serve. Mabogunje (1994, p. xxx) admonishes policy makers in post-colonial African cities that are experiencing unprecedented rates of urbanisation similar to Malawi’s by warning that: “the governance of African cities has to be shorter on bureaucratic procedures and longer on democratic participation and accountability”. On the other hand, multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and UN-Habitat, have been advocating for the devolution of political, economic and managerial power from central government to local government to facilitate a culture of participatory democracy, which is crucial to the fostering of meaningful bottom-up approaches to addressing the problems emanating from Malawi’s rapid rates of urbanisation. The importance of participatory democracy at the grassroots level in the rapidly expanding urban centres cannot be overemphasised.