Urban populations in Sub-Saharan Africa are forecast to grow at a high rate in the coming decades. Housing and urban services development is failing to keep up with the rapid urbanisation of Sub-Saharan Africa, and as such informal settlement development is rapidly increasing: providing urban services to these informal settlements is an issue that needs solutions at a local level. Informal settlements are generally defined as those without a formal right of land to the location in which they are situated. However, this does not mean that informal settlements cannot be fixtures of the urban landscape, with some “slum” areas of cities such as Mumbai having endured for over 60 years. Servicing these informal settlements can be challenging: lasting legacies of large-scale informal electricity connections and electricity theft leaves local electricity authorities ill-disposed to formalise these areas, and structural difficulties such as geography and urban form can hamper efforts to formalise other urban services. This concept note aims to introduce the main themes around the issue of informal settlement development in the developing world, with a particular focus on electrification and informal settlements, and providing other formal urban services such as water and sanitation. Formalisation of informal settlements, bringing them within the sphere of formal urban services by the municipality, is also discussed, as are a number of case studies from varied developing world contexts
