The Rise of "Second Cities" in Africa

Africa’s trade map is being quietly redrawn. Across the continent, secondary cities are emerging as critical logistics, production, and consumption hubs, reshaping how goods move, where value is created, and how investors should think about location strategy in 2026 and beyond.

1. Introduction: The end of megacity dominance

For three decades, Africa’s trade has been organised around a handful of congested coastal and capital cities such as Lagos, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Accra, and Abidjan, but that model is reaching its limits. Rapid urbanisation has outpaced infrastructure, driving up congestion, logistics costs, land prices, and environmental stress in these megacity regions, and exposing firms to mounting climate and resilience risks. The Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2025 report projects that Africa’s urban population will double to around 1.4 billion by 2050, underscoring that current patterns of megacity-centric growth are neither sustainable nor sufficient to absorb this expansion.

At the same time, the economic gravity of the continent is becoming more polycentric, with “second cities” and “next cities” playing a larger role in production, consumption, and logistics. DHL’s collaboration with the Centre for African Management and Markets, Second to none: Second cities and next cities, highlights how intermediary cities such as Beira, Rabat, and Lubumbashi are becoming “engines of prosperity” and logistics relays between global markets and inland economies. OECD work on African urbanisation similarly shows the rise of city clusters and corridors, rather than single dominant cores, as the backbone of emerging regional economies.

This is a structural, not cyclical, realignment of Africa’s urban and trade systems, driven by demographics, corridor infrastructure, regional integration, and new logistics and digital networks. For boardrooms, the implication is clear: strategies built solely around one or two flagship capitals are increasingly misaligned with where growth, resilience, and efficiency will be generated over the next decade.

2. The efficiency gap: why capitals are losing their edge

The first driver of this shift is the widening efficiency gap between traditional capitals and lower-tier cities. As megacities densify without commensurate infrastructure upgrades, firms are facing rising costs across several dimensions.

• Housing and labour: Fast-growing capitals experience steep increases in commercial and residential rents, pushing workers further into peripheral areas and lengthening commuting times, which erodes productivity and raises wage demands.

• Land and real estate: Scarcity of well-located industrial land inside or near capital city cores leads to escalating land values and a bidding war between logistics, residential, and commercial uses.

• Transport and congestion: OECD and corridor planning studies point to rising travel times and vehicle operating costs in major African cities, with congestion undermining the reliability of just-in-time logistics and last-mile delivery.

Logistics is where this efficiency gap becomes most visible. Dwell times at ports and along urban approach roads remain a binding constraint, even where port capacity is being expanded. In Mombasa, for example, throughput has risen strongly, Kenya’s main port handled 45.45 million metric tonnes in 2025, up 10.9 percent year-on-year, and transit cargo climbed nearly 20 percent. Yet the same performance reports and corridor master plans emphasise the need for better inland evacuation via rail, road, and dry ports to manage congestion around the port city and keep supply chains predictable.

Within cities, last-mile congestion and fragmented distribution networks inflate logistics costs and lead times. Reports on African logistics note that only around 12 percent of cities on the continent are connected by at least one weekly flight, illustrating how limited high-quality connectivity remains and how ground congestion compounds these constraints. Warehousing scarcity in many capitals, especially Grade A space with modern specifications, pushes rents up and forces firms into suboptimal, smaller, or poorly located facilities, often with unreliable power and limited room for expansion.

Regulatory and operational frictions add another layer. Complex licensing, multiple inspection regimes, informal charges, and inconsistent enforcement increase effective trade costs and reduce predictability for operators in some large metropolitan areas. For manufacturers and logistics providers serving regional markets, these combined pressures undermine competitiveness, encouraging a pivot toward secondary cities and inland nodes where land is cheaper, traffic is lighter, and regulatory regimes can be more facilitative.

3. The polycentric growth model explained

Polycentric development refers to economic and urban systems where multiple interconnected cities and nodes share functions, production, logistics, services, rather than a single dominant core monopolising opportunity. In Africa, this is showing up in the emergence of city clusters and corridor-based growth: sequences of ports, inland hubs, border towns, and second cities linked by rail, highways, and power infrastructure.

This stands in contrast to the single-city dominance model inherited from colonial and early post-independence planning, which channelled trade and investment through one primary port or capital, often leaving interior regions under-served. As national economies diversify and regional integration advances under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), this one-city system increasingly misaligns with complex, multi-directional trade flows.

Governments and investors are responding in several ways:

• Spatial planning: National and regional plans now prioritise growth corridors, such as the Northern Corridor from Mombasa inland, the Central and TAZARA corridors from Dar es Salaam and the Beira Corridor, explicitly targeting secondary hubs and inland nodes for industrial and logistics investment.

• Inland logistics assets: There is growing investment in dry ports, inland container depots (ICDs), and logistics parks away from congested CBDs and port cities, to facilitate customs clearance, consolidation, and value-added services closer to production and consumption zones.

• Distributed value chains: AfCFTA and regional economic communities are supporting regional value chains where inputs, processing, and final assembly are spread across multiple cities and countries, making polycentric networks more efficient than a single megacity hub.

For trade and logistics actors, this polycentric turn is not an abstract planning concept; it is the operating reality in 2026. Firms that align their asset footprints and route designs with these corridors and second-city hubs will be structurally better placed to capture growth and manage risk.

4. Africa’s second cities to watch in 2026

Eldoret, Kenya: agri-logistics node of the Northern Corridor

Eldoret, in Kenya’s Rift Valley, is consolidating its role as an inland logistics and agro-processing hub on the Northern Corridor connecting Mombasa to Uganda and beyond. The wider corridor handles tens of millions of tonnes annually, with Northern Corridor studies projecting traffic growth of over 200 percent between 2007 and 2030, underscoring the strategic value of inland hubs that relieve pressure on Mombasa and Nairobi.

Eldoret sits at the heart of Kenya’s grain and horticulture belt, making it a natural consolidation point for cereals, oilseeds, and fresh produce exported to regional markets and overseas buyers. New expressways and upgraded roads along the corridor, combined with the development of inland logistics facilities and ICDs, enable cargo to be cleared and consolidated closer to farms, reducing trucking times and spoilage. For UK and European importers of pulses, cereals, and fresh produce, routing volumes through Eldoret-based facilities linked to Mombasa or, in time, to Lamu and other outlets can offer more reliable supply and better quality control.

As Kenya’s ports expand capacity and digitise operations, inland cities like Eldoret are positioned to capture a growing share of value-added activities: cleaning and grading grains, pre-cooling and packing horticulture, and providing quality assurance and documentation services on behalf of exporters. For firms designing hub-and-spoke networks in East Africa, Eldoret’s proximity to both production zones and the transit route to Uganda and South Sudan gives it strategic weight.

Kumasi, Ghana: central manufacturing and distribution platform

Kumasi, the capital of Ghana’s Ashanti Region, is a classic second city: not the political capital, but an economic powerhouse with a rapidly expanding population and central location within national and regional networks. The broader Kumasi urban area has an estimated population in the low millions and is projected to more than double in density by 2033, with urban growth rates above 4 percent annually.

Economically, Kumasi accounts for a large share of Ashanti’s output, with a diversified base spanning services, manufacturing, and trade, underpinned by cocoa and other agricultural production in the hinterland. Spatial planning documents for Greater Kumasi explicitly describe the region as a logistics hub for Ghana and neighbouring landlocked countries, noting its central position between the southern ports and the northern and Sahelian markets. Major road corridors radiate from Kumasi toward Accra and Tema, Tamale and Burkina Faso, and towards Côte d’Ivoire, enabling it to function as a natural consolidation and redistribution centre.

For manufacturers, Kumasi offers lower land and operating costs than Accra–Tema, while still providing access to ports and inland markets. For logistics firms, it is an ideal location for national distribution centres and cross-dock facilities, serving both Ghana’s expanding middle-class consumers and regional customers in the Sahel. UK and European importers sourcing processed cocoa, packaged foods, or light manufactured goods can benefit from partners who use Kumasi as an inland production and consolidation hub linked to coastal export terminals.

Mbeya, Tanzania: the southern breadbasket hub

Mbeya, in south-west Tanzania, illustrates how a regional city on a strategic corridor can evolve into a cross-border logistics and agro-industrial hub. The Mbeya Region had a population of about 2.34 million in the 2022 census, growing at roughly 3.2 percent annually, with the urban core of Mbeya City reaching an estimated 649,000 residents in 2023. The region is one of Tanzania’s main agricultural “bread baskets”, producing grains, horticulture, and other crops for domestic and export markets.

Mbeya lies on the Central and TAZARA corridors, linking Dar es Salaam to Zambia and onwards to the DRC and other inland markets. Recent analysis of TAZARA highlights how corridor modernisation and rising cargo volumes, including minerals, fuels, fertilisers, and industrial products, have created new economic axes and boosted cities such as Mbeya and Mpika. Freight services now connect ports to inland terminals including Mbeya, making it a logical point for warehousing, consolidation, and value-added processing.

For soft commodities, Mbeya’s combination of agricultural hinterland, rail connectivity, and road links into Malawi and Zambia is strategically powerful. It can host cold-chain facilities for horticulture bound for Europe, storage for grains and fertilisers moving into the region, and regional distribution hubs for consumer goods flowing back along the same routes. For investors, Mbeya offers exposure to both regional food systems and mining-linked demand in neighbouring countries, without the congestion of Dar es Salaam.

Kano, Nigeria: historic trading city, renewed industrial engine

Kano has long been a commercial centre for northern Nigeria and the wider Sahel, and recent initiatives suggest a renewed push to leverage that heritage through industrialisation and logistics upgrading. The wider state connects an estimated population of over 13 million people, linking to neighbouring northern states and cross-border markets. Kano’s economy combines agriculture, livestock, textiles, solid minerals, and a growing base of agro-processing and manufacturing.

Recent reports on Nigeria’s supply-chain strategies emphasise the potential of corridors such as Lagos–Ibadan for consumer goods and Kano–Kaduna for agro-processing, positioning Kano as an anchor for northern value chains. Collaboration between Kano State and major industrial groups is accelerating investments in rice milling, tomato processing, dairy schemes, fertiliser distribution, and logistics, with the explicit aim of creating sustainable supply chains and positioning the region as an export-processing hub.

For logistics providers, Kano’s role as a cross-roads between Nigeria’s populous north, neighbouring countries, and coastal ports like Lagos and Port Harcourt makes it a natural inland hub in hub-and-spoke networks. For UK and European buyers, particularly in agricultural commodities and light manufactured goods, Kano-linked facilities offer access to northern production zones while diversifying away from Lagos-centric risk.

Beira, Mozambique: second port, first-mover corridor city

Beira in Mozambique is a paradigmatic second city and port: not the country’s largest urban centre, but a vital maritime hub and gateway for landlocked neighbours. As Mozambique’s second-largest port, Beira serves Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia, connecting inland mining and agricultural regions to global markets via the Beira Corridor. The corridor comprises both road and rail links, making it a strategic channel for regional economic development.

Recent data indicate strong growth and renewed investment. In the first seven months of 2024, Beira’s general cargo terminal volumes increased by about 24 percent, and the container terminal handled 226,000 containers, a 40 percent rise year-on-year. A planned investment of around 290 million dollars is underway to modernise port infrastructure and reposition Beira as a regional logistics hub, alongside efforts to address bottlenecks at border crossings such as Machipanda.

For shippers and logistics companies, Beira offers a complementary route to Durban and Maputo, reducing distance and congestion for Zimbabwean, Zambian, and Malawian cargo. For European importers of chrome, lithium, tobacco, and agricultural products, partnerships anchored in Beira can enhance route diversity and mitigate over-reliance on a single port system.

Other emerging second-city nodes

Beyond these cases, numerous other second cities are ascending. DHL’s work highlights cities such as Lubumbashi in the DRC, a mining and services hub, and Rabat in Morocco as key examples of second cities underpinning diversified growth. In South Africa, cities like Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) combine port functions with automotive and manufacturing clusters, playing a pivotal role in regional supply chains. In West and Central Africa, secondary ports and interior cities, from Nacala in Mozambique to inland hubs in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, are receiving targeted investments in logistics and industrial infrastructure, reflecting the same structural shift toward polycentric growth.

5. The “blank slate” advantage

Second cities often possess a blank-slate advantage that makes them structurally easier to develop for modern trade and logistics than entrenched megacities. Land is more available, acquisition costs are lower, and land-use conflicts between industry, housing, and services are less intense, enabling more rational spatial planning for logistics and industrial parks.

Many of these cities operate under newer or more flexible zoning regimes, allowing planners to reserve peri-urban land along major corridors for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), industrial parks, and logistics clusters. Greenfield industrial parks in such locations can be designed from the outset to Grade A standards, high clear heights, ample yard space, designed for HGV circulation, with integrated cold-chain and digital systems, rather than retrofitted into constrained urban fabrics. This also facilitates ESG-aligned design, including rooftop solar, water efficiency, and smart energy management, which is particularly important in power-constrained grids and for investors with sustainability mandates.

SEZs and industrial parks in second cities can catalyse export- and regionally-oriented production by offering bundled infrastructure, streamlined regulation, and proximity to both labour and raw materials. One-stop border posts along EAC and SADC corridors, coupled with dry ports in second cities, reduce border delays and customs bottlenecks, making corridor-based production more competitive. In parallel, the emergence of industrial and logistics real estate investment trusts (REITs), infrastructure funds, and private capital vehicles targeting warehousing and park development provides new financing models for these assets.

For investors and developers, the key point is that second cities allow them to deploy modern logistics and industrial platforms at scale, aligned with global standards and sustainability expectations, often at a fraction of the capital and operating expenditure required in saturated metropolitan cores.

6. E-commerce, digital trade and fulfilment geography

Digitalisation is further amplifying the rise of second cities. Mobile money and digital payments have expanded rapidly across Africa, lowering transaction costs and enabling e-commerce platforms to reach customers well beyond capital-city cores. As online marketplaces scale, the geography of fulfilment is shifting: while customer acquisition may remain heavily digital and national in scope, the physical infrastructure of storage, picking, packing, and line-haul optimisation increasingly favours lower-cost, well-connected secondary nodes.

Second cities are attractive locations for e-commerce fulfilment and consolidation hubs for several reasons:

• Lower land and facility costs allow the development of large-scale, modern fulfilment centres with automation and cold chain where needed.

• Labour costs are typically lower than in capitals, with access to a young and growing workforce, particularly in regions like Mbeya and Greater Kumasi where youth populations are rising.

• Location on or near key road and rail corridors makes it easier to serve both urban and rural markets through a mix of trunk routes and last-mile spokes.

AfDB and OECD data highlight the rapid growth of Africa’s urban middle class and digital connectivity, which is driving up demand for consumer goods, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), and fresh produce delivered reliably and affordably. In East Africa, UK and European importers are increasingly working with partners who use regional hubs, such as Eldoret, Nairobi’s periphery, or inland nodes in Uganda and Tanzania, for origin consolidation of coffee, tea, horticulture, and grains, while simultaneously using those hubs as bases for regional e-commerce fulfilment.

In this model, inventory is positioned closer to the customer, both domestic and regional, rather than concentrated in a single capital-city mega-warehouse. For logistics and trade firms, this enables better service levels, shorter delivery times, and more efficient route planning.

7. The logistics industry response: hub-and-spoke networks

The logistics industry is responding to these structural shifts by moving from point-to-point systems to hub-and-spoke network designs. In a point-to-point model, goods flow directly from origin to each destination, which becomes inefficient as the number of markets grows and congestion increases. In a hub-and-spoke model, cargo moves from ports or manufacturing sites to inland hubs (the hubs), where it is consolidated, sorted, or processed before being dispatched along spokes to regional markets.

Africa’s corridors provide tangible examples:

• Mombasa–Eldoret–Kampala: Cargo lands at Mombasa, moves via road or rail to inland depots and hubs around Nairobi and Eldoret, then on to Kampala and beyond, with inland hubs providing customs clearance, consolidation, and even light processing.

• Dar es Salaam–Mbeya–Zambia/DRC: Freight, including minerals and agricultural inputs, moves from the port to inland nodes like Mbeya along the Central and TAZARA corridors, then outwards to Zambia, Malawi, and the DRC through road and rail spokes.

• Lagos–Kano: Consumer goods, industrial inputs, and agro-products move from coastal ports through Nigeria’s road and rail system to Kano, where expanding industrial projects and agro-processing plants create both inbound and outbound flows to northern Nigeria and neighbouring countries.

Hub-and-spoke architectures can deliver several advantages:

• Reduced port-to-shelf times: By clearing and consolidating cargo inland, firms can reduce congestion-induced delays at ports and urban gateways, shortening lead times for deliveries into interior markets.

• Lower leakage and shrinkage: Centralised hubs with better security, inventory management systems, and controlled access help reduce theft and losses compared with multiple small, fragmented facilities.

• Improved reliability and service levels: With inventory pooled in strategically located hubs, logistics providers can balance loads across spokes, smooth disruptions, and offer more predictable delivery windows to manufacturers, retailers, and e-commerce platforms.

DHL’s engagement in second-city logistics and its emphasis on corridor-based strategies signal that global players see hub-and-spoke models anchored on secondary cities as central to Africa’s next phase of integration. Local and regional logistics firms are similarly expanding inland depots, trucking fleets tailored to corridor operations, and digital platforms that coordinate multi-country flows.

8. What this means for businesses and investors

For corporate decision-makers and investors, the rise of second cities demands a recalibration of African footprint strategies.

Logistics companies

Logistics providers need to re-optimise network design, moving key assets from congested capitals to strategically chosen second-city hubs along major corridors. This involves:

• Locating large multi-user warehouses, ICDs, and cross-dock facilities in cities like Eldoret, Kumasi, Mbeya, Kano, and Beira, with smaller spoke depots in tertiary towns.

• Adjusting fleet mix to reflect longer corridor hauls (articulated trucks, rail intermodal) combined with medium-duty vehicles for regional distribution.

• Pursuing partnership models with local developers, SEZs, and industrial parks to secure scalable, modern facilities aligned with customer growth.

The ROI case rests on lower land and rental costs, higher throughput potential thanks to better network geometry, and reduced exposure to megacity disruptions, from strikes and flooding to political unrest.

Manufacturers

Manufacturers should revisit plant-siting strategies, moving away from an almost automatic preference for capital city edges. Second cities on corridors offer:

• Proximity to raw materials (agriculture, minerals) and lower inbound logistics costs.

• Easier access to regional markets under AfCFTA via corridor hubs.

• Reduced concentration risk: a disruption in one coastal or capital market does not paralyse production and distribution.

For example, agro-processing plants near Eldoret, Kumasi, Mbeya, or Kano can serve both national and cross-border demand while accessing export routes through multiple ports, rather than relying on a single congested urban region.

Real estate developers

Industrial and logistics developers have an opportunity to pivot toward second-city parks and modern warehousing. Demand is rising for:

• Industrial and logistics parks with plug-and-play utilities, yard space, and cross-dock facilities in second cities.

• Cold-chain infrastructure linked to agricultural belts and export corridors, supporting horticulture, fisheries, and pharma supply chains.

• Light manufacturing and assembly space serving regional consumer markets.

Industrial and logistics REITs and specialist funds can capture this by building scalable platforms in key nodes, bundling assets across several second cities to create diversified portfolios.

E-commerce firms

E-commerce and omnichannel retailers should design multi-hub fulfilment networks that place major centres in second cities, supplemented by micro-fulfilment facilities closer to dense urban neighbourhoods. Benefits include:

• Lower storage and operating costs per unit of throughput.

• Improved national coverage, as central hubs in cities like Kumasi or Kano can serve multiple regions efficiently.

• Better integration with export logistics for cross-border e-commerce under AfCFTA.

SMEs vs multinationals

Smaller and mid-sized firms often move first into second cities, taking advantage of lower entry costs and niche opportunities. Larger multinationals, once convinced of scale and policy stability, can then standardise networks and replicate successful models across corridors. Early movers can secure prime sites, build brand recognition with local authorities, and shape emerging standards in second-city ecosystems, accruing both financial and strategic arbitrage.

For Safari International Trade’s clients, UK and global companies sourcing from or operating in East and wider Africa, the practical question is not whether second cities matter, but which ones align with their commodity flows, risk profiles, and growth plans. Site selection should explicitly assess:

• Corridor connectivity (road, rail, port access).

• Power and digital infrastructure reliability.

• Labour pool depth and skills.

• Policy frameworks (SEZ incentives, customs procedures, land tenure clarity).

• Partnership ecosystems (developers, logistics partners, local financiers).

Boards should insist that African expansion or consolidation plans include a second-city scenario, not just capital-focused options.

9. Policy, infrastructure and capital allocation implications

Governments and development partners are increasingly recognising that national competitiveness depends on robust second-city and corridor systems, not just flagship capitals. OECD and AfDB analyses show that city clusters and corridors are becoming the backbone of successful regional economies, and that reducing border barriers and improving inter-city connectivity can dramatically increase inter-urban trade.

Public investment is gradually tilting toward corridor infrastructure and inland nodes. Examples include:

• Northern Corridor strategies that stress dry ports and logistics hubs along the route from Mombasa to inland markets, alongside port upgrades.

• Modernisation of TAZARA and associated investments in cities like Mbeya, which create new internal economic axes linking ports to mining and agricultural regions.

• Upgrading of secondary ports and corridors like Beira, where significant capital is being deployed to expand capacity, improve border posts, and reduce transit bottlenecks.

Digital infrastructure, fibre-optic networks, data centres, and mobile connectivity, is also critical, enabling e-commerce, real-time logistics tracking, and digital financial services in second cities. For AfCFTA to reach its potential, regional and national authorities must align transport, power, and digital investments with spatial strategies that deliberately strengthen second-city nodes.

Development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and private capital can play catalytic roles by financing:

• Corridor-defining projects (rail upgrades, dry ports, logistics parks).

• Climate-resilient infrastructure in second cities (flood management, resilient power systems, green logistics).

• Blended finance vehicles for industrial and logistics REITs targeting second-city assets.

Aligning capital allocation with the reality of polycentric growth is a competitiveness strategy: countries that manage to integrate their second cities into coherent trade networks will capture a disproportionate share of regional manufacturing, services, and value-added exports.

10. Conclusion: the new map of African trade

The rise of Africa’s second cities is reshaping the continent’s economic geography. What was once a landscape dominated by a few megacities is becoming a networked system of ports, corridors, and inland hubs where cities like Eldoret, Kumasi, Mbeya, Kano, and Beira play central roles in production, logistics, and consumption. This is not speculative optimism; it is grounded in demographic trends, infrastructure investments, policy shifts, and the concrete behaviour of logistics operators and investors in 2026.

For boards and executive teams, the strategic imperative is to redraw their African maps accordingly. That means revisiting assumptions that tie growth and risk management solely to capitals; stress-testing portfolios and supply chains for exposure to megacity congestion and disruption; and piloting and scaling second-city strategies along key trade corridors relevant to their sectors. It also means engaging specialist partners with on-the-ground expertise in corridor dynamics, regulatory environments, and asset development in second cities.

For firms sourcing soft commodities such as coffee, tea, horticulture, and grains, or investing in light manufacturing and logistics, partners like Safari International Trade & Consultancy can help identify the right second-city nodes, structure corridor-based logistics solutions, and navigate policy and execution risks across UK–East Africa and wider African value chains. In the decade ahead, competitive advantage in African trade will belong to those who understand, and act on, the rise of the second city