Invited papers of the Habitat Professionals Forum
Professor Adepoju G. Onibokun,
Secretary General and Chief Executive,
Centre for African Settlement Studies (CASSAD)
The World Report has successfully and succinctly presented an analysis of the
issues, problems and challenges in our urban centres in the 21st century. The
problems are more
complex in the developing nations, particularly in Africa. On virtually all the
major indicators of development - overcrowding, housing quality housing
amenities, infrastructure accessibility, education, per capita income,
nutrition, life expectancy, under 5 child mortality, infant mortality, etc.-
most African nations are, at present, at the bottom
of the ladder. Life expectancy (now below 50 for both female and male) is on the
decline. In most of the urban centres the absolute poor/hard core poor
constitute the
overwhelming majority. The urban centres are decaying without any tangible
programme of rehabilitation; the new urban peripheries, which are sprawling at a
fast rate, emerge in an unplanned manner without the necessary infrastructure
and amenities. The problems have become more pervasive due to bad governance and
poor urban management and the lack of adequate technical capacity, ability and
arrangements in place in most of these countries.
If our attitude to urban management remains as carefree as it is at present,
today's urban problems will be child's play when compared with the urban
problems of the 21st century. Unless we drastically change our agricultural and
rural development policy, a higher tempo of rural-urban migration will create
rural de-population and will lead to
lowered agricultural productivity which will in turn exacerbate the problems of
urban poverty, unemployment and under-employment. To move forward and lay a
solid foundation for African cities of the 21st century, urban management styles
and approaches have to change. A new era of strong local governance, a new era
of participatory democracy at the local level and a new era of meaningful
decentralization with people in cities and towns exercising a great deal of
self-rule must be encouraged and entrenched.
The African Cities in the 21st Century will require a new set of managers
trained in the new science of urban management, with high technical skill in
electronic applications to urban planning and development. The old mainframe
urban planners will no longer be
relevant in the 21st African Cities. As evident from the World Report, four
giant industries - computers, consumer electronics, communications and
information - will be critical to the management of cities in the 21st century.
On each of these four Africa is far behind the other nations facing similar
challenges of urbanization. Unless we act now, the lack of efficient
communications will be one of the greatest barriers to the efficient management
of African Cities in the 21st Century.
I agree with the World Report that local initiatives will become critical in
the management of cities in the 21st century. In pursuit of local initiatives,
close cooperation and collaboration should be forged involving the public,
private and popular sectors (the last including NGOs, CBOs and individuals). The
collaboration is to be based on the
principle that all sectors are inter-dependent in the sense that each needs the
others to benefit maximally from the development process. I also agree with the
World Report that the participatory approach should be one of the approaches to
be adopted in tackling the problem of urban poverty in Nigeria. All hands must
be on deck to provide satisfying
jobs for the teeming population in our urban centres for without jobs, any
fee-for-service programme will be a mirage and will eventually fail. The World
Report rightly concluded that, in the 21st century, the private sector
involvement in urban development would be very critical. One of the grains
running through the Habitat Agenda is the need to
encourage private and popular participation in urban development. But like most
other good intentions of governments, the pursuance of this laudable objective
still hangs in the air. Yet with the dwindling revenue of government, and the
suspect status of most government-driven and government-executed projects in
terms of their sustainability,
private and private participation is not only desirable but also necessary.
The Habitat Professional Forum has a great role to play in meeting the 21st
Century challenges. Here are few of the roles:
- Mobilizing policy makers for a better appreciation and understanding of
the issues/challenges involved in meeting the present and future needs of the
urban centres.
- Generating, through research, and disseminating the information which will
serve as the basis for a meaningful advocacy for sustainable urban development
in the 21st Century.
- Championing the capacity building for the various practitioners in the built
environment (planners, architects, urban sociologists, urban management
information specialists, municipal engineers, etc.) to enable them to be in
position to provide the needed leadership.
- Sensitizing, through appropriate networking and advocacy, the international
communities, particularly the development agencies and governments in the
advanced industrial society, to support thw developing countries by enhancing
their access to revenue through debt cancellation, technical aid provision,
supporting fair trade
practices, and their refusal to aid and abet corruption in the third world
countries, etc. It is a great omission that the world report did not highlight
the negative implications of the heavy debt burden which has been crippling the
economy of many of the developing countries in Africa.
- Promoting effective urban management through demonstrative pilot projects;
promotion of best practices; and ensuring good ethics among practicing
professionals.
- The World Report has presented the facts and offered concrete recommendations
on how to achieve improved quality of life in the urban centres of the 21st
Century. However, this should be the beginning - a mean to an end; not the end
by itself. The end
result is to set the machinery in motion that will ensure that the laudable
recommendations contained in the World Report will lead to concrete action in
the different nations. The Habitat Professionals Forum should be prepared to
champion this cause.
- To move the cities of the 21st Century forward, we need to pull the people at
the Centre - we need to accept the fact that the citizens are the essential
building block of sustainable urban development. In many societies bad
governance, ethic and tribal
tensions, top-bottom approach to policy and programme initiation and
implementation, lack of accountability and transparency in governance have led
to loss of people confidence in government, have greatly eroded democratic,
pluralistic and participatory
spirit and the result is apathy. Apathy kills initiative, slows down drive,
promotes resistance to change, breeds breakdown of law and order, hinders
municipal revenue generation, which in turn weakens the strength of municipal
government and limits the
ability of municipal government to meet basic needs of their electorates. The
vicious circle must be broken through the entrenchment of participatory
democracy and shared governance.
The Habitat Professional Forum has a significant role to play in
achieving these objectives.
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