Africa will get help with overwhelming challenges of urbanization – UN agency

The United Nations housing agency, the European Commission and several African governments have pledged to collaborate more in tackling the problems stemming from urban sprawl and largely unplanned cities in the continent.

At a three-day regional workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, representatives of 16 African countries, the EC, the European Union’s executive arm, and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) agreed that the overwhelming challenges of rapid urbanization could only be addressed by partnerships.

UN-HABITAT said Africa needed to develop sustainable human settlements that would include the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by protecting the environment, providing good infrastructure and promoting economic growth, social equity, poverty reduction and cultural and ethnic tolerance.

“Africa now has the world’s highest urbanization rates with an annual rate of urban growth of about 4 per cent – almost twice that of Latin America and Asia,” it said. “Currently, 37 per cent of the total African population lives in cities, but the figure is expected to rise to 53 per cent by 2030.”

The participants said urgent help was needed with housing policy formulation, urban planning and management, environmental urban management, collecting and analyzing urban development indicators and statistics, participatory urban governance, decentralization and strengthening of local authorities, and housing and infrastructure finance.

The problems that needed addressing also included post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction, urban safety, urban-rural linkages, safe water supplies, adequate sanitation, preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and enhancing its treatment.