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Harmonious cities require pro-poor, inclusive and equitable urban planning - 2008/2009 State of World’s Cities Report
Selling sugarcane to supplement income
 
Drawing water from a kiosk in Mchesi
 
A journalist interviews a Mchesi resident
 
Washing utensils in Mchesi
 

No proper management of waste water in Mchesi.

Lilongwe, 23 October 2008 - Every morning, as Mayeso crosses a road from his home to his employ, and steps into another world within his own city. He is a gardener in Lilongwe’s Area 47, an absolute contrast of his dwellings in Mtandile squatter settlement - from chaos to order, from congestion and dirt to paved road and manicured gardens, from despair to hope and from a world of poverty to a world of plenty. He spends the day manicuring and watering gardens, while back in Mtandile, his wife has to walk a long distance to get water for drinking, cooking and washing at a high price.

In Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, the situation is not different. Upstream the Mudi River, the river meanders through Blantyre’s industries. Downstream, Naliyera is busy drawing water for washing and cooking, oblivious of industrial effluent and sewage that is discharged into the stream, which can no longer nourish aquatic life.

These contradictions in cities are the focus of the 2008/09 State of the World’s Cities Report whose theme is Harmonious Cities, launched today to precede the World Urban Forum, which commences on 3 November in Nanjing, China.

The Report illustrates the glaring contrasts in the distribution of social services. In many cities, wealth and poverty coexist in close proximity: rich, well-serviced neighbourhoods are often situated near dense peri-urban communities that lack clean water, sanitation, clean energy sources inhibiting populations to progress healthily. A harmonious city distributes social services equitably. High levels of urban inequality are socially destabilizing and economically unsustainable. The Report calls for focused and targeted investments and interventions to significantly improve the lives of slum dwellers.

Harmony in cities cannot be achieved if the price of urban living is paid by the environment. Cities that are not properly planned or managed can be a burden on natural resources and can easily threaten the quality of the air and water, thereby negatively impact the natural and living environment.

The 2008/09 State of the World Cities Report calls for commitment to pro-poor inclusive urban development that ensures:

  • Government policies promote convergence of leading and lagging regions and cities, supporting further development in the former and dealing with asymmetrical growth and regional disparities in the latter.
  • Governments adopt pro-poor growth policies and reforms by designing interventions in those sectors and areas in which poor people earn their living and where economic development faces distributional challenges.
  • Governments adopt policies to enhance energy efficiency  related to the functionality of the city, such as public transport and anti-sprawl policies that improve the quality of the environment without impairing economic growth and
  • Governments adopt policies to protect intangible assets, such as cultural heritage, and create social spaces that contribute to ‘humanising’ cities.

For Malawi
The report shows that 1,468,000 Malawians lived under slum conditions in 2005 representing 66.4% of the total urban population. The report also finds that slum incidence is very high in small cities and towns in Malawi as well as in the capital Lilongwe and in Blantyre : 67% of the urban population living in small cities and towns in Malawi are slum households and 61% of the urban population living in the capital Lilongwe and Blantyre are slum households.

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Editor’s notes:
1. A slum household according to UN-HABITAT definition is a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following five conditions: durable housing, sufficient living area, access to improved water, access to sanitation, secure tenure.

2. A few figures on urban population are provided, based on National Statistical Office, Demographic and Health Survey 2004. Click here to view the comprehensive figures

3.To download the report, go to http://www.un-habitat.org/

 

For more details, contact John Chome UN-HABITAT Programme Manager, (office) 01 770 133, (cell) 08 714 617 or john.chome@undp.org