HABITAT III: Abuja Dialogue to Focus on Africa’s Priorities for New Urban Agenda

Ministers for Housing and Urban Development in Africa will converge on Abuja next week to dialogue on ‘Africa’s Priorities for the New Urban Agenda’ at the Africa Regional Preparatory Conference for the forthcoming United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III).

The Africa Regional Conference to HABITAT III will take place from February 24-26 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

According to the organisers, President Muhammadu Buhari would be on hand to lead deliberations that will chart a sustainable path for Africa’s urban future.

The Habitat III conference, scheduled to hold in Quito, Ecuador in October this year, will be next in the 20-year cycle of global summits convened to address the growing challenges arising from unprecedented urbanisation, notably in Africa and other developing regions of the world.

The year, 2016 will mark forty years since the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements was held in Vancouver, Canada. In 1996, the Second United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development, Habitat II was held, in Istanbul, which culminated in the adoption of the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements and the birth of a Habitat Agenda.

This Habitat Agenda was set out to implement goals and principles, for achieving adequate shelter for all and, the development of sustainable human settlements in an urbanising world.

Twenty years later, the member States are reviewing and taking stock of progress made in the area of sustainable human settlements, but also devising strategies for tackling persistent and emerging challenges as well as exploiting opportunities for systemic change. Building on Habitat I and Habitat II, the United Nations General Assembly has mandated the United Nations Secretary General through Resolution 66/207, to convene the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Urban Development (Habitat III) in 2016, while Resolution 67/216 spells out the modalities, preparatory activities and format of the conference.

Habitat III which will be held from 18 to 23 October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador comes after the adoption of the global Agenda 2030, and offers a unique opportunity for the global community to agree on a “New Urban Agenda” that will reflect the current realities and emerging opportunities and challenges presented by the urbanisation process globally.

Abuja Conference… The Abuja Regional Preparatory Conference will be the second in the series of regional summits expected to harvest regional priorities that will ultimately form the new global urban agenda. The first in the series of regional summits, the Habitat III Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting, was held in October last year in Jakarta, Republic of Indonesia.

A statement by the UN said, “Today, half of the world’s population is living in cities, compared with less than five percent a century ago, with projections indicating that by 2050 as many as 6.4 billion people, or 70% of the world’s total population will be living in urban centres.

With 95% of this expansion expected to take place in developing countries - mostly in Asia and Africa - there has emerged a leadership imperative to address the challenges of rapid urbanisation in a sustainable way.

“While Africa is the least urbanized region today with an urban population of just under 40%, it is the fastest urbanizing with a 4.5% rate.

It is projected that in less than eight years, the urban population of Africa will be larger than the total population of Europe and larger than the urban population of Latin America and the Caribbean combined. UN between 2010 and 2050, the number of Africa’s urban dwellers will increase from 400 million to 1.26 billion – greater than the current total population of the continent and nearly a quarter of the world’s projected urban population.”

The statement said Nigeria’s national population growth, estimated at about 3.2 per cent, has been characterised by an even higher growth rate in the urban population, which at 3.97%, has seen the proportion of urban dwellers rising from 10.6% of total population in 1953 to 19.1% in 1963, 35.7% in 1991 and 48.2% in 2006.

The 2006 National Population Census projected the urban population in Nigeria at 50 per cent of total population by 2015, a figure expected to rise to 60% by 2025. Currently, than 1000 cities boast of populations of 20,000 and above, while no fewer than 19 cities have at least one million residents.

In order to ensure an effective African representation in the evolving urban agenda, the Federal Government had supported the articulation of a credible Africa Common Position (CAP) by funding the Africa Urban Agenda (AUA) Programme in UN-Habitat, which was inaugurated in 2014, to the tune of $3million.

The AUP was conceived as a means of enhancing engagement between state and non-state actors and building consensus around identified housing and urban development priorities towards amplifying Africa’s voice at the global level towards HABITAT III.

The organisers said the Abuja meeting, which will be hosted by the Minister for Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Raji Fashola, would begin with no fewer than 15 Pre-events on Monday, February 22, which will followed by an Expert Group Meeting on Wednesday February 23 and culminate in the high-level Ministerial segment from February 24 to 26 at the International Conference Centre in the Federal Capital.

The meeting, besides deliberating on the best ways to consolidate Africa’s Position on Habitat III, will present an opportunity to articulate the continent’s common position on the 2030 Development Agenda and the Africa Agenda 2063 Vision.

Other dignitaries expected at the summit include the UN Under-Secretary General and UN-Habitat Executive Director, Dr. Joan Clos; Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin; Executive Secretary of the United Nations Econommic Commission for Africa, Dr Carlos Lopez; President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina; Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H. E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma; and, the Commissioner for Political Affairs at the Africa Union Commission, Dr. Aisha Laraba Abdullahi.