Fashola charts new course for sustainable cities

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, yesterday called on African leaders to chart a new course for the continent in the development of its cities and towns.

Fashola, who spoke at the ongoing HABITAT III Africa Regional Conference meeting holding in Abuja, stated that the surest way to make African cities and towns places of opportunity and prosperity was for the leaders to provide critical infrastructure.

The theme of the regional meeting is “Africa’s Priorities for the New Urban Agenda” and the aim is to chart a clear path towards a sustainable urban future for Africa and Africans. The meeting, which is being hosted by the Federal Government, is held to prepare ground for the 3rd United Nations Conference on Housing and sustainable Urban Development, called HABITAT III conference. As part of strategies to make cities habitable for the people, he urged African leaders to define maximum standard achievable in the areas of provision of critical infrastructure.

“There are universal minimum standards for things like road traffic and healthcare, which we should embrace, but we as Africans, need to consider how we define the maximum standards achievable – not minimum. Africa must reach for the best the world has to offer. “Indeed no city can grow properly without robust infrastructure solutions, without good roads and bridges, affordable housing and decent schools. Without constant electricity, clean water and clever town planning. “We must therefore see the utilisation of infrastructure as critical tools of containment on one hand, and management on the other hand as we have done with the realities of decades of urbanisation and its challenges,” he said.

The minister expressed the confidence that the regional conference would produce far reaching policy recommendations and a clear-cut set of declarations that would enrich the New Urban Agenda and bring visible profit to Africa. In his opening statement, the UN-HABITAT Executive Director, Dr. Joan Clos, stated that with proper planning, urbanisation was capable of creating pathway to development. According to him, good urbanisation will be one of the most significant and crucial transformations that will change the way of lives of millions of African people.

Clos added: “The discussions we are going to have today and tomorrow here in Africa will be crucial in consolidating the transformative power of sustainable urban development for Africa. “The meeting offers an extra-ordinary opportunities to assess together the great opportunities that good urbanisation provides to the unprecedented economic and urban transformations that the African continent is going through.”