Capacity Building Workshop for Officials of KCCA and the Proposed New Ugandan Cities on "The UNESCO Cities 2030 Framework"

Abstract

On 8th January 2019, Uganda National Commission for UNESCO convened a meeting for physical planners, town clerks and mayors from the nine municipalities that the Government of Uganda approved for elevation to city status in mid-2018 in a bid to promote regional development. The planned cities include: Fort Portal, Mbarara and Hoima from Western Uganda; Lira, Arua and Gulu from the Northern Region; Mbale and Jinja from the Eastern Region and Entebbe from the Central region. A budget of 130 billion shilling had been reportedly set aside to have them launched after they meet all the requirements set for city status. The Uganda National Commission for UNESCO thus took the initiative to introduce the candidate cities and Kampala City to the "UNESCO Cities 2030 Framework" to discuss the progress of the towns towards becoming cities and make recommendations to prepare them better for the city status. According to the Uganda National Housing and Population Census (2014), the country's urban population was 6,425,013 (17%), against the rural population of 28,430,800 (83%), and, Kampala Capital City population alone was 1,516,210 (UBOS, 2014:21). Countrywide, the official gazette informs that urban areas in 2014 were: City (1), municipalities (22), town councils (174) (ibid, p.10). Meanwhile, the urbanization rate in Uganda at 4.5% per annum is expected to increase. There were indications from the 2014 census that 12 districts which had population above 500,000 people registered very high urban population growth rates. The period between 2002 and 2014, for example, had the Wakiso Town Council recording the highest growth rate (11.9 percent), followed by Hoima Municipality (10.7), Mukono Municipality (10.4), while other urban centers pg. 3 registered growth rates lower than five percent per annum (ibid,p.12). Since population increase in Uganda's urban centers is countrywide, it is likely to accelerate political, economic, social and environmental challenges in all the urban centers and hence the plan to initiate the major municipalities as the up-coming cities into the UNESCO Cities 2030 framework. Globally, the challenges of urbanization include inadequate housing, poverty, crimes, food insecurity, unemployment and environmental problems. The growth of cities around the world is one of the defining megatrends of our time. Yet the huge social, economic, and environmental transformations that have resulted continue to pose fresh and urgent challenges to policymakers and government at all levels. The social and human sciences have a crucial role to play in enabling responses to these challenges by empowering policymakers with the information, understanding, and expertise to engage in the evidence-based policymaking needed to manage this profound social transformation, fully realize its potential benefits to communities and nations, and commit to the Global Goal to "leave no one behind". To meet SDG 11's call to create cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, policy makers need to grapple with problems related to increasing inequality, discrimination, residents' physical and mental well- being, the impacts of climate change, as well as the provision of infrastructure, public services and decent work - all of which are core components of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. UNESCO is working together with national and local governments, civil society, and the research community to develop policies, research initiatives and operational projects - from rejuvenating public space through sport to exploring large- scale rural-urban migration that will build inclusive, healthy, and resilient cities, free from all forms of discrimination. Cities are coming to represent an ever-greater share of human experience, but if we do not understand them, we cannot make them work. Urban communities can create sustainable and harmonious societies that embody the principles of social justice, ecological resilience, economic productivity, political participation, and cultural vibrancy. Learning to live together sustainably in cities and communities is one of the most important challenges of our time. The International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities - ICCAR is an initiative launched by UNESCO in March 2004 to establish a network of cities interested in sharing experiences in order to improve their policies to fight racism, discrimination, xenophobia and exclusion. There are also frameworks like:- the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) and the Global Network of Learning Cities Networks (GNLC). There are various international conventions, recommendations or declarations elaborated at the upstream level that need to be ratified and implemented by the Member States. UNESCO chose cities as the privileged space to link upstream and downstream actions. The role of city authorities as policy-makers at the local level, is considered here as the key to create dynamic synergies. Implementation of SDG 11 will help to contribute to attainment of other SDGs like 1, 3,4,5,10,13, 16 and 17.