For sustainable cities, Africa needs planning

Africa’s cities are growing very rapidly. By 2050, it is projected that over 1.2 billion people (60 percent of all Africans) will live in urban areas. For the UN’s Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the challenges are to help Africans to better harness the productive potential of their cities and to cope with the increased demands for municipal services and decent housing, so that more and more people are not obliged to crowd into impoverished slum areas.

In an interview with Africa Renewal, Dr. Joan Clos, a former mayor of Barcelona, Spain, and since 2010 the executive director of UN-Habitat, touched on key issues that need be addressed in Africa. These include: urban planning, slum upgrading, land tenure reform, local government empowerment and urban governance.

According to Clos, what Africa needs is a pro-active approach, of national governments developing national urban policies to cope with the challenging future of African cities.

Full Story: Africa Renewal

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This article is culled from daily press coverage from around the world. It is posted on the Urban Gateway by way of keeping all users informed about matters of interest. The opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and in no way reflects the opinion of UN-Habitat.