Daniel Mutegi: Our cities should create jobs and generate wealth
Scenes at Africities Summit as delegates arrive for the 9th edition of the five-day conference at the Jomo Kenyatta International Stadium in Kisumu.
Kisumu is hosting the ninth Africities Summit from under the theme, ‘The role of intermediary cities of Africa in the implementation of Agenda 2030 of the United Nations and 2063 of the African Union’.
Intermediary cities are urban areas whose population ranges between 50,000 and a million. Kisumu has a population of 379,000, though the Lake region has a population of 10 million or 27 per cent of the Kenyan population.
Globally, intermediary cities are home to 20 per cent or one third of all urban population worldwide.
Intermediary urban areas have the potential to provide housing and other basic necessities cheaply and effectively because they have ample land, more than the metropolitan urban areas, and they are effective in linking urban and rural areas.
Kisumu, which is strategically located on the shores of Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world, whose catchment area of Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda has a population of 35 million people and a GDP of US$ 30 billion, can be exploited further through strategic investments to generate more employment opportunities.
Financing models
Intermediary urban areas in Kenya have to shoulder the burdens of their hinterlands, generate wealth, employment opportunities and provide goods and services under constrained budgets.
The Africities Summit should harness our actions to reap the benefits of sustainable urbanisation, cognizant of the fact that by 2050 the bulk of African population will be living in urban areas, majorly in intermediary cities.
This should be followed with deliberate efforts at improving socio-economic and political aspects to realise urbanisation dividends. Realistic urbanisation approaches backed by accurate data analysis and complemented by development of financing models like Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), energy efficient and low carbon production models should be encouraged.
There is need for detailed planning, management and sustainable financing of urban areas to address the many challenges faced therein, including the youth bulge.
Thirdly, urbanisation presents immense opportunities to accelerate progress towards our common development agenda 2030 and 2063 through promoting continental integration through trade, generating employment opportunities and mass transit connectivity options through infrastructure and smart management systems; and through urban zoning and specializations with private investments.
Dr. Daniel Mutegi Giti, Nairobi.
