Support To The African Ministerial Conference On Housing And Urban Development (Amchud) Secretariat

As the "City Agency of the United Nations" and the only organization whose mandate is to promote sustainable human settlements, UN-HABITAT has both normative and operational roles to play in this process, the challenge of urbanization and the overall management of African cities being a strategic objective of AMCHUD. UN-HABITAT as a facilitator has the primary role to develop norms and values that foster inclusiveness and collective engagement in addressing issues of land, shelter, employment, poverty, and target the reform of institutional and organizational systems and processes, including decentralization and municipal reforms so as to promote sustainability and effectiveness. Further, in line with the Bamako declaration and relevant resolutions of the Governing council, UN-HABITAT should support the secretariat of AMCHUD with its expertise. Based on its rich and successful experience in managing global frameworks such as the World Urban Forum, and the Governing council, the Agency has developed capacities and techniques, which should be useful to strengthen AMCHUD as an institution, including its secretariat. The growing public awareness on issues of land, shelter, employment, poverty, and the increased preoccupation at policy level with decentralization and municipal reforms bring to prominence the urgency of addressing the challenge of rapid urbanization in Africa. No doubt, the fast pace of urbanization in Africa has a bearing on the strategies that need to be put in place with the aim at eradicating poverty, improving governance, stimulating local economic development and promoting human development. UN-HABITAT has been able to demonstrate that the combined population of African cities will double in the next two decades, as over 200 million additional people, mostly from the countryside will look for a residence in Africa's cities. Whereas at current levels of urbanization, and with distinct variations across regions. an average of 70% of the urban population in sub-Saharan Africa are slum dwellers, the doubling of the population poses a major challenge not only for shelter delivery and modalities of governance, but also for ensuring adequate water, sanitation and basic infrastructure, security, social services, means of livelihoods and for combating major pandemics particularly HIV-AIDS. Recent surveys have indicated that only 19% of the urban population in Africa is connected to the water networks and 7.5% linked to the sewerage system. It is the informal sector that provides a means of livelihood for 78% of the urban labour force in this region. At the same time, the region is still handicapped by weak capacities of local governance and despite the measures taken to undertake a decentralization of functions in In many countries, a commensurate transfer of resources has not been effected. It is a fact that each of the prevailing urban problems described above has been a subject of discussion at various levels of governance, including at the ministerial level in many countries in Africa. Several governments have even put in place national programmes relating to these commitments.