Supporting The Implementation Of The New Urban Agenda Through National And Subnational Urban Policies: Burkina Faso, Senegal And Mozambique

Working on an integrated territorial approach as a place-based dimension is an important aspect for implementing the New Urban Agenda and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The development gap between urban and rural needs to be bridge for the good of urban and rural population; the interdependence of rural and urban areas is strong and needs to be considered; there is an urgent need for rethinking and acknowledging the urban-rural continuum of space.

Promoting an integrated territorial development is a crucial step to implementing the New Urban Agenda, improving the livelihood of urban and rural populations and enhancing economic and social development. Bridging the development gap and building up capacities in urban and rural areas is a strong element of reducing poverty, making an impact and leave no one behind.

Related UN Habitat’s main areas of expertise are: National Urban Policies (NUP) within the spatial frameworks: support of the entire NUP and Subnational Urban Policies (SUP) processes from feasibility, diagnostics, formulation and implementation to monitoring and tracking progress; Urban and Territorial Planning, particularly the rolling out, implementation, and monitoring of the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning; Regional, Metropolitan and City-Region Planning including urban-rural linkages and connections of cities, urban development corridors and clusters, green economy and new town development.

Alignment with Global Priorities

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the New Urban Agenda (NUA) as well as several UN-Habitat Governing Council resolutions underscore the need for strong urban-rural linkages and integrated territorial development approaches to achieve goals, reduce poverty and inequality.

In its Strategic Plan 2014 -20191, and in its biannual 2018-2019 Work Plan, UN-Habitat recognizes that through generation, capture and exchange of knowledge, it is positioned as the leading institution in sustainable urbanization and that the success of its programs depends on a large extent on how it generates, manages and uses its knowledge. In this sense, it is trying to reach new levels of excellence in strategic learning and in the generation, management and exchange of knowledge in a combined, shared, effective and systematically applied way.

Priorities in Burkina Faso and Senegal

Burkina Faso and Senegal are facing a big deficit in the planning sector. Those countries need a new integrative approach to city planning that could connect all sectors and types of factors in the search for solution to problems in the various cities and at local, regional and national level. Cities in Burkina Faso and Senegal will probably continue to grow, but the future is always uncertain. Therefore, some official attention needs to be deflected to rural communities, if not to provide jobs, then to improve the income of those involved in agriculture production, the predominant means of rural livelihoods, to reduce the pressure to migrate. Burkina Faso for example as a country have challenges in desertification which will be included in climate resilience and food security strategies of the urban policy. The intentional nationally determined contribution (INDC) in Burkina Faso highlights other climate change challenges include the greenhouse gases issues resulting in droughts and changed rain patterns. In Senegal, the INDC highlights several climate change challenges which include: reduced rainfall, high average temperatures, increased sea levels, water salinity and agricultural production reduction. All these will be considered in the national urban policy assessment and formulation including the development of action frameworks.

In this project, Senegal and Burkina Faso are looking forward also to the attainment of Agenda 2063, a long-term regional agenda to achieve development in five decades. The intervention strategy will be based on the following integrated actions:  Organization of consultations throughout the countries. Various activities on building and reinforcement of capacities, Workshops and seminars in the countries and National Forums and similar events at the local level on NUP.  Further, there is frequent and targeted joint advocacy among the UN agencies in Senegal for increasing awareness about the SDGs – centering them within national development plans and strategies among decision makers and the public. This in turn links strongly to issues specific to children and women.

A National Urban Policy in Burkina Faso and Senegal should be able to create the conditions for sustainable urbanization through the appropriate frameworks which articulate horizontal and vertical coordination and integrate the various aspects of Urban-Rural Linkages.

Priorities in Mozambique

While the urbanization rate in Mozambique kept relatively low (approx. 32%), demographic changes and urban-rural migration have led to urban growth, mostly in an unplanned manner, and is expected to increase. The capital, Maputo, grows fast, and small and intermediate cities across the country are also witnessing population growth and urban sprawl. Rural towns are not prepared for the provision of housing nor basic services and due to weak economic capacities, youth unemployment is on the rise increasing inequalities within urban areas. As cities expand into peri-urban and surrounding rural areas, land formerly used for agricultural production is being consumed by mono-functional residential developments (often informal and that lack adequate basic services). Other issues highlighted in the INDC on climate change pressing needs in Mozambique include salt water intrusion, damage of roads by rainfall, floods in the recent past (2000-2015 more than 4million people affected), increased frequency of tropical cyclones and increased average temperatures.

Development corridors, “metropolitan or territorial strategic plans” and clustering of economic activities are among the strategies in the making. However, a vision and the implementation of strategies and plans still needs to be done. Action frameworks will need to be defined based on sound assessments and in close dialogue with relevant stakeholders. Among the challenges in Mozambique is also the lack of coordination between different sectors as well as planning levels, with local authorities being responsible but not enabled to implement projects and plans. Building local capacity and strengthening this collaboration is therefore among the priorities of the project. The project therefore proposes to focus on supporting Mozambique for achieving SDG 11a through integrated territorial development approach. This project will also follow the UNDAF document for Mozambique (2017-2020). UN-Habitat has previously offered support to Countries like Rwanda and Ghana among others in the development of a National Urban Policy (NUP). These NUPs adhere to the countries’ environmental policy for example by advocating for all environmental concerns to be incorporated in all decision-making about urban development. More importantly the NUP implementation has been made possible through Action Plans. This will be applied for this project in ensuring that the integrated territorial approach is incorporated in policy and action plans.