CHAPTER THREE LITERATURE REVIEW
3.2. The call for a “new urban agenda”
At the seventh World Urban Forum (WUF) held in April 2014 in Medellin, Columbia, global leaders deliberated on the most pressing challenges facing cities and towns all over the world.
According to the UN-Habitat (2014a: 2), participants at this international forum unanimously acknowledged the urgent need to promote what is now branded as a “new urban agenda”. It is this agenda that the UN-Habitat (2014a: 2) argues will have to overcome the challenge of the lack of adequate legal frameworks and planning which has until today resulted in the “relentless expansion of cities, intensive energy use, alarming and dangerous climate change impacts, multiple forms of inequality and exclusion, and increased difficulties in providing decent work for all”. In further unpacking what this new agenda will require, the UN-Habitat’s (2014a: 2) Medellin’s Declaration includes a “participatory planning approach that responds to present and emerging needs of the cities of the future” and “urban planning that promotes sustainable development”.
The call for a new urban agenda by the international development community at the WUF is most interesting in that it recognizes the need to rethink and re-prioritize action as the 2015 deadline for the MDGs fast approaches. In preparing for post-2015, many international organizations including the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, UCLG, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Cities Alliance and UN-Habitat have all actively pursued the case for “a more holistic approach to sustainable urban development, where social, economic and environmental/ spatial aspects should be intimately connected through a stand-alone Urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)” (UN-Habitat, 2014a: 2). Over the last year great strides have been made, and an Open Working Group on the SDGs was established with a fundamentally
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revised set of 17 goals drafted, with point of departure being that “the MDGs were in many ways palliative; they were not radical, transformative goals” (Munang & Andrews, 2014: 5). At the time of finalizing this chapter, the UN General Assembly at its September 2015 Sustainable Development Summit had just adopted the 17 SDGs and its related 169 targets (United Nations, 2015).
The new agenda, it is argued, is one that is radical and transformative. But what are the key levers that have been identified to trigger the change? It is encouraging to observe the assertion in UN- Habitat’s (2014a: 2) concept note on urban planning, of the critical role city governments themselves can play in contributing to this new urban agenda by “developing improved policies, plans and designs for more compact, socially inclusive, better integrated and connected cities that foster sustainable urban development and are resilient to climate change”. On the international development stage, it is certainly becoming clear that old responses to new challenges are no longer effective, and that city governments will have to take the lead in developing better plans for more sustainable urban development. Moving beyond rhetoric, this assertion took expression in the form of a dedicated and stand-alone city-focused Sustainable Development Goal 11 and related 7 targets aimed at making “cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” (United Nations, 2015: 26).
How does this new international movement for change, however, resonate on the African continent and what does this mean for planning and sustainable development in African cities? These are fundamentally important questions as recent empirical studies in African cities are showing that Africa’s urbanization is occurring without socio-economic and environmental benefits and requires a radical re-thinking (Cobbinah et al., 2015). In acknowledging this challenge, the third State of the African Cities Report released by the UN-Habitat and its partners, makes an impassioned plea is made to begin to “re-imagine the African city” by creating new paradigms for a more modern African urbanism (UN-Habitat, 2014b: 39). Furthermore, it is acknowledged that now, more than never before in the continent’s history, there is an opportunity to develop an inclusive vision that is appropriate to address the current and future needs of African cities (UN- Habitat, 2014b).
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This third State of the Cities Report, in unpacking some of the majorly significant transitions, ranging from demographic, economic, environmental, technological to socio-political argues that such transformations “invite a complete rethinking of current developmental trajectories, so as to further facilitate and sustain Africa’s strategic repositioning in the world” (UN-Habitat, 2014b:
18). What is most pertinent for this research project, however, is the acknowledgment by these international agencies that whilst this new vision may incorporate some aspects of “western models”, a new African model that embraces informality, whilst planning for sustainability needs to be developed (UN-Habitat, 2014b). It is worth highlighting the sentiments of the Under- Secretary General of the UN here, who points to the importance of appreciating the value of shared contexts that prompt the need for much greater cooperation amongst African cities:
One thing is of particular importance in this context. Cities are not stand-alone entities.
They are all part and parcel of often shared geographical, social, environmental and political contexts. Given that many of the challenges ahead are of a trans-boundary nature, this report seeks to stimulate local, national and regional cooperation among African cities and nations to re-imagine shared approaches to urban development and capture the most effective interventions to facilitate sustainable urban and other transitions in Africa.
(UN-Habitat, 2014b: 3)
In reflecting on what is being said about contemporary African city development, two important points are relevant for this research project. The first is the need to begin to pay more careful attention to how the cities in the case study are responding to these new challenges, and whether bold responses that embed participatory and sustainable practices are being crafted in the mentor city that serve to inspire and catalyze action in the mentee cities. It also speaks to the nature of urban strategic planning processes in African cities and whether these are powerful and focused enough to bring about the transformation that is envisioned – the focus of the second thematic area in this literature review. The second point is the latest acknowledgement by international developmental agencies on the urgent need for African cities to co-operate, work together and learn from each other as they begin to craft new and more sustainable responses to the current
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development challenges facing them. This aspect of city-to-city learning is the focus of the second thematic area in the review.