ONE UN - United for Change Translating Africa's Urban Position into Transformative Actions (WUF13)

Distinguished Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our session on transforming Africa's urban position into transformative action.
My name is Hakka bata.
I'm the expert on decentralization, local governance, and urban development with the African Union.
We are gathering here at a pivotal Memon moment and 2026 is a notable and a special year.
We are ten years into the implementation of the new Urban agenda that was adopted by member states in Ecuador in 2016.
If I'm to take you back on Africa's history, early this year, African member states, Head of States gathered in Addis Aba under the theme access to water and sanitation, which they considered to be very, very pivotile towards Africa's transformation.
By default, or coincidentally, SDG six on access to water and sanitation is one of the goals which were under review this year.
And later in April 2026, Africa gathered in Nairobi, Kenya to hold its second Africa Urban Forum under the theme, adequate housing for all, advancing socio economic and environmental transformation towards the realization of Agenda 2063.
From that forum, ladies and gentlemen, we had an outcome document which was advocating or emphasizing that we should move away from dialogue, from political commitments that are based on theory to now move on to action.
And later that month, we also had a forum on Africa's resilience and sustainable development in Adis Aba Ethiopia, under which we have SDG six under review and SDG 11 on cities and communities under review and industrialization and technology under review.
We are here at the Africa Urban Forum today to ramp up or amplify our voices on how we think Africa should move ahead to advance.
With those few introductory remarks, I bring to stage the Head of Governance and Human Rights from the African Union Commission, who's also the Secretariat for the African Union Specialized Technical Committee on Public Service, local governance, decentralization and urban development.
Mr.
Isaka Gaba Abdul, to welcome us to this session.
Thank you so much.
Welcome, Mr.
Isaka.
Thank you, Gao.
Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
It is a great honor to welcome you all to this important side event convened under the the United for Change, translating Africa's urban position into transformative actions.
On behalf of the African Union Commission, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable collaboration and technical expertise of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and UN Habitat in strengthening Africa's Urban policy discourse and Continental Coordination on Sustainable Urban Development.
The first and second Africa Urban Forums hosted respectively in Ethiopia and Kenya produce landmark continental outcomes.
The Addis Ababa Declaration and the Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Urbanization and housing.
These platform have become foundational in shaping Africa's development while advancing the implementation of Agenda 2063, the New Urban Agenda, and the sustainable development goals.
Excellence is distinguished participant.
Urbanization on our continent is no longer a distant trends.
It is an accelerating present reality.
Our cities are engine of economic growth, center of innovation, a space where our citizens aspirations are being realized.
Yet they also remain marked by stark inequalities like informal settlement, infrastructure deficit, housing shortage, and climate vulnerability.
At the First Africa Urban Forum held in Addis Ababa, African Union member states spoke with one unified voice.
Urbanization is irreversible, and it must be deliberately harnessed to drive Africa's structural transformation.
This commitment is firmly anchored in Agenda 2063, our continental blueprint, which are visions, cities and human settlement as hub of inclusive growth, resilience, and prosperity.
However, across continental platforms, like the African Climate Summit, the Africa Urban Forum, and the Africa Regional Forum of Sustainable Development, the message is clear.
The challenge is no longer defining our vision, it is ensuring implementation.
The consensus is decisive.
We must move from commitment to delivery, from frameworks to financing, and from coordination to measurable results.
This is why the Second Africa Urban Forum has prioritized developing the Africa Urbon position not as another declaration, but as the Continental implementation framework.
That align with policy, finance, data, and governance system to support our cities as engine of socioeconomic transformation.
Distinguished participants at the Second Africa Urban Forum held in Nairobi, Africa consolidates its position with strong emphasis on adequate housing as a driver of socioeconomic and environmental transformation.
Yet cities cannot deliver on these ambitions without the right tool and enabling system.
So first, we have three critical priorities.
First, empower local government.
Cities are the front line of implementation.
They require a stronger mandate, enhance capability, fiscal capacities, and also access to sustainable financing.
Second, unlock sustainable urban finance.
This means expanding municipal fiscal space, strengthening domestic resource mobilization and also leveraging innovative financing instrument from climate finance to public private partnership.
And third, accelerate digital transformation.
As the state of urbanization in Africa, 2024 report highlights, digital technologies are foundational, not optional.
They are enabled to better planning through data system, improve service delivery through e governance, and greater transparency and accountability and stronger citizen engagement.
Yet infrastructure gap, affordability challenge, and digital skills deficit continue to limit this potential.
This side event is then a call to action, a call to strengthen multi level governance and coordination, a call to build bankable urban project and investment pipelines, and also scale up digital solution that work in Africa cities and ensure accountability for implementation.
We count on our technical partners, the UN ECA and the UN habitat to continue supporting member states through expertise, data system, financing framework.
We count also on our mayors and city leaders to drive innovation or ground.
And we count on all stakeholders here to move decisively from dialogue to delivery.
So let's use this platform to share ideas and also demonstrate that Africa is not only defining its urban fixture, it is actively building it.
I thank you for your attention.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Iska, for the opening remarks.
Indeed, Africa's problems or urbanization is already defined.
Now what we need is to act to see how do we implement this.
Now I want us to bring this conversation based on evidence to demonstrate our urbanization trends.
At this point in time, I would like to call Mr.
Thomas imman, who's the data specialist with the UN Economic Commission for Africa, to give us a picture of how Africa has been faring in the implementation of SDG 11 across all the targets.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome onstage, Mr.
Thomas.
Good morning, distinguished guests, partners, colleagues, and mayors.
It is a pleasure to contribute to this side event.
I my presentation will focus on African Urban window, and I want to provide data informed policy point for our discussion.
My presentation highlights where Africa stands on unselected SDDG 11 dimensions.
For example, including slum population, public transport, urban sprawl, and some environmental issues like solid waste collection and air pollution.
African urbanization has a unique pattern.
It is a paradox that Africa is urbanizing faster than any other region in the globe, but it is not materializing.
With productive jobs, and it is marked with informality and it is not accompanied by productive jobs.
But this give us also an opportunity for acceleration of transformative actions, expanding markets, and generating productive jobs.
When we deliver urbanization as planned, governed, invested.
It has a rippling effect in other SDDG 11 goals.
SDG 11 is directly linked to other 11 SDDG goals, investing in urbanization and planning urbanization, which can deliver proper structured and effective service delivery to the citizens of any city.
When we move to the continental picture to sub regional dimensions, African, uh, African urbanization has many challenges in different contexts.
For the North, they have different urbanization challenges, which is different from the south and the east and the North.
We see that different bottlenecks and different challenges are present in sub regions of Africa.
This means that we need a territorial planning and contextualized solution for each sub region.
When we see each dimension deeply, there is informality in Africa, but in the past ten years only showed a marginal decline.
With regard to percentage.
The share of Islam population has declined, but the absolute numbers of Islam dwellers has dramatically increased.
Also, it is not even within sub regions.
Some sub regions like Central Africa actually has a dramatic increase in the past ten years.
The other challenge or the other dimension of SDG 11 is urban sprawl.
African urban area is expanding in a significantly faster rate than its population.
So we see that many Africa cities sprawling across many areas.
This results in diminishing service delivery, providing infrastructure, and even transportation services.
This is indicated by very low access to public transport in walking distance.
The African average is 29.3% only of the population have only access to convenient public transport.
The other one is because of vulnerability and informal settlements, the climate disaster has increased in Africa.
The mortality rate has also doubled in the past ten years, unlike any other region in the globe.
Globally, the mortality rate due to disasters have declined or halved, but in Africa, it has doubled because of informality and exposure.
The other dimension of SCDG 11 is the macroeconomic toll of the disasters.
Africa loses $133 billion of damage in the past ten years also.
When we see the physical environment, solid waste management is also one of the dimensions.
We have this disparity in solid waste management.
Southern Africa and Northern Africa doing well, but the other parts of the region are still lagging behind.
Only 27.3% of solid waste is collected in Central Africa.
When we see air quality, most of African cities are at risk.
The annual mid levels of fine particulate matter vastly exceeds the safety thresholds, which is set by WHO.
When we see the civic environment, public spaces are not available for the public.
Only one third of the population in Africa has a convenient access to public open spaces, which is which is below the global average, and Central Africa also reports a very extreme spatial inequality.
Only 12.4% of the population have access to public spaces.
When we see the governance layer, this is actually promising.
49 countries in Africa have national urban policies.
But when we go to the implementation, 70% of the countries have implementation plan down to the local level.
So there are challenges that constraints achievement of SEDG 11.
These are four challenges.
One is governance and institutions.
There are weak institutional capacity and inconsistent planning frameworks across Africa.
The second one is data deficit.
If we see the SEDG indicators, we have 15 indicators, and we only have data for seven indicators.
This shows that the availability of data.
The other one is climate amplification.
When climates are amplified, most of our population in the urban area living in informal settlements, so the disaster is very high.
The other one is the urban areas in Africa are marked by informal settlements and informal economic activity.
Across Africa, on the average, 80% of economic activity is done by informal actors.
So it is very challenging to have a policy.
They are not also visible in the data.
This is Africa standards regarding to SDDG 11 goals.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for Thomas for that deliberate and explicit presentation of how Africa is faring.
He has given us a picture across the SDG 11 indicators, which are the variables that will define how our cities should be for them to be resilient, sustainable, and inclusive.
Of course, he's showing us that Africa industrialization is not matching the pace of urbanization and we see how informality is more common among African member states.
Of course, the challenges that we have which are weaker municipal finance implementation challenges that we have seen.
And at this point in time, I want us to now bring onto stage our panelists who are going to delve deeper into this to give us the true picture and appreciate the challenges that we have in Africa in implementing and even suggesting the solutions for us to be able to translate this position into a transformative action.
Um, I'll call them first on stage, I'll call Mr.
Iska Gaba Abdul, who is the head of governance and Human Rights and the coordinator for the Secretariat of the STC eight with the African Union.
Welcome to stage.
And then I would also like to call upon miss Jane Lumumba, who is the program Management officer with the African Union Regional Office for Africa, responsible for strategic planning and climate change action.
And then to stage, I would also like to call our distinguished panel, Mr.
Robert Sanori, who is the Deputy Director with the State Department of Lands and Housing from the government of Kenya, And then I would also like to call onstage the member, sorry, the mayor for Harrari Honorable Mayor Jacob Mafume to stage.
Welcome, Honorable Mayor.
And then I would also like to call the city engineer for Nairobi, the manager for Nakuru from Nairobi, Kenya.
To stage welcome, sir.
It's fine.
I want to ask you to bring us into perspective, Mr.
Iska Gaba Abdu.
The African Union held its first Africa Urban Forum in Ethiopia in 2024, and then in 2026, we went to Nairobi where we had our second Africa Urban Forum.
And at these two forums, it was highlighted that urbanization remains at the center of Africa's transformation towards achieving the Agenda 2063.
And now, the question that I want to ask you is that, how is the Africa Urban process from AUF one to AUF two shaping a unified Africa Urban position and what concrete outcomes and implementation pathways can we expect as stakeholders as Africa move towards the realization of the 2063 agenda? Over to you, sir.
Thank you so much, miss Gao, for the question.
I see that the question has two segment.
The first is about Africa Forum p unified African position and also talk about what concrete implementation outcome or pathway can stakeholder expect as Africa move towards and beyond wolf.
First of all, when you look at the Africa Carbon Forum process from the Africa Arban Forum one held in Addis Ababa and the Africa Carbon Forum two held in Nairobi last month, so it is fundamentally about building a common Africa vision and implementation pathway for sustainable urbanization.
Second, during the Africa Urban Forum one, member states made historic and the collective commitment that urbanization must no longer be viewed as a challenge to contain.
As challenge to contend, but as a strategic opportunity to accelerate Africa's structural transformation under Agenda 2063.
So the forum create also a platform that's brought together all stakeholders from government to local authorities, from private sector to academia and civil society to speak with one voice on the future of African cities.
So here, it's good to highlight that Africa Urban Forum one and move the discussion beyond theory.
Establish political consensus around key priority areas such as integrate urban planning, decentralization, housing, climate resilience, infrastructure development, and municipal finance.
And the Africa Urban Forum two become now the implementation focus phases of this process.
Under the theme of the Africa Urban Forum two, Affordable Housing for all, all stakeholder recognize that housing is not only a special issue, but also an economic and resilience issue because housing creates jobs, stimulate local economy, and also strengthen social inclusion, and also build climate resilience.
More importantly, the Africa Urban Forum to help consolidate what we now refer to as African Urban position, which is a unified continental framework aligned with Agenda 2063, the SDGs, and also the New Urban Agenda.
This position is important because it provides Africa with a coherent voice in global urban discussions such as WUF 13, while also guiding action at national and local level.
Now in terms of practical terms like what stakeholder can expect, I think The implementation pathway emerging from this process will include stronger alignment at national of national urban policies and also development framework with Agenda 2063 and also SDG 11.
And secondly, there is a greater emphasis on localization and also empowering local government as frontline implementer of sustainable urbanization, And also, there is a need to improve coordination between continental institution, member states cities, and also development finance institution and also technical partners to support the implementation.
And fourth, the increased focus on municipal finance investment threes and also the development of bunkable urban project.
And finally, stronger monitoring and accountability mechanism to ensure that commitment made at continental and global forum translates into measurable improvement in people's lives.
This is what I can say regarding to your question.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Isa, for giving us the picture of the regional policies and how they are going to facilitate urbanization across Africa.
In fact, you even answered a question that I wanted to make as a follow up, how do we make the whole process work from national governments to regional governments? But you have already mentioned that.
I I want to come to you, miss Jane Lumumba.
Um, as the partner supporting African Union, you have been very central towards development of the Global Housing Compact.
So housing challenge and solution in Africa is the center of economic development.
We all know that housing remains as the center, as we already indicated in the Africa Urban Forum.
Now the question that I want to pose to you is that, how can we now position it to ensure that it drives not only as a social issue as we already discussed, to now make it an economic development mechanism and to also make sure that it builds climate resilience.
Over to you, madam.
Yeah, thank you very much.
And indeed, we are a supporter of the African Union and just to thank you African Union once again for recognizing the importance of the Africa Affordable Housing Compact.
But before I address your question, Gao, allow me to discuss the three converging challenges within housing.
One is the affordability gap, and I think Saka Gao, you have mentioned affordability is a challenge.
We have a situation where 10% of Africans, urban households do not have access to formal housing, and then almost maybe just like 5% can access mortgages, and the rest, you know, are left to deal with informal settlements and not because of choice, it's just because the formal housing ecosystem does not accommodate for that.
Then we bring in the issue of informality, where we have a situation where half of the continet, if not more, are living in informal settlements.
What this shows to the system is that we have a serious and meant demand signal.
Because people do not build informal settlements because of choice.
It just so happens that the formal housing ecosystem cannot deliver land, finance, and services at speed and at the right price point.
Then we have the climate issue.
African cities concentrate climate risk and this can be seen across the sub regions.
We have, for example, coastal flooding in West Africa, severe heat stress in the Sahel.
We have water scarcity in cities like Cape Town.
The way housing is currently built across the continent, it locks that vulnerability.
If we are to really have housing and urban development in a way that's climate resilience, we have to change the way that we're built.
Then what do we do next, and this is some of the things that the compact addresses.
One, I think, first and foremost, land reform and regulation as a precondition.
Um, housing at scale cannot be delivered if the land cannot deliver, um, land is not serviced.
We have to ensure that our systems, land registries are digitized.
We have to ensure that titling is simplified and public land has to be available for affordable housing.
We're now starting to see African governments and even municipalities, availing public land for affordable housing, which I think is important.
Then secondly, it's, um, around blended finance.
And the deal platform, which is very central to the Affordable Housing Compact, really argues for this, and the thesis of the deal platform is that public budgets and commercial capital alone cannot deliver on affordable housing.
So what are we seeing? We need innovative blended finance instruments.
We need to de risk our financial instruments.
We need fast loss guarantees, we need aggregation mechanisms that enable DFIs, pension funds, and other institutional investors to come in and contribute to delivering affordable housing at space and at the right price point.
When I say the right price point, we also need to understand that in Africa, there are a number of housing markets at play.
Which market do we target? How do we structure blended finance instruments to deliver across those different housing markets, which we're still yet to really understand.
Then thirdly, is around in C two upgrading.
I think the most cost effective way of increasing housing and delivering housing at scale, considering that most of our cities are are have informal settlements is to improve what already exists.
There's a lot of research that shows that once we do our infrastructure retrofits, we do lunch tenure right, really per dollar, the outcomes are better than greenfield resettlements, which means moving people from the slums to another area.
What this does is also it ensures that communities and livelihoods stay intact.
Then fourthly, it's around a climate resilient design.
Currently, when we talk about climate resilient design, it's conceived as a premium.
We have nature based solutions, we have flood based siting, we have a passive cooling, but these are not embedded in how we build houses, and how we develop our cities.
These are seen as premium costs.
What we need to do as planners and as, you know, um, players in the ecosystem, is how do we embed this in the process to ensure that when we build housing, when we improve our informal settlements, this is part of the process.
Then lastly, it's around industrializing the construction sector.
I think this is very key because then this speaks to economic transformation.
Currently, when we want to build, we import from China, we import from Turkey.
But what we are seeing and even through the compact is that if we can industrialize this construction system, and there's a lot of research that says that prefabrication, modular building and alternative construction is actually 30 to 40% cheaper than brick and mortar.
So what this does is it opens up a whole African supply chain, within the construction sector, which then leads to that economic transformation, and then there's a multiplier effect.
So, I think that's the way we'll do it, and the EUN Habitat stands ready with the Affordable Housing Compact, which was adopted by member states at AUF to really deliver and to really address some of these issues around, affordable housing informality and climate resilience in the construction and the housing sector.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Jane, for giving us the picture on the housing challenges in Africa and even coming up with the solutions.
Of course, we need financing, and as we already know, Africa is trying as much as possible to trade within itself through the Africa Free Continental Trade Agreement and indeed the value chains in housing would even create jobs.
Thank you so much for this.
Now I want us to transition now to go to the local level.
From the regional to the technical, and then we are now moving on to the local level.
I want to bring in our city and regional governments from Africa now to give us the true picture of the implementation aspect of Africa's urban development strategies.
At this point in time, I would like to bring in from the national government because the national governments work with local government, I want to bring in the perspective of the national government and hear from the government of Kenya.
I would like to bring on Robert Sangori who is the Deputy Director, doctor Robert Sangori.
How do we make sure that now that we have the regional policies from the African Union, and we have the technical support and technical solutions as recommended by our technical partners.
Now, how do we bring this together to ensure that we integrate the urban planning development strategies into our national development plans and make sure that they also speak to the local development plans and the local policies.
Over to you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you, Go.
The conversation that we are having today comes at the right time in terms of the convergence that we need.
We are all privy to the issue of the international obligations that we have, starting with the implementation of the new urban agenda, which is of course the anchor to our urbanization process in terms of defining the pathway that we take.
But then this is complemented by the SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities, of course, which takes cognizance of the safety, resilient issues at the city level.
But besides that, to the point which you've just raised is the issue of how then we look at the transformation that is needed as we translate the policies into practice and not just practice, but the actual implementation at the grassroots.
The national government therefore has a key role.
In terms of looking at the quality and standardization of the policy frameworks and regulatory frameworks that then guide the implementation processes.
This cannot be achieved if we don't look at the issue of governance, and the aspect of governance then becomes critical because we look at the players from the natural government perspective that holds the key to sustainable urbanization policies, which then are translated into action at the local government level.
And in this frame, therefore, we look at the policy formulation process.
But again, connecting with implementation, we have the key actors.
I just talked about the local government or sub national groups, which takes to implementation on the policy framework from the national government.
But again, there is whole spectrum of players here again, not just the local governments themselves.
We have the built environment, professionals who then makes a critical contribution to the process.
We are professionals in the built environment, all the way from planners to the other groups, the architects, the engineers.
We are looking at the issue of governance, the issue of infrastructure, But not only that, the issue of planning then comes into play that then integrates the whole conversation.
So how then do we integrate all this? I think this is the conversation that then we are having and then how all, you know, the teams are, you know, brought into the same, you know, uh, uh, same page in terms of how they translate the actions that are needed.
Two reflection that I want to have at this stage is that my colleague, Jane, brought the dimensions of the issues that arose from the presentation that was done at the start and the issues that we have just raised, but even in terms of the aspect of resilience, which is critical.
The issue of resilience is not only in this infrastructure, but the local government, we will be talking about how do you integrate resilient urban special plants into this conversation.
And the whole issue of resilience then becomes a technical issue that needs to be unpacked.
Again, going back to, you know, the presentation that was done at the start, the integration of all this in terms of the metadata that is then required in all the four key areas that then defines how, uh, and the implementation are taking place.
So in my view, therefore, that becomes critical.
And this then boils back to what then we narrowed down to, from the government of Kenya perspective, where we have identified the issue of housing as critical and connecting the conversation, we just looked at the Baku continuity Coalition, for example, the conversion that we have at the cops and the World Ab forums.
How do we connect these conversations? All these boils back to how all these are integrated at the national level for in terms of the implementation processes.
We would bring some of these into the discussion and narrowing down to specific implementation issues and this why we find that picking on a particular issue like the Affordable Housing program which the president of Kenya is leading in terms of the practical implementation then becomes critical.
But a whole range of how the governance process is then put then becomes the apex of the success that we need in terms of the transformation that then this can bring to the people of Africa.
So these are conversion that then we can continue then having in the perspective then they are taken in the right context, but with the synergies that are needed from all the actors in the space to drive the processes forward.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, doctor Samori, for giving us the picture of implementation at national level.
I hear you talking about multi level governance partnerships which are very, very critical and that's the reason why we are even here to talk about how do we come together to make sure that everything works.
I now want us to transition now to the local government perspective.
I would like to move to you now, doctor Kita Tabanja, the city manager of Nairobi, Kenya.
Of Nakuru So, Africa has a strong urban position, a strong urban regulatory framework.
But now we see most of the things not working, implementation, gaps persist.
But now the question that I want to ask you is, how can we make multi level governance, decentralization and local institutions accelerate the delivery of the sustainable urban development outcomes? Yeah, thank you very much.
Just to reintroduce myself, I'm getting out of the budget of the man Nakuru City.
I present the intermediary cities where the rubber meets the road.
We can make those policies at the regional, international level, but they narrowed down to us for the implementation because we are the people interact with the community director, and we get the feedback whether it works or not because we are the ones who implement those projects.
We are the people who are able to interact and also get the feedback, public participation in order to see whether the policies that have been developed at the higher level they are making impact.
One of the main impediment that we have in the implementation of the policies and the framework is the you've had more level of governance, where you find that there are so many players who want to implement the project at the national level fight that they are still wanting to do the project within the city.
The regional offices also want to implement this project.
This affect the project because also the city itself is also trying to do this project.
What we need to do is to have a multi level governance system where we bring everybody on board, and then we also give defined roles that the city is supposed to do this, and that will enable the reporting and also seeing and testing whether the project are working at the community level.
Then the other thing that we also need to do is the decentralization and the local governance, whereby you find that we need to have the transfer of the physical transfer.
The resources also need to come to the municipalities and the cities.
We also need to have the transfer of the staff, the technical staff and the approval being done at that level.
We also need to have the infrastructure decision being made at that level.
Why? When it floods today, we are the people at that level who are able to identify the neighborhood that is flooding.
In so doing, we need some resources to do some intervention and also subsequent planning.
The only best way we can be able to effectively implement those regional, those national policies is when we have those transfers done at the municipal level.
So that we can be able to quickly address the challenges that we face at that level.
You see the cities, at that point, we are better placed to identify the community's priorities.
We are better placed to manage the large conflicts, oversee the local infrastructure, and also engage the residents directly.
That would enable the regional we international like SDG to be factory reported and and also achieved.
We also have the strong institutions.
We also need to have the capacity done.
We also appreciate what the government of doing at the national level, the State Department of Housing and Urban Development, capacity building, the managers of the municipalities and also ensuring that once we recruit the planners, once we have the engineers, their capacity but in order for them to carry out the project effectively.
And that is very key because with weak planners and then the engineers, weak financial management, outdated records, and also limited data, and insufficient technical expertise.
All those can jeopardize the implementation of the frameworks that are approved.
The other thing is about the informality must be integrated in the governance system.
We have so many in African countries, we have so many informal housing, informal transport, informal labor market, informal a tener and this one also needs to be regularized so that at the point where you're implementing the regional policies, they are legally done without litigations, without the challenges that may cause the delay in the implementation.
Finally, we have the climate resilience requires empowered local government.
We have challenges that we are facing at the cities level the municipal level, the flooding, the droughts.
We talk about the infrastructure shocks, all these if they are well managed.
We fight that we are going to achieve the policies that have been proposed and also, we're also going to give feedback to the regional, to the national, and also the international bodies on how best they can improve the decision and maybe what they can add.
And finally, city to city is learning.
We fight that you don't have to invent revent the wheel.
B, If a Nakuru city is able to implement flooding to get a solution for the flooding within the city, you find most of the global south cities suffers from the same problems and some of those solutions, they are scalable and applicable in other cities.
We also need to capitalize on that and we appreciate because we've also learned a lot from other cities which are also going to help in implementation of these policies.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Keita.
I liked it when you indicate that indeed cities are where everything is taking place.
They are the launching pads for everything.
They are at the forefront.
When disaster strikes, they are there, and of course, you highlighted that multi level governance is a good approach, but let it come with clarity.
Thank you so much for that intervention, sir.
I would now like to move on to his honorable Mayor Jacob Mafuge.
The question that I would like to ask you is that, how can financing mechanisms become more accessible to African cities? Because we have seen the presentation talking about infrastructure deficits, informality forming the bulk within cities is whether informal trade, informal housing construction forming the part.
How do we make sure that we have working mechanism to ensure that we implement sustainable urban development projects.
Also, it has been discussed that on most occasions, cities are grappling with developing bankable projects.
I would like to bring you on to say, how can we make sure that we get access to financing and what is it that needs to be done to make sure that the projects that we propose as cities become bankable.
Thank you so much.
Over to you.
Thank you very much.
I'm Jacob Mafme, the mayor of the city of Harare, which is the capital city of Zimbabwe, with a population of 3.5 million to 4 million and increasing like all the other cities.
It's an honor to be here and thank you, Madam facilitator, for bringing me on board.
I think the financing is the key question and that has been the Achilles.
Of development for African cities, the ability to develop bengable projects and part of the problem has been the financial mechanisms and methods that are available to African city.
One, there's been a skills flight in terms of creation of complicated financial mechanisms.
In the old days, cities used to finance themselves through municipal bonds, and through pension funds and with the flight of skills to developed countries, people and financiers who were conversant on these instruments, infrastructural bonds, municipal bonds.
In many cases, municipal bonds used to be more attractive than government bonds because of the reliability of municipalities to be able to pay because we collect rates from citizens ad infinitum and until the end of time.
So it should be easy to make and to pay off a municipal bond.
Secondly, the land tenure system to be able to create title deeds and a coherent and consistent land tenure system to provide for security in terms of bankable projects, and it's tyranical or it's an oxymoron because the cities control most of the land within their locality.
But what they cannot do is to develop instruments to make that lend securable.
In other words, take it to a bank, get a loan and secure that loan with that particular point end.
It becomes difficult for the city to just develop a land bank, lend a tenure system, you'll find cities inherited buildings, inherited land, which basically they look at and simply declare from time to time that this is our land, but they are not value adding to those particular pieces of land.
Then the development of bankable projects, the ability to secure the investor return.
In other words, to make people pay here in politics comes through inefficient collection mechanisms, debt forgiveness at election time, comes through and so forth, and that makes investors a bit edgy in terms of engaging financing with municipalities.
That needs to be corrected and digitalization or digitization is part of the process of doing that prepaid meters or smart meters identification through GPS of who the ratepayers are collecting from them and making sure that you increase the percentage of those that pay from below 50%, closer to 70% or 80%.
That will then enable investors to invest in infrastructure that was inherited, infrastructure, transport, roads, sewer, water, and lighting and other infrastructures, once you are able to make people pay for what they are receiving, it becomes easier to create.
Then of course, developing linkages with organization.
We as Ara, we are working with UniC to create capacity to deliver bankable projects.
So cities need to tap into multilateral organizations, to tap into multilateral financial institutions, to develop the skill set and the capacity to draw down on international funds that are available on climate, on energy, and on infrastructure development.
And once that capacity is developed, then we can talk about bankable projects.
Then consistent policy frameworks.
Some of the policy frameworks are not protected by law and therefore are not consistent and that then brings doubts in terms of the ability for the municipalities to be able to create bankable projects.
I think if we deal with going back to basics, because what we are talking about are not things that are not being done elsewhere.
They are being done elsewhere, and part of life is being able to copy successful models.
Once we are very good at copying bad behavior at times, but they find it very difficult to copy best practices.
Part of it is simply being able to adapt being able to implement and being able to absorb what are best practices that are being done elsewhere, and then we'll be able to produce bengable projects and also create employment, create viable financial models, and reattract the skills that would have left our municipalities.
I believe that at the core in conclusion at the core of what a municipality is.
A municipality is basically a glorified financial institution, and once it fails in handling its finances and what people pay to it, it therefore cannot contract and it breaks its promises to the citizens.
The promise to the citizen is basically that I will collect your money, I will use it responsibly to be able to provide maximum services to all and Sundry that live or visit the city.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, honorable Mayor, for bringing it into perspective.
Indeed, the natural resources are in cities, the land is in cities, the property is sitting in cities, and what we need is to capacitate local governments to be able to package these assets to translate them into security for Bank project.
Thank you so much, my esteemed panel.
I just want to ask you one question that is common to all of you.
Just in 1 minute, starting with you, Mr.
Iska, What do you think is very, very key to make sure that we translate Africa's urban position into measurable, impactable outcomes? What is very, very key that do you think should be done from the African Union's perspective, over to you.
Thank you, miss Go.
I think the most important action is to empower cities with the governance system, finance, and partnership needed to translate the global or continental commitment into impact at city level? Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you so much to you, miss Jane.
That was first, Mr.
Taka.
Yes.
I think for me, housing is the most visible pointer of success or failure of a city's urban development and prosperity.
So for me, I think investing in affordable housing, investing and meeting that demand, especially for the lower income is very critical if we're going to see our city succeed and prosper both socially and economically.
Thank you so much, miss Jane, doctor Tanuri.
Thank you.
I think I want to draw one parallel here in terms of what I see moving us forward.
During the African Urban Forum in Nairobi, the second session, the AU team launched a very useful tool.
In terms of the African Advan Resilience Report, which I think as we looked at it during that stage, provides key linkages to resilience in our cities.
And so in terms of synergies of programs, I would then draw parallel in terms of how do we look at the harmony of the various programs that exist in the continent.
Each note in terms of conflict, but in terms of the synergies that they draw in the implementation framework.
And this then brings to the issue of the governors that I spoke to earlier in terms of mapping all the partners and their roles and all the alignment that are needed so that we see how the programs that exist in our cities in the continent has synergy to each other.
And for, you know, targeted implementation that we are talking about.
And so in this case, we are able to draw how the transformations can come in a very prompt way without any delay.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, doctor Samori.
I now move on to Mr.
Guitar.
Yeah, mine is to my proposal is to have a decentralization of functions and resources and also have reporting structure that is able to report both way.
That is from the local levels to the African Union so that we can have the nation and the African Union so that we can have intervention done timely and we can be able to measure whether we are achieving or not, and that is going to inform subsequent policy and also looking into those policies and giving the feedback.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Guitau I want to give it to you, Honorable Mayor to sum it up.
Thank you, within a conclusion.
I believe part of where we need to go is bankable financing, sustainable financing, and to make our cities commercially viable, economically viable.
There will always be someone who's able to make a road.
There's always will be someone who will be able to bring you water.
There will always be someone who's able to give you light.
The challenge is if you do not make it economically viable, commercially viable, You are dancing on the same spot or you are running on a treadmill.
The idea is to make sure that whatever we are doing is economically viable.
Su first the economic kingdom and everything else will follow.
Thank you so much.
We have listened to our distinguished panelists from the African Union perspective, is that member states should give power to local governments, but not only power, but also the fiscal power.
They be able to determine their budget, they'll be able to manage their resources and translate them into financing.
From the technical partners, the technical advisors, UN Habitat, they are saying if we get housing right, it will determine whether we win the sustainable battle, the sustainable urbanization battle or we lose it.
From doctor Sangori representing the African member states, he's saying all the policies that we have across the continent, if we try to harmonize them, see what is working, what is not working, we can be able to make it and from the city engineer, He's also talking about decentralization and also reporting, how do we report.
But I want to believe the scorecard that we recently launched would also help us in trying to see how we monitor implementation across our member states and how we do our reporting.
Of course, the mayor is summing up.
He's saying, let us make it more attractive to investors.
Let us make it more commercially viable.
If we have land, let's make sure that we turn it into finance.
How much does this land value? How much can we attract from the banks with what we have? If we have the natural resources, if we have the carbon sinks, the carbon sinks, the forests are within cities, they are within territories.
Let us convert them.
Into monetary assets.
Thank you so much, distinguished panelists.
I just want to throw it to the audience if you have any question that you would want to ask to our distinguished panelists or to make comments or any addition to what has been discussed.
Thank you.
I want to believe we have come to the end of our discussion.
At this point in time, I would like to thank my distinguished panelists and I would ask you to take our seats.
And at this point in time, I would bring Mr.
Giuseppe, doctor Giuseppe, to come to the stage to summarize all that has been discussed here and bring the perspective on how we're going to move forward.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Honorable mayors, member states, partners from African Union Commission, Uabitat colleagues.
So we achieve an important milestone today on Tuesday, we leave a room at the African ministerial meeting where we raise one key point that we are standing together to to raise one voice for the African Urban position.
The idea to be united for change is shaping a new commitment that start with the first African Urban Forum in Adis Ababa, followed by the Nairobi Declaration with the African Urban Forum in Nairobi.
And we are moving we are ending the World Urban forum, and we are moving towards July when there will be the high level meeting review for the new urban agenda, HLPF in New York.
From the discussion, I would like to mention that so strongly we are discussing on how to shift from a fragmentation that has a limited the capacity to translate the urbanization in economic growth and social progress towards more an integration has been well aligned the importance of the policy alignment and a unified voice.
At the same time, has been strongly identified the importance to design a roadmap that can guide us for the future of African urbanization.
In a few words, our distinguished panelist has really made the point on the importance of the integration with the global framework and the localization and a strong policy alignment that can guide us for the integration with partners.
Housing is the core of this World Urban Form 13 and still reminder that housing should be at the center of any planning and activities, land reform, blendder finance, and site regeneration has been identified as a solution to make housing a leverage for an economic growth and social progress.
Again, we cannot move without a strong governance.
This is well identified from our member states, from national and local government, from Kenya that has been once again remind us that without a multi level governance, without linking The governance with a clear implementation path roadmap, we cannot do a lot.
We can do a lot if we use a participatory process, if we link our action with a clear governance.
Finance is the last component of a successful formula.
After planning, after governance, finance, he has been well remarked by our honorable Mayor Ferrari, that is the catalyst that makes possible the change.
But at the same time, the capacity to design and deliver bankable project, mobilize the financial partners, and investor remain the key challenges we need to face.
If we would like to translate African Urban position planning finance governance are successful element of our strategy and should guide our action.
Ladies and gentlemen, our event stay united for change.
Remark once again that we need to continue our support, our partnership to empower cities and capacitate the cities and local government to translate the global framework to local framework, to local action, The center of this transformation has been well identified as the housing, and we need to continue to foster a strong decentralization process to make possible and to make our city livable and improve the quality of life of our people living in the African cities.
I would like to conclude with a big thank to our member states, our partner from African Union Commissioner, our partner from UN Habitat to support all this process.
Thank you very much.