Report of the meeting to launch the UN-HABITAT Global Report on Human Settlements 2009 held on Tuesday 10th November 2009 at the Houses of Parliament.

Every two years the UN-HABITAT Global Report takes a theme relevant to the improved management and development of towns and cities across the world. The 2009 Report examines the contributions that planning can make to creating settlements that meet the needs of all their residents and are democratic and environmentally sustainable. This was the first UN Cities report since the world became predominantly urban: more people now live in towns and cities than in rural areas. Cities across the world are growing by over 1 million people every week. As urban areas - particularly smaller towns and cities - continue to grow in size, about 5 billion people are expected to live in cities by 2030 - about 61 per cent of the global population of 8.1 billion, the UN projects. The report also marks a real change in attitudes to planning, with widespread international recognition that the problems raised by rapid urbanisation can only be solved by effective planning.

The first speaker was Dr Naison Mutizwa-Mangiza, Chief Policy Analyst at UN-HABITAT and editor-in-chief of the Report summarised its content.  View his slides. The key issues facing the Global South are poverty, informality and slums; for the North, they are managing urban sprawl and climate change. To tackle them, he said, the Global Report identifies innovative spatial planning strategies already in use to integrate public sector functions, regularise land management, encourage participation and partnership, and put social justice centre stage when shaping sustainable cities. The report sets out specific policy directions for governments:

• redesign institutional and regulatory frameworks to encourage equality, transparency and better co-ordination
• promote participation in planning
• bridge the green (natural environment) and brown (built environment) agendas
• embrace informality as a strength of human settlements rather than something to be resisted
• think strategically in ways that encourage the development of compact cities with sustainable mobility
• continuously monitor and evaluate, and
• educate planners so they can deliver this in their communities.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, shadow Minister for International Development (and, he said, one of only four chartered surveyors in the Commons!) identified rapidly rising population and rapid urbanisation as most urgent, but urged policy-makers not to neglect land registration and title to protect the poorest. Democracy and planning go hand in hand, he said, and he urged policy-makers to listen to people and to find small powerful ways to help them, for example with microfinance.

Malcolm Bruce MP, Chair of the House of Commons Committee on International Development urged realism: don’t try to abolish slums, he said – develop them. With the scale of urbanisation in an emerging mega-city like Lagos, getting rid of slums by clearance was simply not an option. Good planning can give slum-dwellers access to services and make their lives easier, or example by providing public transport to ease their commuting and reduce congestion verging on gridlock. The answer was not necessarily more plans – “the plans are on the wall, but there is nobody there” being a characteristic of planning offices in many countries. Development policies must put urbanisation first he said, noting his Committee’s criticism of Department for International Development neglect of urban poverty: indeed he said “There is not a hope in hell if we do not tackle urban poverty.”

Two of the authors who contributed to the Report spoke next, both of them knowledgeable and articulate academic experts who are engaged with policy-making and policy-makers on this vital subject.  

Professor Carole Rakodi, Director of the Religions and Development Research Programme at the University of Birmingham, identified a paradox: we can all point to places where urban development flouts the “rules”, yet in many countries informality delivers and formality does not. There is no one single ideal urban form to use, and no need to transplant ideas from other places. Nor can aid-givers insist on technocratic solutions such as “wall-to-wall development control” delivered by professionals. More informal systems have a power deriving from their ability to adapt and evolve, addressing local needs. Planning will get results if it is more strategic, for example setting targets to reduce pollution or lower the risk of disasters. It can also ensure a role for all stakeholders for better decisions: governance is the glue, she said. 

Professor Simin Davoudi, Professor of Environmental Policy & Planning at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, reflected on the kind of planning that is needed: not (just) formulating ideas, policies and programmes, but also implementing ideas through inclusive processes and collective actions. Planning, she said, is a form of place governance. View Prof. Davoudi's slides.

In the debate following these presentations, speakers commended the insights of the Report and echoed the need for good governance (more important than government, one said), for considerations of efficiency, equity and environment to inform decision-making, and for experience to be shared – between North-South, South-South and South-North, as Naison Mutizwa-Mangiza observed. Human settlements, the audience were reminded, are an issue for everyone on the planet. UN-Habitat, it is clear, understands the need for integrated, action-oriented processes. The urgent need now is to engage others and wake the world up to the urgency of the problem. View Prof. Rakodi's slides

This launch was significant in another way. It was chaired by a non-planner and a good number of non-planners attended - and it is only when non-planners understand the purpose of taking a planning approach that there will be real progress in managing urbanisation. That is a challenge for professional planning institutes as well as for governments: not everyone who "does planning" is a (professional) planner - and sometimes neither they nor the authorities employing them realise that they are planning. The UN-HABITAT Global Urban Campaign will attempt to mobilise cities and their inhabitants to build an understanding of what makes cities work, drawing on the powerful and well-informed insights of grassroots organisations such as slum-dwellers federations.

The next UN-HABITAT Global Report on Human Settlements, due in 2013, will address Climate Change, and there was a clear invitation to submit background papers at an early stage to inform the next Report. 

The event was facilitated by Professor Al Richardson, Professor of Science and Enterprise at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The RTPI and the RiGB were delighted to host this event. The two bodies have embarked on a programme of exchanging expertise, information and ways of working on some of the key spatial issues facing the UK and the global community. The event was supported by Earthscan publishers of 'Planning Sustainable Citie's and of Planning for Climate Change which was also launched at this symposium.

On the occasion of this event at the House of Commons, Janet O'Neill, immediate past President of RTPI and chair of its International Committee, presented Naison Mutizwa-Mangiza with his Honorary Membership of RTPI, given in recognition of his distinguished career in academic and public life and championing of planning.

Author:

Judith Eversley

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

15-Nov-09

Categories:

 

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