22 January 2007, by Evans Wafula in Nairobi. Africa"s long quest to achieve the Millennium Development Goals is far from realization and is doomed to fail if radical reforms are not enforced in urban managements in Africa. A member of the Africa Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD) has warned.
Kenya"s housing minister, Mr. Soita Shitanda has expressed fear on the pace of urban development in Africa and has blamed it on endemic and institutionalized corruption in a continent ravaged by poverty and diseases despite huge resource potential.
"During the AMCHUD meeting we provided a framework for urban management on the continent, but corruption remains the major challenge in Africa and is the main cause for under development in Africa," Mr. Soita Standa, the housing minister for Kenya said.
After the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Africa is still struggling to meet its development targets. An estimated 1.5 billion people remain without safe drinking water and about 2.5 billion have no access to adequate sanitation. Almost 1 billion people, most of them in developing countries, live in slums, with constrained sanitation. This figure expected to double over the next 30 years.
That was the dark picture painted when Africa"s housing minister meet in Nairobi last year for the 12th session of the Africa Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD). The conference was held to forge common standpoints on urban development and urbanization in Africa in order to promote regional networks of cooperation and to engage more effectively with the international community.
The importance of this is the rapid rate at which African countries are becoming increasingly urban societies and monitor the implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg in 2002.
During the Nairobi conference the ministers also reviewed the progress in providing water, sanitation and human settlements, as spelled out at the 2005 African Minister"s Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD) held in Durban, South Africa from 31 January –4 February 2005.
Africa continues to stagnate in realization of her development goals painting a picture that is far from encouraging. In Africa, water, sanitation and human settlements, remains slowest in the world's poorest region.
The expectation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) was to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015, despite; these projections, an estimated 300 million Africans are faced with lack of access to safe drinking water and 14 countries on the continent suffer from water scarcity. Out of 55 countries in the world with domestic water use below 50 liters per person per day (the minimum requirement set by the World Health Organization), 35 are in Africa. Almost half of all Africans suffer from one of six main water-related diseases.
According to a report by the UN Development Programme, the proportion of urban dwellers with access to safe drinking water in Sub-Saharan Africa only declined slightly, from 86 per cent in 1990 to 83 per cent in 2000.This trend has not changed according to Dr. L.N Sisulu, Chair of AMCHUD and Minister for Housing, Republic of South Africa.
"Urban development problems in Africa are complex," Said, South Africa"s Housing Minister Dr. L. N Sisulu
Urban management in Africa has increasingly become a major challenge due to endemic corruption and the limited resources with reliance to donor support.
African housing ministers and development planners have also identified lack of money and technology as the major hindrances to solving Africa's urbanization problems. "The average annual investment between 1990 and 2000 for water supply and sanitation in Africa was $4.6 billion, or 40 per cent of the requirement for meeting basic needs," this according to a report by the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
Many countries do not have the resource capacity. During the last 20 years African economic growth rates were low, resulting in financial constraints and competition for ever-declining public resources. As a result, budgetary allocations to social services such as health, education, water supply and sanitation suffered. To make matters worse, donor support for the sector has rapidly declined.
Africa must address corruption as a first step, African ministers agreed to establish national task forces to prepare country plans detailing annual service-delivery targets for achieving the Millennium goals.
However, while most governments still hide behind the excuse of lack of money, the real problem is how the money is being spent, says Mr. Soita Standa, Minister for Housing for Kenya. He says that pandemic corruption in the public sector is costing governments billions at the expense of implementing the agenda of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
Also, he says, African governments deal with development issues as a political issue rather than part of its broad development agenda encompassing education, women's empowerment, community participation and human resources.
The Executive Director of UNHABITAT, Mrs. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka has also expressed fear about governments failing to recognize the participation of communities in the provision of housing. "The government must involve the stake holders at the grassroots and encourage equal participation of the local communities," she says. "Often the poor communities are left solving their own problems, but governments are failing to recognize their efforts. Instead of harnessing their energy they are discouraging the poor from participating in the improvement of their own living conditions."
If Africa is to attain its target on sustainable development, it needs solutions that bring in all sectors, the AMCHUD chair and minister for South Africa Dr. L. N Sisulu has retaliated. "If there is one lesson that we learned about urban development during the Special Ministerial Conference on Housing and Development, it is that partnership among the public and private sector and civil society is essential," she says. "Water, sanitation and human settlements remain the focal point of human development." She notes, "Communal action cannot and should not substitute for effective public policy. Governments should take the lead in achieving the commitments that they have pledged to undertake in improving the lives of its citizens in the ever-growing urbanization.
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