Mobilizing Action to Address the Region’s Urban Challenges

Mobilizing Action to Address the Region’s Urban Challenges

Already half the Pacific’s population lives in urban and peri-urban areas. An additional 1.8 million people will be added to these urban areas over the next ten years, more than the national population of many Pacific Islands states. Urbanization has been a force that has changed almost everything: ways of thinking and acting, ways of using space, lifestyles, social and economic relations, and consumption and production patterns. Cities, as economic and productive innovation spaces, provide opportunities for improving access to resources and services, as well as options in the social, legal, economic, cultural and environmental fields. Urbanization has ushered in economic growth, development and prosperity for many.

However, cities are also spaces where multidimensional poverty, environmental degradation and vulnerability to disasters and the impact of climate change are present. The direction that cities and towns take today will be a determining factor for sustainability for decades to come.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) together with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF Pacific) will be jointly facilitating the fourth Pacific Urban Forum (PUF) to be held at the Tanoa International Hotel in Nadi, Fiji. The event will run from the 25-27 March with the theme: ‘Towards a Pacific New Urban Agenda: Harnessing Opportunities in a Post-2015 environment’. This important dialogue will bring together Pacific Island nations, local government, development partners, NGOs and other practitioners to discuss the region’s urban challenges and to identify sustainable solutions.

Recent decades have seen some Pacific island urban populations grow at rates twice that of national population rates. Many local authorities have been struggling to provide adequate services such as water, sanitation, waste collection to name but a few. In many countries in the region, informal settlements absorb a large part of the urban growth. The pressure on sustainable urban and local development has been further aggravated by climate change and other environmental hazards.

In 2007, and again in 2011, the Pacific Urban Forum reviewed and endorsed the Pacific Urban Agenda (PUA) as a regional framework to guide urban decision making. Since PUF 2011, national urban policy development has taken place in Papua New Guinea and Samoa and infrastructure investments have accelerated review of infrastructure legislation and national building codes in several Pacific Island countries. Such advancements promote more equitable urban management approaches and which address urban environmental issues.

There is still significant area to cover and the upcoming Nadi meeting will aim to secure renewed commitment for sustainable urban development, assess accomplishments to date, and identify and address new and emerging urban challenges for the establishment of a ‘New Urban Agenda’ for the Pacific. It will also aim to identify actionable steps to incorporate the Urban Agenda into national development plans and resource mobilization.

Further Information on the PUF can be found on the following links:

· 2015 PUF Information Brochure
· Pacific Island Urban Realities Facebook Page
· CLGF Pacific Facebook Page
· CLGF Pacific Website

ENDS

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