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World Cities Summit Issue, Jun 2008
Human Development
and Urbanisation
Richard Leete
PARTICIPATORY URBAN GOVERNANCE
Urbanisation offers significant opportunities to improve human development and achieve the MDGs. Yet, the rapid and often unplanned growth of developing world cities of all sizes poses great challenges for attaining human development goals: these cities must expand the provision of essential infrastructure and services while ensuring that such expansion does not compromise existing living conditions or generate more air pollution.
For example, in Southeast Asian cities such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Jakarta, growth of urban traffic is creating serious levels of congestion and unprecedented levels of carbon emissions and pollution. Growing affluence has led to a high concentration of vehicles in Malaysian cities, especially Kuala Lumpur. This has resulted in carbon emissions increasing by 221% from 1990 to 2004, the highest rate of increase among the world’s top polluters.13 Some cities have implemented urban planning and greening policies aimed at significantly reducing private motorised transport and consequently air pollution.
Other countries have implemented major, long-term slum upgrading programmes. For example, Thailand has focused almost 30 years of attention on low-income housing. Most recently, the construction of 1 million low-income houses in partnership with commercial and public banks, has helped to cut the slum growth rate by an average of nearly 20% a year since 1990.6 In 1992, the Thai government created the Urban Community Development Office (UCDO), the largest community-driven programme for assisting the urban poor in the developing world. UCDO extends loans, grants and technical assistance to community organisations and encourages collective bargaining with city and provincial authorities.
How can cities best respond to the inevitability of growing populations and growing affluence? Improved urban governance will need to provide a large part of the answer.14 “Urban governance” denotes both government responsibility and civic engagement. Generally, it refers to the processes by which local urban governments—in partnership with other public agencies and different segments of civil society—respond effectively to local needs in a participatory, transparent and accountable manner. As urban growth continues, cities need long-term strategies for expected change. The planning horizons of good governance must extend beyond current needs.
In many developing countries, national governments are devolving some of their powers and revenue-raising authority to local governments. This opens up new opportunities for local governments to take a more active role in social and economic development.
Attention to human rights and the rise of civil society, along with movements towards democratisation and political pluralism, have also given local-level institutions more responsibility. In Indonesia, decentralisation laws, approved in 1999 and amended in 2004, assign local governments responsibilities for most public functions including service delivery. These reforms promote the development of a clear mandate for the funding and delivery of education, health services, and public works.15
Trends supporting localisation and decentralisation are significant because a large proportion of urban demographic growth is occurring in small cities of less than 1 million inhabitants. Local governments have the advantage of flexibility in making decisions on critical issues such as land use, infrastructure and services, and are more amenable to popular participation and political oversight. However, they need significant support from both the public and private sectors as they tend to be under-resourced, under-financed, and lack critical information and the technical capability to utilise it.
CONCLUSION
Continued sustained growth of the Southeast Asian economies and structural changes in the patterns of employment, from agriculture to modern sectors, will inevitably lead to higher levels of urbanisation. Further progress towards the achievement of the MDGs and high human development will require a stronger commitment to the principles of good governance, including upholding the rule of law; promoting human rights; and transparent, participatory, and accountable decision-making processes. It also requires pro-poor and gender sensitive policies to narrow rich-poor disparities.
City growth provides opportunities for modernisation and cultural enrichment, and accelerates social change. Rapidly growing cities, especially the larger ones, will include various generations of migrants, each with a diversity of social and cultural backgrounds. In a diverse global network of vibrant cities, there needs to be continual adjustment and adaptation to the mix of traditional values and contemporary perspectives of communities and governments.
Richard Leete is Director and Head of the Department of Social Affairs of the General Secretariat for Development, Government of Qatar. Dr Leete was formerly the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, a position he held from October 2003 to April 2008, during which he concurrently served as the Resident Co-ordinator for the United Nations’ Operational Activities for Development in Malaysia, as well as UNFPA Representative. In June 2007, he was awarded the Darjah Kebesaran Panglima Jasa Negara (PJN) (Honorary) that carries the title “Datuk”.
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