Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and Chairperson of the National Planning Commission
4. Achieving the Future of Agenda 2063
4.2 The Formulation of Strategies
1. Strategy formulation, planning and programming or the art of making possible what is desirable. Urbanization is happening rapidly, but not in a planned manner, and is outstripping the capacity of institutions to cope. Case studies of strategic planning were presented, from various perspectives of municipal government (from cities to small towns), urban poor networks and experts in urban economy and planning.
The main issues that emerged were:
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strategic planning is imperative•
realistic planning must be based on the realities on the ground, which means proper information is needed, through partnerships with communities•
government must be a key stakeholder in housing the poor•
communication and consultation are essential between communities and municipalities (“bottom up”)•
human capital needs to be developed in order to nourish good leadership, which includes strong, accountable and transparent institutions that consult with communities.2. Strategies for financial resources. Cities need to have the necessary financial resources to deliver the infrastructure, services and administrative capacities required for supporting vibrant economies and delivering equitable services to urban dwellers. While local strategies may vary from country to country, some challenges are overarching, i.e. Africa is urbanizing later and at lower levels of income per capita than the developed world; demand for infrastructure is outstripping expenditure by 25:1, resulting in service delivery backlogs and precarious informality; the majority of cities depend almost entirely on transfers from central government;
financial mismanagement, corruption and inefficient spending also need to be sorted out.
The following strategies were recommended:
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Additional revenue should be devolved to cities, as having sufficient revenue is one of the most powerful and effective ways to enable local governments to drive growth.•
More effective policy making and leadership at central government level is required.•
Africans must lead advocacy on the good work that African cities are doing in securing sustainable finances.•
Africities should consider driving a process of sharing best practices across the continent in fiscal decentralization, increasing own revenues and borrowing.•
In the short term, cities should demonstrate efficiencies: audits always show gaps.•
In the longer term, local governments must dialogue with national governments about revenue powers and borrowing.3. Strategies for natural and material resources. Cities are the nexus of social, economic, ecological and technological change, and need to adopt strategies for more sustainable and efficient use of resources. Cities take up 3% of land surface, but generate 50% of waste and 80% greenhouse gases, consume 70% of natural resources and are home to 50% of urban
populations. Changing options and choices can create savings of 30% of water and 30–50%
energy. All stakeholders (public and private sectors, as well as communities) need to be active in managing the environment. If multi-level stakeholder participation and consultation are to be effective, information must be decentralized, communities must be involved and simple, practical language must be used. Public parks can help create more inclusive communities and promote better resource use. Sustainable procurement is also an important tool for enabling efficient resource use at local government level. The cornerstone of meaningful resource conservation is financing plans, programmes and systems aimed at managing and efficiently using natural resources. Decoupling, i.e. the ability of an economy to grow without corresponding increases in environmental pressure, is critical for achieving resource efficiency.
The following recommendations were made:
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A robust policy environment is needed to create the right actions and promote environmental conservation in cities. This means implementing not only punitive environmental laws, but also putting incentives in place.•
Research and data collection must be ongoing in order to assess whether or not decoupling is occurring and the actions are having the right impacts. Research policy, practices and data need to be made available through a central database so that knowledge can be shared.•
Rhetoric must be replaced by action, including practical activities and demonstration projects that show what needs to be done. Pilot studies must be up-scaled and become local government practices.•
Communities need to be sensitized to environmental issues through both social media and traditional media, as well as education curricula.•
Networking and opportunities to interact must be promoted so that examples of successful projects can be shared.•
Funding for environmental issues should be increased, i.e. creating financial flows to support city sustainability projects and programmes. Environmental departments are often the least resourced departments.4. Information as a key resource for strategies formulation. In most African countries, local government lacks good statistics and good professionals who understand the value of statistics in informing initiatives required for development. Statistics help improve the knowledge of local government, but producing them is expensive and national government does not always prioritize the production of local-level statistics. The lack of such statistical data, and thus knowledge, is detrimental to local government and weakens local powers (as decisions cannot be taken at local level).
The following recommendations were made to local governments:
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Local governments need to be transparent and inclusive in the collection of data. In addition, objectives must be aligned when local governments start collecting statistics.•
Local governments need to be open to different views about their municipalities. They must also share experiences and come up with common actions (involving the mayors).•
Technical and financial partners should be found and capacity built within regional departments and different municipalities, with the understanding that different municipalities have different needs.•
Information, including spatial data, must be decentralized and disaggregated, and made available.5. Strategies for strengthening the institutional environment of local governments.
As cities continue to grow at an unprecedented rate, managing urbanization is a priority in Africa today. Governance is a major issue, especially in the context of the decentralization of powers and resources. The Assessment of Institutional Environments Report undertaken by UCLGA and Cities Alliance enables African cities to benchmark themselves against one another.
The assessment criteria in this comparative benchmarking are: local and city governments and the constitution; financial transfers; capacity building; transparency; citizen participation;
local government performance; and urban strategy. The assessment found significant local government institutional improvement in Southern Africa (an improvement of 15%) and East Africa (6%). South Africa and Uganda were singled out for their strong local government institutions.
Recommendations
From the discussions in these sessions, the following key recommendations emerged: