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Tuesday, 13 May 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Waruni Paranagamage
Today we are living in a world with rapid urban transformation. For the first time in history more than 50% of the world’s population lived in cities in 2011. By 2030 the global urban population will have doubled by adding two billion more to cities’ population.
Since the turn of the century, the number of people living in South Asia’s towns and cities has increased by about 130 million. United Nation’s reports have projected that an additional 315 million South Asians will call cities their home in 2030.
In this context, South Asian cities will face unprecedented policy challenges with the pressure on land and housing as well as the infrastructure underlying the supply of basic urban services, leading to a rapid deterioration in a quality of life for their citizens.
“The World Bank will deepen its support for the development of a strong network of well-connected and sustainable cities through further policy and analytical work for the Sri Lanka,” said Francois Clottes, Country Director of the World Bank releasing a special statement at the South Asia Regional Workshop and Mayor’s Forum organised by the World Bank in Kandy.
Titled ‘Managing Urban Transformation,’ the forum for which Governor Kobbekaduwa was the Chief Guest, featured presentations by Kandy Mayor Mahindra Ratwatte, World Bank members, economic experts and South Asian city mayors.
This was a platform for high level policy makers and senior practitioners in South Asia to build and share knowledge on urban challenges faced in a city and how they have been addressed.
Sri Lanka’s development in context
Clottes pointed out Sri Lanka has been successful in urban development in overcoming many development challenges, including moving people out of poverty and taking measures to boost shared prosperity. Now Sri Lanka is focusing on addressing new challenges involving bold decisions and a transformational approach.
According to the ‘Mahinda Chinthana,’ sustaining high rates of economic growth is at the heart of the Government‘s objectives. The ambitious vision rests on Sri Lanka’s becoming an Asian hub in five strategic areas – naval, aviation, commercial, energy, and knowledge. The strategy, with its focus on hubs, is fundamentally an outward-oriented one. Within this development plan, rapid urbanisation becomes a major phenomenon.
World Bank support for Sri Lanka’s urban development
Describing the World Bank’s role in urban development in Sri Lanka, Clottes said it was a relatively new area of engagement for the World Bank, supported by the first IBRD loan to Sri Lanka in 2012 to regenerate Sri Lanka’s urban areas.
Currently the Metro Colombo Urban Development project is helping the Colombo Metropolitan Region address obstacles to realising its full economic potential, including inadequate infrastructure and services and significant vulnerability to flooding. Further support is extended to the Colombo Metropolitan Region through the Colombo Green Growth program, which provides a holistic framework and incentive mechanism for participating municipalities and ministries on urban development to stage, plan, and implement environmentally and socially sustainable and resilient projects and policies.
The World Bank is extending its support to Government of Sri Lanka in the urban sector through a second large project which was approved by the World Bank Board recently – the Strategic Cities Development Project – which focuses on urban services improvement in Kandy and Galle. It will improve selected urban services and public spaces in the two cities and the project will also focus on improving deteriorated municipal infrastructure and services such as traffic management and public transport, water supply system, and major public spaces in Kandy.
These projects will enhance liveability for local residents and reduce congestion for commuters employed in the city. The project will also reduce flooding in Galle and create more public spaces to improve the quality of life for residents.
“Sri Lanka is taking important steps to implement its urban vision, including connectivity improvements, urban renewal and sustainable initiatives in its strategic cities. The World Bank will stand ready to provide support to understand the economic drivers of rapidly-growing cities. Fostering economic growth in major urban centres outside of Colombo should produce a more spatially-balanced contribution to the economic opportunities and bolster shared prosperity and overall national economic growth,” asserted Clottes.
Government support to Kandy
Mayor of Kandy Mahindra Ratwatte stated that increasing density of the city’s living and daily migrant population, lack of space inside the city limits, tension between increasing construction and the need to preserve the environment in harmony with its heritage status, the necessity to modernise living and provide comforts to the stakeholders, congestion caused to the road and the rail networks, and increasing educational, residential and cultural demand are some of major challenges ahead, in addition to the need for advancing the economy, increasing business profits and finding finance to carry out the reforms with limited resources, which are basic challenges in Kandy.
He stated: “We are fortunate and not alone. The Central Government is willing to assist in major development projects, the Health Ministry is maintaining several health services in our town, the Education Ministry is assisting in the schools, the Irrigation Department is assisting the maintenance and upkeep of the city’s lake, and the Ceylon Electricity Board is supplying street lighting.”
“I am proud to announce that we have started on a correct note to commence this process of transformation. Brotherhood and cooperation between peoples of different political thought, religion and ideology have resulted in our current era of change in an ever-changing world, commencing with the passing of the first budget of the Municipality with a bipartisan accord. We are glad that the World Bank has partnered with us in this process,” added Ratwatte.
Eco-friendly vision
Mayor of Thimphu Dasho Kinley said that after he became Mayor of Thimphu in 2011, he realised the importance of having a vision for the city. “Our vision is to build a Thimphu city as a green city with a clean and green environment; a rich and vibrant culture in an eco-friendly city.”
Parallel to the increase of population of the city in the last 10 years, urban infrastructure demand has increased. Constructing roads and water management were the major challenges in Thimphu. “Without the support of the World Bank I would have had sleepless nights,” said Kinley.
He said that in 1959 people in Thimphu were isolated even from their relatives and this was a great challenge because of the lack of infrastructure. But in 1960 Bhutan opened its relationship with India and Thimphu City could build up the first road in 1961.
After having autonomy, people representatives in Thimphu implement their own opinions. With the aim of achieving its vision and getting support from the central government and the World Bank, Thimphu City is rapid transforming with recycling and waste management into an eco-friendly city. It partners with other Government agencies with the aim of respecting and supporting each other and is also trying to promote agro-based industries which create more job opportunities in the city.
Good leadership for good transformation
Ministry of Defence and Urban Development Additional Secretary Janaka Kurukulasuriya asserted that leadership plays a significant role in urban transformation. While good leadership leads to good transformation, connectivity is also important.
“We were able to complete the Southern Expressway and Airport Expressway recently. We are in the process of planning the Northern Expressway,” said Kurukulasuriya. “Revenue from municipal councils, urban councils and Pradeshiya Sabha are not sufficient for the major development activities.”
The importance of decentralisation
Delivering the keynote, Paul Smoke, Professor of Public Finance and Planning, NYU, expressed: “There are considerable variations in the nature of urban areas and the structure of government systems in the SAR, so the roles of and demands on urban governments vary.”
Noting that SAR urban governments often face a number of similar types of realities, he said central governments are powerful and control or strongly influence urban governments, while urban governments experience a range of limitations.
There is a great potential for urban governments to play a strong role in meeting urban needs. Local government must consist with fiscal, political and administrative dimensions. Administrative dimension is significant and the relationships must be defined appropriately. Planning, the degree of local control and the framework to partner with the private sector play significant roles in administration. Autonomy serves key roles in decentralisation to make decisions about generating and using public resources. Central governments must establish a framework for autonomy that ensure adherence to certain standards of legal control behaviour. Responsibility of national integrity and security, macroeconomic stabilisation and redistribution of central government may sometimes conflict with local government autonomy.
“A core decentralisation challenge is getting the correct balance between central control and local government autonomy. This balance can be reached as decentralisation and local government empowerment evolve,” he added.
SAR countries except India and Pakistan are unitary states but vary in the number of levels of sub national government and administration. Even if most have both constitutional and legal empowerment of local governments, they are often not strong, well-detailed or fully implemented as defined.
The mechanism for jurisdiction coordination and cooperation are generally undeveloped in the South Asian regions. Many services are provided at the local level as well as where local shares of public spending are higher, local governments often face limitations on autonomy. Enhancing opportunities for urban governments to raise their own revenues is a way of strengthening urban governments. Electoral systems need to be transparent and sufficiently competitive to give citizens some choice.
“There are real political obstacles to urban reform. But with growing pressure to perform, political openings for reform can arise and innovative urban governments will take advantage of opportunities offered to them,” added Smoke.
