BY PROVIDENCE OBUH

African leaders and mayors will this month converge for two days in Lagos to tackle issue of urbanization which has become the bane of the continent.

The conference which comes up between May 30 and 31, will witness the attendance of about 150 senior level participants to debate challenging questions around managing, designing, and financing the continent’s cities and discuss the future of African’s urban transformation with international groups of experts.

According to the organizers of the conference, “Urbanisation is happening faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world and by 2050,  about 60 percent of Africans will be city dwellers,” with the cities planned in haphazard, fragmented and characterized by lack of long- term strategic planning and incoherent investments.”

The Conference Director, Marianne Mazou, in a statement on the conference said, “Urban development has been haphazard, fragmented and characterized by a lack of long-term strategic planning and incoherent investments. For Africa’s expanding cities to function in the future, policy makers need new and innovative approaches to urban development, infrastructure, environmental issues, transportation, social services and housing.

“Our Future Cities will feature those managing, designing, planning and financing Africa’s most innovative cities, as well as leading authorities in urban planning, construction, transport, energy architecture and sustainability.”

Also commenting on the issue, President, International Association of Public Transport Ousmane Thaim, said joining up urban development policies with mobility strategies at an institutional level and putting in place sustainable transport services and quality infrastructure are key to maintaining Africa’s urban transformation towards economic viability and growth.

“I look forward to exchanging with high-level policymakers and professional from across the African continent on how to achieve a public transport network which is efficiently and effectively linking economic activities and people.”

Africa’s dynamic cities have a chance to forge a new kind of urbanism if they harness the entrepreneurial energies of their citizens says Author of Stealth of Nations and also member of the conference committee, Robert Neuwirth.

The conference with theme, “Managing Africa’s Urban Transformation,” will further feature the Governor of Lagos State Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, Executive Mayor of Johannesburg Parks Tau, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), among others.