African cities are rapidly urbanising and already experiencing considerable negative impacts of urbanisation. The production of urban spaces in African cities is frequently characterised as unsustainable.
After two decades of independence, development in Timor-Leste is exemplified by growing economic activity in Dili, the country’s capital city. Businesses are emerging on various corners, new infrastructure and public buildings are being constructed, and much improved information and communication technology has opened doors for the service sector and private enterprises to grow.
Thel government has ordered district councils countrywide to set aside some funds each fiscal year in order to finance "land use plans' resolutions" under them, especially in villages which are rapidly becoming urban areas. The Minister for Land, Housing and Human Settlement Development, Mr William Lukuvi, said the move would keep off sporadic land conflicts rocking the country.
The current Covid 19 pandemic is likely to spread in the next few weeks and months to the South and in particular South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. The impact may well be of a greater scale than that currently experienced in the North; India was the region with the highest loss of live in the 1918-1919 Spanish flu Pandemic. The experience and historical experience suggests that urban areas will be disproportionately affected.
Over a year ago in Quito, after a long negotiation and high involvement of all stakeholders, the atmosphere I could feel in my constituency was that of a promise; a big promise of a different international understanding of the urbanization phenomenon, a new role of cities and local and regional governments in the international governance and a shared vision of the need to rethink models.
WUF12 will focus on localizing the Sustainable Development Goals, shedding light on the local actions and initiatives required to curb the current global challenges affecting the daily life of people, including unaffordable housing, rising living costs, climate change, the lack of basic services, and ongoing conflicts.
It all starts locally.
The webinar, organized by the UNECE Working Party on Land Administration (WPLA), follows a study on ecosystems and security in land administration. It explores the complex landscape shaped by global megatrends and sector-specific drivers, emphasizing the role of technology and digitalization in land administration.
Theme: Smart Cities in Africa for the 21st Century
The Latin American and Caribbean Urban CSO Cluster, part of the Global Land Tools Network (GTLN), together with Habitat for Humanity’s Solid Ground Campaign and the Land Portal Foundation, launched an online debate on Urban Land Conflicts in Latin America and the Caribbean in January 2017. Responding to the common interest to make information easy to access and flow to boost collaboration among stakeholders as a critical basis to improve land governance.
Countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region were the first in the developing world to go through rapid urbanization. Today, the region is the second most urbanized region in the world. This urbanization process has been accompanied by sharp social contrasts and economic disparities, a buoyant informal housing and land development process and increased local democracy and municipal autonomy, coupled with active social urban movements. This makes the Latin America and Caribbean region a unique landscape in the study of land and housing for the poor.
UN-Habitat and GIZ have developed the Metropolitan Capacity Assessment Methodology (MetroCAM) as a joint contribution to implement urban sustainable development agendas and bring them to the metropolitan scale. It complements the Unpacking Metropolitan Governance series.
