Islands Business - Pacific Update: URBANISATION INEVITABLE, BUT HOW CAN IT BE EXPLOITED?

Dionisia Tabureguci
The year is 2008. A coconut lands with a ‘thud’ on a soft white Pacific sandy beach. In that same instant, humanity would have achieved a watershed feat: more than half of its population—3.3 billion people—will have been living in urban areas.

Port Vila... In Honiara and Port Vila population will double in 18 years and in Suva, in 40 years, according to UNFPA. Pic: Dev Nadkarni

This is the main observation by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which released last month its State of the World Population (SWOP) 2007 report with a subtopic,“Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth”.

Although this significant reality would, like the coconut, have landed on humanity’s lap in an almost invisible, casual way, it will come with implications so momentous that suggestions have been made for global authorities to act now—or leave a legacy of deteriorating social and environmental conditions of urban localities to future generations.

“While the world’s urban population grew very rapidly (from 220 million to 2.8 billion) over the 20th century, the next few decades will see an unprecedented scale of urban growth in the developing world,” says the introduction to SWOP 2007.

“This will be particularly noticeable in Africa and Asia where the urban population will double between 2000 and 2030—that is, the accumulated urban growth in these two regions during the whole span of history will be duplicated in a single generation. By 2030, the towns and cities of the developing world will make up 80 percent of urban humanity.”

Stark as that reality may be, action will emerge in the form of a challenge, which UNFPA has put across to policymakers and civil society organisations: how to exploit the possibilities and opportunities in urbanisation?

While indeed half of humanity will be officially deemed ‘urbanites’ by as early as next year, the percentage is expected to increase as urban population swell to five billion in 2030.

BEST HOPE

Their future and that of humanity depend very much on decisions made now in preparation of this growth, the report pleaded.

“Urbanisation—the increase of urban share of total population—is inevitable, but it can also be positive,” it said. “The current concentration of poverty, slum growth and social disruption in cities does paint a threatening picture. Yet, no country in the industrial age has ever achieved significant economic growth without urbanisation. Cities concentrate poverty, but they also represent the best hope of escaping it.”

The way forward now, it seems, is for stakeholders—in particular policymakers—to plan for this growth. For, to state the obvious, the growth is going to put pressure on the availability of food, water, space, employment opportunities, housing and other essential services.

As well, it will accentuate existing social problems of crimes, diseases and poverty.

The story that numbers are telling about humanity’s global scenario and its future is also being told about the Pacific region and the future of its inhabitants.

PHENOMENAL GROWTH

UNFPA’s Pacific representative Najib Assifi told ISLANDS BUSINESS that in Oceania, 24 million people live in urban centres in 2007, a number that is expected to reach 35 million in 30 years. Most live in cities in developed countries, but the phenomenal growth is also happening in the region’s urban centres. In Honiara and Port Vila, he said, population will double in 18 years and in Suva, in 40 years. This sort of scenario, said Assifi, cannot be sustained by the fragile environment of small urban areas in the Pacific. In addition, in Western Melanesia, growth is high and the picture worsens when urban planning and the provision of essential services remain of poor quality. Since migration to Pacific cities, according to UNFPA Pacific, consisted mainly of youth between the ages of 15-24, Assifi said it was important to propose measures that both support young people’s resourcefulness and attack the root causes of poverty.

“Rather than reacting to problems as they emerge, the aim should be to anticipate urban growth and its impacts,” he noted.

“Attention must be focused on helping poor people to end their poverty and above all, on investing in young people, who are the key to breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty.”

In line with suggestions in the SWOT 2007 report, Assifi urged policymakers to accept urbanisation and react positively to it. “Urbanisation can be a chance to increase economic growth if it is well managed, if migrants can have jobs; and it can develop women’s empowerment if there is gender equality,” he said.

But how much do we really understand about the urbanisation phenomenon in the Pacific in order to accept and plan for it? Is there a possibility of a “Pacific-style solution”? As pointed out by those familiar with urbanisation in the region, no one solution is likely to fit all.

Dr Gerard Haberkorn, head of population division at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community believes there is room for this. He agreed with the suggestions by UNFPA that policymakers should begin accepting urbanisation and start planning for it. But he added that countries in the region are already making small but noticeable progress in that direction.

“Many interesting initiatives taking shape in many countries, that might be useful for others to look at, and see what might be relevant and usefully adapted to local circumstances,” he told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“PNG has recently developed a national urbanisation policy, Fiji has an urban policy action in place, urban management efforts under PUMA in Samoa show what can be done, with Tonga recently also setting up a government department specifically dedicated to urban development. NZAID and Kiribati and Fiji have recently engaged in long-term partnerships on urban renewal, urbanisation is on the regional policy agenda as reflected in the Pacific Plan; and recent joint initiatives between UNESCAP, Forum Secretariat, Commonwealth Secretariat and SPC to start looking at urbanisation as a complex social-behavioural-economic political process and not merely as a context for physical engineering solutions, are all signs that the penny is starting to drop.”

He believes the Pacific islands have a distinct advantage over other countries that have gone through urbanisation: they can learn from those countries, pick the good examples in terms of being more proactive regarding urban policy development and planning; and “avoid the many disastrous experiences of remaining a passive bystander to a largely uncontrolled urban growth.”

The Pacific’s single biggest challenge, he reckoned, is to ensure solutions are sustainable on the ground, in that policies, development strategies and action plans take into account the diversities of Pacific islands societies.

CHALLENGES

“Despite similar structural challenges and issues affecting all countries, the Pacific islands region is culturally, politically and economically diverse, and complex. What may work in Apia is not necessarily replicated in Port Vila and Honiara, given that they have completely different urban land tenure/management, population compositons and urban politics,” Haberkorn said.

The view is shared by Donovan Storey, lecturer in Development Planning at the University of Queensland. Storey pointed out that the reality about urbanisation in the Pacific has hit home and there really is no choice but to act.

“I think to a great extent, urban planning and policy (in the Pacific) is still at an experimental stage with unknown futures, so there’s a great deal to learn and try,” he told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“But the fact is that reality has come home of late—there really is no choice. Growth and its manifestations, especially those resulting from a lack of planning and effective responses mean there has to be action and, given the unique contexts facing urban managers (such as atoll urbanisation, urban growth on customary land, the emergence of extreme urban poverty and crime, and the lack of resources of formal institutions, etc), innovative solutions are more likely to be a necessity than a choice.”

With urbanisation in the Pacific being as such, what could be the “act now” move for policymakers in the region?

The suggestion that comes from urban development and management consultant Dr Paul Jones is simple: governments and politicians need to take a fresh look at the way they manage their towns and cities.

“Integrated urban development and management has not yet made it onto the development agenda in a serious way in the Pacific for many reasons,” said Jones, who is also adjunct associate professor, Pacific Development at the University of Sydney.

“These include the fact that urban development and management is cross sector in nature requiring many stakeholders to work together, national development plans of islands nations need to deal with sectors not themes such as urban development, and the fact that the role of urban areas and their contribution to economic growth has not been recognised by economic planners.

“Urban areas in the Pacific, for example, contribute in the order of 50 -70% of GDP and the urban development and management needs to support this growth cannot be ignored any longer.”

Based on population growth trends and urbanisation trend/projections in PICs, Jones suggested four pointers to achieving sustainable urban development and management in the Pacific:

“The first is the urgent need to mobilise and package appropriately located land, primarily customary land, for urban development. As seen in the growing squatter settlements in Suva, for example, there is an urgent demand to provide serviced vacant land such as in peri-urban areas to cater for future population growth. Secondly, there is a need to improve the level of infrastructure and services both locally and city wide.

“Major infrastructure and service deficiencies generally exist in the provision of primary trunk infrastructure at the city wide and town levels, as well as in site specific locations such as overcrowded housing areas. Thirdly, there is a need to improve the enabling environment—that is, the policy, institutional and regulatory setting—in which decisions on land planning (including land supply), infrastructure and urban development are made. A relevant and up-todate enabling environment is the conduit by which priority Pacific urban management and urban development concerns can be systematically addressed. Fourthly, continuing and reoccurring issues in PIC towns and cities such as squatters and land problems require fresh ideas, approaches and skills to bring about solutions. Most importantly, there is the need for ‘urban decision-makers to work with landowners (not against them) on ways to bring land, primarily customary land, on the market to meet the demand for affordable urban plots which can be properly serviced.”