Innovative Governance, Open Cities

With the National Unity Government being heavily involved in building port and mega cities, there is special significance for Sri Lanka in World Cities Day which will be marked by the United Nations next Tuesday October 31. The main aim is to promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization, push forward cooperation among countries in meeting opportunities and addressing challenges of urbanization and contributing to sustainable urban development around the world, the UN says. This year’s theme is “Innovative Governance, Open Cities” to highlight the important role of urbanization as a source of global development and social inclusion.  

According to the UN, urbanization provides the potential for new forms of social inclusion, including greater equality, access to services and new opportunities, engagement and mobilization that reflect the diversity of cities, countries and the globe. Yet too often this is not the shape of urban development. Inequality and exclusion abound, often at rates greater than the national average, at the expense of sustainable development that delivers for all.  

 The UN says, Sustainable Development Goal 11, formulates the ambition to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. This underlines the relevance of UN-Habitat’s mission. Inequalities in cities have grown since 1980. The world’s largest cities are also often the most unequal, and this year’s theme is embraced by the action and implementation of the new urban agenda, which is putting the topic of inclusive cities as one of the main pillars for the urban shift.  

In October 2016, the HABITAT III Conference, held in Quito, adopted a new framework, which will set the world on a course towards sustainable urban development by rethinking how cities are planned, managed and inhabited. The new urban agenda will set the pace on how to deal with the challenges of urbanization in the next two decades, and is seen as an extension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This was agreed on by the 193 member states of the UN in September 2015.  

The theme for 2016 was “Inclusive Cities, Shared Development” to highlight the important role of urbanization as a course of global development and social inclusion. Planned urbanization maximizes the capacity of cities to generate employment and wealth, and to foster diversity and social cohesion between different classes, cultures, ethnicities and religions. Cities designed to live together create opportunities, enable connection and interaction and facilitate sustainable use of shared resources, the UN says.   

In Sri Lanka, Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka has repeatedly promised that the megapolis mission would gradually reduce the number of slums in urban areas so that there would be more equality and less exclusion. This would involve the upgrading of areas where the poverty-trapped people live or survive. They would also need to be given productive and well-paid jobs, instead of just Samurdi benefits, so that the human dignity of these impoverished families could be bestowed. It would be a difficult mission. But the minister, known to be technologically-skilled and a socialist thinker, is confident he could bring about just and fair societies in urban areas.   

On October 20, the National Unity Government also launched a mission to develop and empower some 5,000 villages within the next few years. If the urban development projects and the village empowerment missions are implemented efficiently and with commitment, Sri Lanka would go a long way toward building a just, peaceful and an all-inclusive society.