With half of the human race already living in towns and cities, it is projected that in the next 50 years, two-thirds of the population will be living in urban areas. A major challenge is to minimise burgeoning poverty in cities, improve access of the urban poor to basic facilities to achieve environment-friendly, sustainable urban growth and development.
According to the United Nations, thousands of poor people are uprooted every year to make way for ?developmental? ambitions of the upper-class society. In a UN Habitat report, State of the World’s Cities, released in advance of the Fifth World Urban Forum (WUF), any housing efforts made by countries to improve living conditions over the last decade were more than countered by world population growth and the rural exodus to cities.
All these issues will be discussed at length at the WUF, to be held in Brazil from March 22-26. Kumari Selja, minister for housing & urban poverty alleviation, will lead the Indian delegation to the Forum. The private sector will be represented by Ficci chairman Niranjan Hiranandani, who is also the MD of Hiranandani Construction Pvt Ltd. Within a span of few years, the World Urban Forum has turned into the world’s premier conference on cities. The Forum was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing problems facing the world today-rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies.
Since the first meeting in Nairobi, Kenya in 2002, the Forum has grown in size and stature as it traveled to Barcelona in 2004, Vancouver 2006, and Nanjing in 2008.
India is an important part of the global trend towards increasing urbanisation. About 27.8% cent of India?s population lives in urban areas, making India the second largest urban habitat in the world. The key issues facing urban India include shortfalls in housing, inadequate water supply & sewerage, traffic congestion, growing slums, pollution, poverty making urban governance a difficult task. Given the enormity of this challenge, the private sector must be engaged as partners to supplement the government effort in development of infrastructure in ensuring adequacy and efficiency of urban services leading to sustainable urbanisation.
According to officials, ?Ficci being a partner organisation of WUF would make a strong representation of the Indian private sector companies as well as government bodies & agencies contributing to sustainable urbanization. Ficci delegation would participate in events, meetings, round table discussions. ?
?The event would present initiatives of PPPs towards sustainable urbanisation and deliberate on innovative urban planning and management strategies, housing for all, improving urban infrastructure services, effective resource mobilisation and cost recovery for inclusive growth,? said officials at Ficci.
One of the main activities at the Forum will be an event on ?Urban Conflicts, Mega-events and evictions?. The event comes as Brazil prepares to host two ?mega-events?: the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.