The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is facilitating a project aimed at strengthening the capacities of African nations to transform their burgeoning cities into poles of inclusive and sustainable development.
The project focuses on meeting the cross-sectoral needs of institutions in charge of national development planning, urban development, housing, industry, finance, agriculture, infrastructure and statistics by designing and implementing policies/strategies for cities that inspire growth, economic diversification, competitiveness, industrialization, agriculture development, innovation, trade, employment and overall human development.
The $500, 000 project will cover Cameroon, Cape Verde, Morocco, Uganda and Zambia.
It has first been launched in Cameroon bringing together ECA’s Social Development Policy Division’s resource people with Cameroon’s National Implementation Team (NIT) to work towards formulating a National Implementation Plan of the project for the 2017/2018 period.
The cross-sectoral team will be made up of among others experts in national development planning; finance and economic development; trade, infrastructure and industry; agriculture; housing and urban planning; urban data and statistics.
They will set the steps, approach and necessary means to integrate urbanization in Cameroon’s development strategy.
“In its long term development vision, Cameroon is working to create conditions for an integrated economic area in which it intends not only to master the development of cities to make them centres of production and consumption levels that are necessary for the growth of the industrial sector, but also to promote the emergence of peripheral settlements, and the development of medium or secondary towns capable of structuring economic activities in the urban space and helping in the development of surrounding rural areas,” Louis Paul Motaze, Cameroon’s Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Development said during the launch.
The Director of the Sub-regional Office for Central Africa of ECA, Antonio Pedro highlighted the importance of leveraging urbanization for accelerated industrialization in any narrative on urbanization on the continent.
“A focus on industrialisation would enable cities to be productive and create decent jobs while generating revenues to provide inclusive access to services, infrastructure and overall prosperity,” he added.