A notorious characterisation of Kenyan urban centres is their spontaneous growth and haphazard development, poor planning, and the mushrooming of legal and illegal structures.
Strangely, these structures develop under the watchful eyes of elected leaders, mayors, chairs of councils, town clerks as permanent secretaries and political leadership rubberstamp them.
Urban management has in the past been done in the absence of a policy framework. The Local Government Act CAP 265 (earmarked for repealing) and the Physical Planning Act of 1996 have been the main legislative instruments governing urban areas.
The major challenges facing urban areas include inadequate infrastructure and services; poor housing; environmental degradation, high rates of unemployment, increasing incidence of poverty, and inequality.
During the last four decades, Kenya has witnessed a rapid rate of urbanisation estimated at five per cent, which has seen the urban population rise from eight per cent at Independence (1963) to the current figure of over 34 per cent. It is projected that half of the Kenyan population will be urbanised by 2030.
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These figures should send some sense to the persons upon whom we have bestowed powers and authorities of all urban areas in the 47 counties.
Town Clerks and chief officers are today in a bind in cases where well connected people or politicians have been linked to illegal structures and pulling them down have been rebutted in equally strange ways using courts and goons alike.
On Tuesday, several mayors, chairs of town councils and town clerks met in Nairobi’s Safari Park Hotel to confer on how to manage transitions in new urban era. Our only hope is that they took notes home to implement.
The Constitution of Kenya 2010 has provided citizens with an unprecedented opportunity to be part of an urban change that will progressively guarantee better quality of life and dignity for all. With estimations that one in two Kenyans will be an urban resident by the next decade, attention ought to be given to the future of urban development.
This attention can benefit from the fact that participation of citizens in the urban affairs is not only a constitutional right, but also a key principle in the governance and management mechanisms now embraced in urban law.
Most urban areas Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nyeri, Meru, Garissa, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kakamega, Kisii like all other urban areas lack of clearly-stated policies directing their growth and development and the problem is made worse by absence of urban planning instruments, processes, and capacities.
Robust policy
The performance of these urban centres for which a series of plans have been prepared is stifled due to the absence of an integrated urban development policy that will otherwise facilitate the implementation of these plans.
Habitat and urban environment experts warn that urban development from the outset was not backed by any robust policy intervention. It is time this was changed.
It is envisaged that the recently launched draft urban development policy will be a key milestone in guiding urban developments countrywide, in among other issues development planning, land management, urban investment and delivery of infrastructure services.
But questions linger. When Local Government Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi launched this policy a while ago, no implementation has been witnessed nor formidable action taken.
Kenyans keenly watching are wondering what happened to the beautiful policy document that was unveiled or was it locked up in a cabinet at Jogoo House again?
The urban challenge facing Kenya is how to marshal all available physical, financial, human and technical resources to manage rapid urbanisation.
Urbanisation offers opportunities to be exploited for the benefit of the Kenyan citizens. Despite the many challenges urban areas continue to play critical roles in national development as they contribute about 70 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
Experience has shown that if managed properly, African cities and towns could provide the critical link between the development of rural areas and the larger global economy.
