- Its aim is to improve the living standards of citizens.
- It also focuses on the need for Africa to learn, promote and present a new approach to sustainable development.
Image: faith matete
The Africities summit's objectives include defining appropriate shared strategies in order to improve the living conditions of people at the local level and at the same time contribute to the integration, peace and unity of Africa starting from the grassroots.
Africities is a Pan-African conference that is convened by the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa.
UCLG-Africa is a membership of 51 national associations of local governments from all regions in Africa, as well as 2,000 cities and territories that have more than 100,000 inhabitants. The organisation represents nearly 350 million African citizens.
Africities summit is the main platform for dialogue on decentralisation and local governance, African ministers, mayors, leaders and elected officials of local and regional governments, civil society organisations, traditional authorities, representatives of the African Diaspora, economic actors, experts, researchers and academics, financial institutions and development partners.
Its aim is to improve the living standards of citizens
The summits have been held every three years since 1998 when the first meeting was held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Other cities to host the summit include Johannesburg-South Africa, Dakar-Senegal, Windhoek-Namibia, Yaounde-Cameroon, Nairobi and Marrakech-Morroco (twice).
The summit also focuses on the need for Africa to learn, promote and present a new approach to sustainable development.
It is premised upon SDG 11 – sustainable cities and communities, which seeks to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable and the need to address challenges that hamper the realisation of UN’s 2063 Agenda.
Objectives
The Africities summit's objectives include defining appropriate shared strategies in order to improve the living conditions of people at the local level and at the same time contribute to the integration, peace and unity of Africa starting from the grassroots.
Kisumu, the third-largest city in Kenya, with a population of 409,000 according to the 2009 census, is the first intermediary city in Africa to host the conference.
How Kisumu came to host the summit
In 2018 November, UCLG–Africa secretary general Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi announced in Marrakesh, Morocco, that Kisumu will host the summit in 2021.
This followed a long bidding process spearheaded by the Council of Governors and the Kisumu government.
The county had shown interest and the capacity to host the ninth edition of the summit.
“We have specifically selected the theme for the ninth Africities summit to focus on the role of intermediary African cities in implementing the 2030 Agenda and the United Nations and African Unions Agenda 2063,” Mbassi said.
The African Union's Agenda 2063 aims to achieve shared prosperity and well-being, unity and integration of Africa.
Kisumu, the third-largest city in Kenya, with a population of 409,000 according to the 2009 census, is the first intermediary city in Africa to host the conference.
According to a summary of a concept note on the contribution of Africa's intermediary cities to the implementation of Agenda 2030 of the United Nations and Agenda 2063 of the African Union, for the very first time, the Africities summit would highlight the first level of the continent's urban framework.
The framework is made up of around 1,500 intermediary cities in Africa with populations of between 50,000 and 500,000 inhabitants.
This layer of the continent's urban landscape currently accounts for a little over 30 per cent of the urban population. It is the basis for the development of local economies that structure relations between populations living in rural and those in urban areas.
The approach of the Africities Summits is to start by improving the living conditions of the populations.