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Zambia is participating at the Second Session of the United Nations (UN)-Habitat Assembly in Kenya, with an affirmative call for global support to help developing Nations, deliver modern technologies and infrastructure to transform urban and rural areas into engines of growth.
The Assembly was officially opened by Kenyan President William Ruto on Tuesday, under the theme “A sustainable urban future through inclusive and effective multilateralism: Achieving the SDGs in times of global crises”.
This is according to a statement issued on Wednesday in Lusaka by Chila Namaiko, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Public Relations Officer.
Zambia is represented by Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Gary Nkombo, and Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, Charles Milupi.
Speaking during the assembly, Nkombo stressed Zambia’s call for technical support to developing Nations in order to improve technology capacities like the internet and modern infrastructure in communities, which would spur development.
He further called for the development of data for evidence-based planning and assessment of progress in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda, particularly SDG 11, aimed at ‘Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.’
“We need support to develop clear strategies for fostering global and regional synergies in addressing urban challenges, and put measures to spur innovative solutions for rural development challenges to reinforce rural areas as major sources of food security,” he stated.
Nkombo also stated that, in a quest for Zambia to accelerate rural development, the government is accelerating the implementation of decentralization and promoting multi-level governance to enable inclusive development.
“This includes ensuring that citizens access basic services through devolving key functions to Local Authorities and strengthening sub-district structures to contribute to service delivery,” he said.
Nkombo cited how government has significantly increased the allocation of resources to communities through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to encourage a locally driven development agenda.
He said Zambia has also mainstreamed the New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in the country’s 8th National Development Plan, with over 80percent of the SDGs aligned to the plan.
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Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, Charles Milupi said Zambia is implementing a National Housing Policy in order to facilitate decent and affordable housing units to meet the current housing deficit estimated at 1.5 million.
He said the UN-Habitant Assembly is, therefore, an important platform for Zambia to interact with and attract potential investors to leverage government policy on Public Private Partnership (PPP) models for promoting infrastructure development, including providing decent housing units and slum upgrading.
“We are here to learn what other nations have done, what the UN intends to do as we are coming up with measures that impact positively on providing decent housing to citizens and to learn workable strategies on how other countries are implementing their housing policies,” the Minister said.
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