From 1 to 5 September 2019, a Community-based Urban Vision Week was organized in Somaliland’s capital city of Hargeisa. Hargeisa is a fast-growing city with limited resources to plan and manage the urban development in a sustainable manner. The Urban Vision Week aimed at paving the pathway to a participatory strategic urban action plan for Hargeisa 2040, pivoting around a Shared Vision on the best possible urban scenario to strive for.
For the first time in Somaliland, children were mobilized to take active part in pre-visioning consultations and a special Placemaking session during the Urban Vision Week, hence the Child-Friendly-City focus.
The UN Joint Programme for Local Governance and Service Delivery (JPLG) through UN-Habitat and UNICEF supports the local and national leadership in localizing the SDGs and New Urban Agenda, aligned with the National Development Plan for Somaliland. Overall the Urban Vision Week was very successful in reaching out to a wide diversity of stakeholders and groups in society, including vulnerable groups such as children, women, elderly and disabled persons.
This note presents important takeaways and suggest the best way forward to capitalize on the Shared Vision Declaration that was endorsed during the closing ceremony of the Urban Vision Week, with a hand-over to the Hargeisa Mayor, whom warmly accepted and committed to follow up on the community-based resolutions of the Declaration.
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