Kenya holds its first-ever National Urban Forum

Naivasha, Kenya 16 June 2023—President William Ruto officiated as Kenya hosted its first-ever National Urban Forum.

In his keynote speech, President Ruto revisited the just concluded Second United Nations Habitat Assembly and the stimulating debates that were held therein.

“Last week, at the launch of the 2nd session of the UN Habitat assembly, I participated in a forum that reflected at great length on the urgency, challenges, and opportunities in connection with Sustainable Urbanisation. I am encouraged by the number of highly engaged, major stakeholders in the area of human settlement and urbanization that I have been able to engage with before and today,” he said.

The Head of State gave a brief overview of Kenya’s urbanization history and the challenges posed by rapid urbanization.

“At independence, Kenya was a rural nation of 9 million people. Only 8 percent of this population was urban. Now, Kenya is urbanizing at an annual rate of 5%, and 34% of our population is urban. By 2050, 50% of all Kenyans will live in urban areas.

Rapid urbanization, coupled with low growth of essential housing, water, energy, transport, sanitation, and other infrastructure has intensified demand, leading to such manifestations of unbearable pressure as unplanned and unsafe developments, poor sanitation and hazardous pollution, crowded and unsanitary housing and poor access to other goods like education, healthcare, and security,” he said.

It is time to take radical measures to bring the country’s urbanization under control in order to enable urban institutions and authorities to significantly improve livability in Kenya, he noted adding that urban areas must be transformed from spaces where it is difficult for authorities to provide services, and for citizens to obtain them.

“In other words, we must, with great urgency, steward the transformation of our urban areas into well-planned, adequately managed, well-governed, and sufficiently resourced spaces,” President Ruto stated.

The Forum is organised by Kenya’s State Department for Housing and Urban Development in the Ministry of Lands, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development in collaboration with the World Bank, UN-Habitat, National Land Commission, Council of Governors of Kenya (CoG) and the Kenya Institute of Planners (KIP).

It is hoped that the Forum will provide a high-level platform for raising awareness on sustainable urbanization among stakeholders and constituencies, including the general public. It will focus on improving collective knowledge of sustainable urban development through inclusive open debates, sharing lessons learned, and the exchange of best practices and policies.

Addressing the meeting, UN-Habitat Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif appreciated President Ruto and the people of Kenya for hosting some 5,000 delegates who attended UNHA2 and for having showcased to the world how Kenya was addressing its urban-related challenges.

She said that with the support of Kenya, Member States at the Assembly ratified 10 Resolutions and adopted the Ministerial Declaration, titled “A Sustainable Urban Future through Inclusive and Effective Multilateralism: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Times of Global Crisis”.

She said that action reinvigorated the mandate of UN-Habitat, particularly in supporting member states and local governments to comprehensively address various crises affecting cities and human settlements.

“Like other countries in Africa, Kenya’s future is urban. Out of a total population of 53 million, more than 32 % now live in cities and urban centers. Kenya is also experiencing an urban growth of 3.7% per annum.

The challenge of our times is to harness the power of urbanization to align the needs of the people, the economy, and the city. We are at a moment in time that will never come again. It is the moment to get urbanization right. To ensure balance between rural and urban needs,” she said.

Sharif said Kenya was already a leader in the implementation of the devolution process and that what was needed was to help each county strengthen its own source revenue collection, define their unique selling point, and co-create unique economic offerings.

“I encourage you to draw inspiration from best practices from different parts of the world, for instance, In Thailand, each village is known for a particular product. I believe that Kenya can capitalise on the unique feature of each county, make each city ‘smarter’ and leverage on its global tourism offer to create new job opportunities,” she said.