Since 2007 UN-Habitat has supported the government and people of Egypt to reconstruct and repair houses and community infrastructure facilities in the north and east of the country. UN-Habitat’s technical assistance included design, preparation of the bills of quantities, assistance with securing land tenure rights, obtaining local authority approvals, and environmentally friendly construction method.
Egypt's 223 cities are inhabited by 43.1 per cent of the population, of which 56 per cent are concentrated in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR) as well as Alexandria Governorates. GCR is the largest metropolitan area on the African continent; it is the prime engine for economic growth in Egypt and with over 19 Million inhabitants, close to 20 per cent of the country’s population living within its boundaries. Since 2011, there is a growing number of informal and unsafe areas emerging in Egypt, estimated by the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) to about 1,171 areas across the country, with a population of around 15 million inhabitants.
Due to rapid urban growth in Egypt over the last four decades, urban planning, infrastructure and service delivery have not been able to keep up. Today, critical urban issues arise from the sheer size of the metropolitan city and from its population density. Due to inefficient public land management systems and prohibitive housing policies, impoverished individuals have no alternative but to settle in unplanned and sometimes unsafe areas. In addition to the stress on deteriorating infrastructure, public services and transportation systems are stretched to the limit.
Since its establishment, UN-Habitat in Egypt has been able to build strong partnerships with the various related stakeholders for enhanced impact and sustainability of interventions. This partnership varies from ensuring local and community participation during planning and implementation of interventions, to supporting local and central government assess and respond to urban needs and enabling dialogues and platforms that integrate knowledge from various representatives of academia, local community, NGOs, international agencies and the government.
Like much of the world, Egypt is witnessing rapid growth of its cities. To date 43% of the population in Egypt live in 223 cities, of which 56 % are concentrated in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR) and Alexandria. This rapid urbanization represents one of the biggest challenges that faces Egypt's urban development and is one of the main causes of the growth of informal and unsafe areas in Egypt.
However, the smartest cities today are turning these challenges into opportunities because urbanization should be considered as a driver of development rather than a problem. Cities can be engines of growth, but this is only if they are managed well and if opportunities are seized and utilized. Cities bring people closer together, benefit from economies of scale, and are a marketplace of their own - placing people, goods, and services all in close proximity. To capture this potential, we must push forward sustainable urbanization policies, policies that enable growth and at the same time create an urban development process that is able to cope with the challenges of the coming years – such as climate change, increasing demands on urban infrastructure, pollution and rapid population growth.
Sustainable urbanization is multifaceted, and it is for this reason that national urban policies must look at urban development through multiple lenses such as Planning and Design, Urban Economy, Housing and Services, and Governance. We must build and design cities that are inclusive and that are equipped for the next century. It is for this reason that UN-Habitat has been focusing on pilot interventions that result in the creation of sustainable, efficient and vibrant cities so they become engines of growth and also focuses on producing knowledge products and pilot projects that can provide evidence based research to the formulation of key policies. These dynamics are not a particularity to Egypt, but they are part of global processes. Thus UN-Habit is mobilizing the government towards the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) which will take place in 2016 in Quito, Ecuador and it is aligning its work along the Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goal 11, to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”
Rania Hedeya
UN-Habitat Egypt
Type Name Government Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities ( MoHUC) Ministry of Local Development ( MoLD) Ministry of Planning (MoP) Ministry of Finance ( MoF) Government of Spain Government of Germany (BMZ) Swiss Agency for International Development (SDC) German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Governorate of Asyut Governorate of Qalyobya Governorate of Cairo Governorate of Giza Al Alamein local government New Urban Community Authority ( NUCA) General Organization of Physical Planning ( GOPP) UN Agencies The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Industrial Development Organization ( UNIDO) United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security ( UNTFHS) UN Women International Labor Organization (ILO) International Organization for Migration ( IOM) International NGOs Plan International Ford Foundation Universities and research centers Asyut University AT-Verband -Association for the Promotion of Socially & Environmentally Appropriate Technologies Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus Frankfurt/M University of Applied Sciences (Research Institute for Architecture, Civil Engineering, Geomatics) Institute for Automation and Communication (ifac), Magdeburg ifeu – Institute for Energy and Environmental Research IUWA Heidelberg Institute for Future Energy Systems (IZES, Saarbrücken) Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Campus Suderburg University of Stuttgart (Institute of Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy(IER) Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Local NGOs and CBOs Nahdet Khayrallah NGO Elshehab NGO Tadamon NGO Hawa El mostakbal NGO
Sudan has been experiencing long-lasting conflicts and tribal disputes particularly in five Darfur States as well as three Southern States including Blue Nile, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. To respond to the uprising challenges and economic opportunities in Sudan, UN-Habitat has been working on humanitarian, peace building and development assistance for the Government of Sudan.
In Sudan, a large influx of population from rural to urban areas has been obviously accelerated due to the complexity of the country’s political, social and environmental challenges and opportunities. Sudan also has a high percentage of informal settlements and developments that has also caused urban challenges.
In the field of urban legislation, land and governance, the Government has been facing two key challenges. Firstly, a lack of National Urban Policy and its implementation strategy. Secondly, a strong desire of practical land resolution mechanism and land registration system.
UN-Habitat Sudan has been actively engaging with key government counterparts both in federal and state level, key UN agencies, donor communities and international/national organizations in the country. In compliance with Sudan UNDAF 2018-2021 and Humanitarian Response Plan, UN-Habitat Sudan Office has been working under the coordination of Sudan United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and Humanitarian Coordination Team (HCT) in order to assist bridging humanitarian response and development support in line with the principle of Humanitarian, Peace Building and Development Nexus.
Sudan is a post-conflict country that aspires to forge and maintain a sustainable peace. According to different studies, the rapid urbanization process observed in Sudan has been determined by four main factors. These are the massive flows of rural-urban migration and displacement due to extended conflicts which afflicted certain parts of the country; the ensuing natural disasters, especially drought and its consequences; the complex pattern of the country’s political development since independence and the inadequate state of rural development in the country resulting from territorial-imbalanced development.
While cities and towns in Sudan face many challenges, urbanization processes offer an opportunity to trigger sustainable processes of development, harnessing the capacity and aspirations of the people from urban areas. Achieving sustainable urbanization will therefore require attending, in a balanced manner, the needs of cities and towns as well as of those peri-urban and rural areas with which they have mutually dependent social, economic and environmental interactions.
In this context the Sudanese government will embark on the formulation and development of an integrated strategy for urbanization based on partnership with the private sector and community participation. Preliminary steps and actions has already been taken with respect to the preparation of the project document, initial funding was allocated by the government and a number of donors were approached for funding. The main objectives of the strategy are:
Wael al-Ashhab
UN-Habitat Sudan
All of UN-Habitat Sudan’s projects are developed, implemented and monitored in partnership with the relevant Sudanese ministries to ensure they are in line with the National Development Plan and it’s priorities. To institutionalize the relation with the main government counterpart, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between UN-Habitat and the Federal Government of Sudan (GoS) in November 2010 and renewed in January 2015, with the main purpose of establishing a framework for collaborative efforts on national development programmes and activities related to sustainable urbanization and to harmonize physical planning in Sudan. It should enable both partners to identify common interest and priorities. UN-Habitat has provided technical and financial assistance to the national government of Sudan and the National Habitat Committee for the formulation of the national report for the 3rd United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) based on the guidelines provided. The national report was prepared on a bottom-up participatory approach and brought together relevant Sudanese public officials from federal and state governments, representatives from civil society organizations, academia, research institutions, media, the United Nations and international donors, private sector and community groups. The national report was finally approved by the government of Sudan.
UN-Habitat, the United Nations city agency, has been engaged with the Arab States region for over 30 years and over this period, UN-Habitat has expanded its operation to more than 10 countries in the region.
This brochure presents an overview of UN-Habitat's engagement in the region, reflecting in what was achieved, how it was achieved, how it was made possible, and what lies ahead especially in these times of change.
