ESF/N-AERUS International Workshop Geneva, Palais des Nations - May 3-6, 2000 CITIES OF THE SOUTH: SUSTAINABLE FOR WHOM? WORKSHOP PAPERS

Batilda Burian
National Programme Coordinator, Sustainable Cities Programme- Tanzania

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN AN URBAN TANZANIAN CONTEXT

• Download the draft paper in *.rtf format

'If the 1980's could be explained as the development decade for economic growth, with structural adjustment; the 1990's may be defined as the development decade for poverty eradication and sustainable development . This is development which is based on an understanding that although economic growth and enhanced productivity are the key issues for sustainable livelihoods and poverty reduction, if poorly planned, and badly managed can and do contribute to resource depletion and environmental degradation such as pollution, depletion of ozone layer, and desertification just to mention a few.

Growing awareness of these problems and fear of irreversible damage to the global environment has made the world understand the crucial two-way relationship between development and environment and therefore strengthen its emphasis and focus on sustainable development.

This paper endeavors to analyse the concept of sustainability in an urban development context in Africa. Although the general characteristics and features of urban problems in sub-Saharan Africa are more or less similar, the paper will base on the experience of Tanzania in general and through its Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) in particular.

In assessing the sustainable urban development initiatives in Tanzania various questions will be raised, which the author will not attempt to answer all of them, but rather highlight general issues to be discussed.

Some of the questions asked include the following:

• Why Agenda 21 apart from addressing itself very clearly to the interconnection between environment on one hand and social and economic development on the other, the general emphasis throughout the decade in most countries has been directed merely on environmental issues.
• To what extent were the UN Social Development Summit's main anticipated objectives of eliminating poverty and unemployment or cancelling the debts of poor nations received an overwhelming support and assistance, as were issues of environmental protection immediately after the World Conference on Environment and development (WCED)?
• In 1996, at the 'City Summit' in Istanbul, there was a general agreement of implementing among other things, the social and development goals already agreed to by the International Community in the areas of basic education, primary health care and gender equality . The question here is; why these social goals have never been pursued by any 'Sustainable City' in Sub-Saharan Africa in general and in Tanzania in particular, despite the UNCHS-Habitat's role in the formulation and backstopping of the sustainable cities Programme?
• And lastly, the paper assesses the sustainable development initiatives in Africa in general and in Tanzania in particular. It is in this juncture that the paper poses the theme question as to whether cities of the south are sustainable and if so sustainable for whom.

N-AERUS: Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South
http://www.naerus.net