ECONOMY
MIX OF LOCAL, REGIONAL NEEDED TO MAKE URBANISATION WORK

A mix of local and regional approaches is needed to make urbanisation an engine of
growth for small Pacific island countries, experts at a just-concluded conference in Fiji say, but just as key were debates about how this applies to a still predominantly rural region.

By KALINGA SENEVIRATNE in Nadi

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NADI, Fiji, Dec 5 (IPS) - A mix of local and regional
approaches is needed to make urbanisation an engine of
growth for small Pacific island countries, experts at
a just-concluded conference here say, but just as key
were debates about how this applies to a still
predominantly rural region.

Greater regional cooperation plus more community
participation in local government were the focus of a
Pacific Urban Agenda (PUA) adopted at the end of a
four-day regional workshop here this week.

But how to define urban areas and whether urbanisation
is a positive factor in the development of the small
island states across the South Pacific, where the
combined population of some 14 independent nations is
just over 7 million, also stirred a lot of discussion.

The role of basic issues in the Pacific, like land
security and the growth of informal settlements were
also discussed by the more than 40 urban planners,
local government officials, economists, academics and
non-governmental organisation representatives from
Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu,
Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Samoa.

"The land issue effects everybody in the Pacific and
it's an important issue of urbanisation process,‰
argues Sevanaia Dakaica, lecturer in land management
at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji.

"But, there are institutional arrangements in place
which could get land into the market.''

Throughout the workshop there was much debate about
the uniqueness of the Pacific situation especially in
respect to customary land and whether urban
development models in other parts of the world are
appropriate to the Pacific.

Over the last two to three decades, the introduction
of the cash economy along with the ability of people
to travel large distances in search of jobs and
political aspirations has transformed the Pacific
islands.

So when development experts talk about urbanisation as
the engine of growth, they are focusing on these
trends. But there are others who point out that in
most countries the populations are still predominantly
rural.

In Papua New Guinea for example, only 15 percent of
the population live in the capital Port Moresby, but
it absorbs 90 percent of the national budget.

"I'm getting contradictory messages here of what is
meant by promoting urbanisation and looking at it as
positive, because PNG has a very large rural
population,‰ said Max Kep, chairman of the National
Urbanisation Committee of PNG.

"How do you define urban areas?‰ he asked.‰Our
approach will be to look at a balanced point of view
to develop rural areas. But you say that is
traditional and we need to bring people to the city‰.

The Dec.1-4 workshop was organised by the U.N.
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (ESCAP) in collaboration with The Urban
Governance Initiative (TUGI) of the U.N. Development
Programme, U.N.-Habitat, Asian Development Bank (AsDB)
and the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) secretariat.

Most Pacific participants have not even met one
another before, so the workshop highlighted the need
to develop partnerships across the region to allow
information sharing and collaboration towards better
urban management.

The workshop heard reports of how the lack of such
secondary urban centres or rural development has
resulted in an increase in informal settlements across
the region.

"Squatters are increasing at an alarming rate in
Fiji,'' said Dharam Lingam, Fiji's director of housing
and squatter settlements, pointing out that there are
182 squatter settlements in the country with a
combined population of 82,000.

Waste management was cited as another problem area
right across the Pacific, because many cities lacking
a centralised sewage system and landfill sites for
waste.

Thus, the Pacific Urban Agenda calls for greater
community participation in the decision-making process
of local governments, the establishment of squatter
community councils and local planning boards, ensuring
adequate land supplies for urban settlement.

It also points to the needs to build consensus with
traditional landowners on the need for security of
tenure, to involve urban land owners in the provision
of services, to encourage land registration, titling
of customary land, appropriate and greater
transparency in urban council elections for better
governance.

Experts agreed that while urbanisation in the Pacific
cannot be stopped, governments need to act to improve
the living standards of those in the urban areas while
taking care still of rural development.

The Pacific Urban Agenda will be presented for
adoption to the meeting of ESCAP's Special Body on
Pacific Developing States at a meeting in Shanghai,
China in April next year and the Pacific Island Forum
Economic Ministers' meeting in Rotorua, New Zealand in
June 2004.

The Fiji meeting is part of a process of regional
endorsement intended to generate national commitments
and the support of regional organisations and funding
agencies for its implementation.

"This is a start. You have the task to follow this up
with your governments and get this approved by the
ministers and governments,'' Yap Kioe Sheng, head of
the rural and urban poverty division of ESCAP, said.

"When it comes to implementation, that's where
partnerships in the region are important,'' he added.

"Partnerships established here need to lead to
action.'' (END/2003)

Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sydney-based journalist and media academic reporting for IPS.