This week Bangkok, Thailand hosts the fifth Asia-Pacific (APUF5) forum with the theme ‘Cities of opportunity: partnership for an inclusive and sustainable future’. The three day conference convened by UNESCAP and partners focuses on urban development issues and identifying good practices and approaches.
A few years ago, humanity entered a new era. According to a report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA, 2008) ‘in 2008, the world reached an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time in history, more than half of the human population, 3.3 billion people, are living in urban areas’. By 2030, it is expected that almost 5 billion people, or 60 per cent of the world’s population will be city dwellers. As people around the world gravitate around city government and infrastructure, we may also be witnessing the twilight of the ‘nation state’ era as ‘city states’ re-emerge as the primary governmental power of the twenty-first century; as they once were in history.
In its 2008 report, the UNFPA stresses that ‘urbanisation—the increase in the urban share of total population—is inevitable, but it can also be positive. The current concentration of poverty, slum growth and social disruption in cities does paint a threatening picture: Yet no country in the industrial age has ever achieved significant economic growth without urbanisation. Cities concentrate poverty, but they also represent the best hope of escaping it’.
The Pacific’s population is booming and expected to to exceed 10 million in June 2011, and reach 15 million by 2035 – ‘the growth rate means that another 188,000 people – equivalent to the population of Samoa – are being added to the total each year’ (SPC, 2011). In every country of the Pacific, urban population growth is exceeding the national growth rate. Yet, with a few exceptions, urbananisation has been ignored or viewed as a negative trait to be stopped, as governments and development agencies have tended to focus their attention on rural development. Trying to keep people out of cities and towns is futile, and stands in the way of initiatives to ensure growing populations have access to the services and facilities required to sustain and improve quality of life.
The rate of urban growth in the Pacific is most rapid in the Melanesian countries as well as the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga. In the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, where the urban growth rates are amongst the highest in the world, the urban population is expected to double within the next 15-20 years.
Urbanisation need not be feared – but does need to be managed. Urban management is a national issue – it is more than just land use planning and infrastructure (roads, water, sanitation), it requires governments to give serious consideration to housing, health, education and employment policies. It requires people to think about how they want to live – to define what it means to be a Pacific islander in the 21st century.
