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Unlocking secondary cities' transformative power to implement sustainable urban development

For the decades to come, SECONDARY CITIES will be the engine of rapid urbanization in the world, and especially in the Global South. What kind of scale and size of cities are we dealing with? Do we have the conditions to guide urbanization and the urban expansion of secondary cities? What policies and strategies are effective in strengthening the role of secondary cities in the wider economy and national development context? Sponsored by the European Union and Acciona Engenieria Supported by UCLG, The World Bank, Municipality of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, Municipality of Paynesville, Liberia, Municipality of Fortaleza, Brazil https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/organisation/dg-intpa-dg-internat… https://www.acciona.com/?_adin=02021864894

Claudio Acioly

Moderator

date June 28, 2022 | 17:30 - 19:00
place
Multifunction Hall Room 15
organization
European Union, ACCIONA Engenieria Kenya, World Bank, UCLG, Cities Alliance, the Municipalities of Juiz de Fora, Brazil and Paynesville, Liberia
language
English
theme
Integrated Governance in Spatial Planning for a More Just, Green, and Healthy Urban Future
Reference: 
NE 95

Summary

This Network Event focuses on the planning, management, finance and development of secondary cities. Secondary cities will be the engine of rapid urbanization in the world, and especially in the Global South for the decades to come. In order to absorb and respond adequately to the rising pressure on land and increasing demand for housing, infrastructure, jobs and social services, these cities need to have an established governance and territorial planning, urban management systems and qualified human resources. With their own platform, secondary cities can also provide “city management as a service”, thereby helping the economic growth of surrounding cities and contributing to the sustainable development of an entire region. Systemic urban management creates value in future cities because it builds an environment to optimize investments and generate new revenues for city stakeholders. It is therefore essential to support local governments to mobilize own source revenues through enhanced productivity, planning and economic growth.

THE GUIDING QUESTIONS TO THE DISCUSSION ARE:
What kind of scale and size of cities are we dealing with? Do we have the conditions to guide urbanization and the urban expansion of secondary cities? What policies and strategies are effective in strengthening the role of secondary cities in the wider economy and national development context?

A global assessment of secondary cities development reveals weaknesses in their current planning, administration and in their economy that can adversely affect their ability to manage their expansion.

In addition, there is a definition challenge to identifying secondary cities across regions. Secondary cities are largely defined by their size of population and urbanized area, function in the region and economic importance.

Globally, there are more than 2,400 cities with populations between 150,000 and 5 million, which could be identified as secondary cities. This Network Event will give us the platform to bring about this important discussion on secondary cities, supported by concrete examples from our experts’ practice. It will further unfold challenges related to the demographic size, the scope and scale of local economies, the functions that they perform in the broad development context, the planning and management instruments at stake, and the policy and instrumental gaps, which practitioners and policymakers have to fill in in order to scale up secondary cities’ transformative power. The Network Event will also highlight the type of realities on the ground  and the preliminary findings of the EU sponsored project "The role and functions of secondary cities in the wider development picture" being carried out by Acciona Engenieria in Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo and Uganda. Some of the critical issues one needs to consider are being unfolded by the project such as the flows of goods, information, innovation capacity, system management, planning and the administration of the urban core but also its inter-linkages with the rural environment of the broader territory where these cities are located.

Objectives

This Network Event has 3 major objectives: 1. The main objective of the Network Event is to organize a structured and practical oriented conversation amongst practitioners and policy makers about the development of SECONDARY CITIES that are undergoing rapid urbanization and to share lessons learned, showcase experiences, unveil challenges and promote solutions and successful approaches towards sustainable urbanization. 2. The Network Event aims at the provision of a discussion forum that helps to unveil institutional, legal, policy, economic and human resources bottlenecks as well as policy pitfalls which helps the audience and the panellists to learn from each other and advance on the propositions and solutions to overcome the challenges found in these cities. 3. The organizers and partners of the event intend to use the Network Event to promote the establishment of a community of practice that focuses on SECONDARY CITIES worldwide and launch an agenda of meetings running towards the subsequent WUFs in order to monitor progress and allow for exchange of experiences.

Session speakers

Speaker
Role
Organization
Country
Mr. Marjeta Jager
Deputy Director-General, European Commission, DG INTPA
EU/European Commission
Ms. Emilia Saiz
Secretary General
United Cities and Local Governments - UCLG
Ms Joanna Mclean
Global Lead for the Sustainable City Infrastructure and Services & Lead Urban Specialist, Cities and Climate Change
World Bank
Ms. Pam Belcher-Taylor
City Mayor
Municipality of Panynesville
Ms. Margarida Salomao
City Mayor
Municipality of Juiz de Fora
Mr. Jose Elcio Batista
Vice Mayor and President of Planning Institute of Fortaleza - INPLANFOR
Municipality of Fortaleza