WUF12: Making Room for Urban Growth – Urban Expansion Planning in Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia

Cities in developing regions will need to accommodate roughly 18 times more new urban residents than cities in developed regions in the next 50 years. As cities expand in population, they also grow in area, adding extensive new peripheral lands that are often unplanned with limited access to basic services. 

Disorderly urban growth has been shown to limit the productivity-enhancing benefits of urbanisation and slow development. Many of the residents of new areas are former rural dwellers, refugees, migrants, and members of other vulnerable populations who are forced to make homes in areas that are not organised for urban settlement. 

Municipal governments struggle to plan for growth in rapidly urbanising areas. Where plans exist, implementation is lacking, hindered by a lack of technical capacity and limited financial and human resources. Many planning instruments were developed in the Global North and are difficult or impossible to apply in the low-income secondary cities where most growth is taking place. 

Efforts to plan for growth on the urban periphery are considered controversial because of concerns about the impact of urban expansion on global climate change. However, empirical evidence shows that attempts to contain urban growth in rapidly urbanising contexts lead to informality, uncontrolled growth, more costly housing, and negative consequences for households and the climate. 

This event advocates for Urban Expansion Planning, a pragmatic approach to guide urban growth into patterns that support the production of affordable housing in planned urban layouts that enable basic services and facilitate climate-sensitive development pathways. 

Urban Expansion Planning is a simplified technique for managing urban growth that has shown positive results in helping municipalities create dense, walkable, orderly peripheral neighbourhoods for low-income residents. Municipal governments in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Uganda have succeeded in producing urban expansion plans for the next three decades of growth. Sixteen cities in Ethiopia have developed plans on the ground, with a 50% implementation rate – much higher than the standard for master plans – mainly using local resources. 

Recent findings show that the plans result in lower costs of providing basic services, help facilitate the provision of land tenure, and improve access to livelihoods, leading to higher incomes. Planned urban expansion is also a key part of improving housing quality, facilitating incremental self-housing, and encouraging public and private sector investment in the built environment.

The event will feature an overview of the approach and presentations by practitioners working on the ground in cities. It will include time for questions and engagement, creating opportunities for South-South dialogue on a topic of real importance for city leaders. 

A recent evaluation financed by Open Philanthropy offers an opportunity to explore an additional dimension: data on the impact of Urban Expansion Planning at the household level. The results include data on household income, access to basic services, and tenure in planned areas. A representative of the team leading the study will present the findings.
 

Objectives 

The event aims to expose practitioners, planners, and policymakers to the experiences of cities that have implemented or attempted to implement Urban Expansion Planning. The approach has demonstrated to quickly result in action on the ground with minimal resource inputs. Local leaders have reported reductions in squatting and informal settlement and greater revenue mobilisation. 

This event has a secondary goal of recruiting cities in new countries and regions to pilot the approach. Urban Expansion Planning is enthusiastically endorsed by participating cities, but until recently it has scaled slowly, penetrating a small number of cities (roughly 30) in three countries in East Africa. New resource commitments make it possible to extend the programme, and this event is a key part of the outreach strategy to do so. 
 

Panelists 

Mr Biru Wolde, Former City Manager, Hawassa City Administration, Ethiopia

Mr Annewmaw Mekonen, City Manager, Bahir Dar City Administration, Ethiopia

Ms Tsigereda Tafesse Mulugeta, In-country Coordinator, Cities Alliance Ethiopia

Mr Moses Alu Findru, Chief Physical Planner, Arua City Government, Uganda

Register on the WUF12 website.