Eswatini commemorates World Cities Day 2023

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development hosted the global commemoration of World Cities Day, which falls on 31 October 2023, every year.

This year’s commemoration, under the theme, “Financing sustainable urban future for all’, was held at the Mavuso Trade Centre on Thursday, 2 November 2023, and was attended by councillors and mayors from all 29 towns and cities across the country.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Makhosi Simelane, noted that about 60 percent of the population in developing countries is expected to live in cities by 2030 and expressed concern that most cities were not able to combine economic productivity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. “This inability means that transformation in cities and communities along certain priority areas in required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” he said.

Mr. Simelane, who was represented by the Ministry’s Under Secretary, Ms. Hlobsile Dlamini, observed that cities play a key in advancing the SDGs if the required transformation takes place.

The Principal Secretary warned that achieving SDG 11 on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable requires significant financial investments. “If we can’t precisely put a number on what realizing SDG 11 would cost us, we do not know what it would cost us not to achieve it,” he said.

UN Resident Coordinator, Mr. George Wachira, noted that cities are centres for economic growth and development but also face demographic, environmental, economic, and social challenges. “These include urban sprawl, urbanization of poverty, higher unemployment rates, higher crime rates, lack of adequate housing investment and severe shortages of infrastructure investment,” he said.

Mr. Wachira was represented by Mr. Afshin Parsi, UNICEF Deputy Representative.

He commended the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for implementing urban development projects in line with the country’s aspiration of attaining first-world status. “Urban areas are impacted by all the SDGs, and many are at the forefront of finding sustainable solutions,” he noted.

He commended the Government of Eswatini for signing a Memorandum of Understanding with UN-Habitat, which he said was a sign of commitment to support urban policies and strategic planning in growing cities in order to address informality and to build resilience, safe and smart cities. “As the UN system, we reiterate our commitment to working together to ensure that the New Urban Agenda, adopted at the Habitat III Conference in 2016, is supported for full implementation in Eswatini, to develop sustainable cities,” he stated.

The UN representative called for solidarity and partnerships to promote urbanization as a positive transformative force for people and communities, reducing inequality, discrimination and poverty and, promoting socially, environmentally and safe sustainable towns and cities.

Sustainable Development Goal 11 identifies sustainable urbanization as one of the key priorities for global development. “Cities need to identify ways to unlock transformative investments in urban planning and achieve adequate fiscal decentralization,” he said. “Hence, there is need for cities to access finance to fund sustainable urban transformation leading to better living conditions, just and prosperous cities.”

Manzini Mayor, Ms. Nozipho Dlamini-Gamedze, urged municipalities to use the commemoration to look back and celebrate the progress and achievements in various areas including infrastructure development, cities sustainability practices, service delivery innovations, social inclusion and economic growth. “I am confident to stand before you and say that each and everyone of the towns and cities  in our lovely Kingdom have over the years invested resources and made a mark in all the above areas,” she stated.