Articles > Dr Sam Chimbuya

A conceptual framework for urban environmental planning and management
Sam Chimbuya Director for Africa Local Agenda 21, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives

Urban sustainable development is based on sound urban environmental planning and management. The goal of urban environmental planning and management is to improve and maintain the wellbeing of people as well as improve and or maintain the wellbeing of the ecosystem products to achieve the highest possible wellbeing of its people. Thus urban environmental planning is concerned with the whole system, defined as the people within their ecosystem. People depend on the ecosystem. People are supported by the ecosystem that surrounds them much as the white of an egg surrounds and supports the yolk.

The Urban Boundaries
Invariably an urban area is that area under the jurisdiction of the urban authority. The urban authority provides goods and services from the environment to satisfy the demand of the people living within the boundary of the urban area. The urban authority therefore develops programmes and procedures and sets up an administration to handle the demands of the people within the boundary of the urban area.
The urban authority undertakes to provide the products or goods from the environment in as high a quality as possible to the people, meeting the standards set by the national institutions that monitor the quality of these products or goods from the environment and/or set by international institutions.
The deterioration of the environment in terms of the quality of the products and the quality of the goods and services provided by the environment is a concern of the urban authority. It is the duty of the urban authority to enact procedures and programmes to correct the deterioration of the quality of environmental products.

Principles of Environmental management in Urban and Rural areas

A Rural environmental resources management
The wellbeing of people entirely depends on the wellbeing of the ecosystem. There is always a cost associated with the transfer of resources from the ecosystem to the people. In rural areas that cost is both in terms of time and labour. This depends on the distance traveled to acquire the environmental products or goods. Individual households are responsible for the acquisition and conversion of environmental products for use by the household. Occasionally households employ servants who acquire the environmental products for the household. The household provides the equipment for the acquisition of the environmental products. The cost of acquisition and conversion is borne by the household.

The goods may be converted, purified or taken as they are. In most rural areas the environmental products of water and fuel wood are rarely converted but are taken as they are. However, forests are converted to croplands. The croplands themselves are converted to less and less productive entities as the years go by. This is simple conversion of the environmental products in rural areas. Timber, however, can be converted to handles, huts, roofing, timber, household furniture etc. People convert the environmental product for direct use themselves or for sale.
Acquisition of land in rural areas is by customary law. It is however free in monetary sense. There is no money transfer to effect occupation of land. However this does not mean that the land resources are free. The cost however is qualitative.

Households in rural areas produce waste, which is managed by the same households. Due to abundance of space and due to the high quantities of biodegradables, waste in rural areas is not considered a problem. However the cost of managing rural household waste is borne by the rural households themselves.

Urban environmental resources management
Urban authorities are very different from rural areas in the way they manage the products of the ecosystem. Whereas in rural areas individual households are responsible to their families for identifying the sources of the environmental products and their delivery to the households, in urban areas the urban authority takes on the roles of the provider and manager of the environmental products. The urban authority identifies the sources of the goods, provides the infrastructure for transferring the goods to be converted for human consumption before the products are delivered to the people. Environmental planning in urban areas is therefore not growing trees but the identification, allocation and management of the ecosystem products. Environment planning also includes the management of urban waste so that it can go back into the ecosystem in as natural a form as possible. Waste is a major thorn in the flesh for urban authorities. Management of waste will include classification of waste into organic non-organic, toxic and non-toxic waste, waste dumping, recycling and composting that which can be composted.
Ruralisation of urban areas

This is a term that is not normally used to describe urban areas. There has been the urbanization of rural areas. In fact urbanization of rural areas is good development (based on the current thinking of development) but ruralisation of urban areas is bad.

The process of ruralisation of urban areas starts when rural people or people with strong rural habit inhabits urban areas.

Rural areas are the breadbaskets of urban areas. If fact, urban areas have a large ecological footprint in rural areas. Cities and their hinterland have always been partners because cities add value to the natural resources and rural production (USAID, 1999). Cities function as marketing and distribution centers, gateways of trade and services and industrial activities Rural people (small scale and commercial farmers alike) will sell their produce in bulk at the market place in urban areas. They do not have a desire to stay in urban areas. If they buy residential places in town it is for those short periods they are in town. The prices at the urban wholesale markets are not as good as in the local green grocery in the residential areas. The prices are even better in the central business district (CBD). However the local authorities have bye-laws that prohibit the use of open spaces as marketing places in the CBD. Commercial farmers have established Farmers-Co-ops through whom they sell their produce. Small scale or subsistence farmers on the other hand have not been efficient at marketing through these large produce wholesale marketing companies. In recent years subsistence farmers from rural areas have been moving into the CBD to sell their produce as individual items. They fetch more money per item. The only problem is that they do not sell all stock in a day. Thus they have to find a place to spend the night in order to stay the next day. The local politicians who themselves have strong rural backgrounds have been turning a blind eye to the growth of this informal sector. The rural people without a desire to stay in town create temporal make shift shelters. The wealthier persons in urban areas take advantage and erect structures for the rural petty traders (Lee-Smith et al, 1990) This is to avoid paying high rentals on the available urban houses. These structures are erected in areas not formally designated for housing. In most cases these are open spaces for leisure during weekend or are protected aquifers. Before long the local authorities realize there is rapid urbanization taking place. This rapid urbanization is happening without the concomitant planning and management of and for the demand for the environmental products for the people, nor any economic development of the urban areas. Tribal wars, droughts and the sheer movement by school leavers looking for employment exacerbate the rural-urban migration.
Kenya in 1960 had 7.4% of its population in urban areas whereas Tanzania had only 5% Lee-Smith et al 19991, UNCHS, 1999). By the year 2010 both countries are expected to have more than 50% of their national population in urban areas. The current estimate of the urban residents in Nairobi who are living in make shift shelter is 60 %. Thus only 40 % of the urban residents are registered rates payers. Thus Nairobi municipality has enough resources (financial and human) to provide environmental products of water and reticulated sewerage system and solid waste management systems for 40% of its residents. This scenario means that only 40% of the population in Nairobi is catering for the entire population of Nairobi. In reality the 40% are subsidizing the cost of providing environmental products for the other 60% of the residents of Nairobi. The situation is no different in any other African city.

Local authorities have ruralized the management of environmental resources in urban areas. Whereas all land resources in urban areas are paid for at the market price, many urban residents gain access to open areas for marketing their wares free of charge. Urban residents gain access to water resources free of charge. In some urban areas (Robert Kawiya, per.comm) residents have vandalized their own water supply and dug wells so as to gain water free of charge.

Monitoring and Evaluating Urban environment and development
Is there a way of managing urban environmental planning and development? The answer to this question is certainly yes. There are set indicative issues (refer to annex 3) that one can use to track progress or lack of it in urban development. UNCHS has been able to use some of these indicative issues to rank cities through the creation of an urban development index.

Annex 1
The role of Municipalities In urban systems
Water
Identify the sources of water
Treat water to make it portable
Provide infrastructure for water supply
Provide regulations for the provision of water resources
Allocate water to all water users
Set and collect rates for water use
Set water quality standards
Monitor the quality of the water against agreed standards
Maintain the water reticulation system
Provide infrastructure for wastewater.
Treat wastewater before it enters into the natural system
Plan future demand for water
Plan future demand for wastewater
Air
Agree on the best quality for air for human wellbeing
Monitor the Air quality based on the standards agreed to
Monitor the emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere
Provide regulation for fines for culprits
Land
Maps the land under its jurisdiction
Classifies it into industrial, commercial, residential
Provide by laws for its use
Sells the land on the market
Monitors the use of the land as stipulated by the council itself
Provide infrastructure for movement of people
Provide infrastructure for recreation
Provide infrastructure for education and health
Provide infrastructure for solid and liquid waste removal and control
Provide regulation for waste disposal
Energy
Identifies energy sources
Provide regulation on the use of the energy
Monitors energy use
Provide street lighting

Annex 2
What the stakeholders do?

Live within the boundary of the municipality
Get access to environmental products through set council by-laws
Consume water and occupy land
Generate liquid and solid waste
Consume fuels in home, in industry, in commercial areas
Use cars and transport system
Use recreational areas
Use health services and educational services
Pay rates for use of all services
Enter into contracts with Municipality to provide services
Enter into contracts to build infrastructure
Engage in economic activities
Organize themselves into institutions to lobby for their rights

Annex 3
Indicative issues of the wellbeing of people and the ecosystem in urban areas
Ecosystem issues

Discussion
The concept of a sustainable city is new. This is more so in the third world particularly in Africa. A sustainable city is new to environmental planning and management thinking in urban areas. As stated earlier cities are inherently unsustainable (Camagni, et al 1998) Governance and human activities within cities eventually determines whether the city is going to be sustainable or not. Camagni et al defined a sustainable city as one in which the sum of all the positive externalities is greater than the sum of all the negative external effects caused by the interaction between the social, economic and ecological components of the environment. Thus urban sustainable development is an integrated concept encompassing at the same time the economic, social and physical (natural and built) all of which are balanced in such a way as to co-evolve together.

Urban environmental planning and management in Africa has emphasized the social (urban poor) and the short term economic gains to the detriment of the long term economic benefits and the delivery of the "best value" environmental products. Urban areas invariably are centers of national economic development. Rural to urban migration is a result of people seeking better opportunities of employment and better human wellbeing where the environmental products and services provided by the urban authorities are good. The growth of the economies of urban areas is key to national economic development. The demise of environmental management in African cities is erroneously blamed on the former colonial powers (Drakakis-Smith, 1997) who restricted the movement of blacks into cities. It is not uncommon to find a South African family living in shantytowns in Johannesburg but in their rural home they have a mansion. Thus the belief that urban areas are a creation of a settler colonialism, functioning to facilitate the export of primary commodities and import of consumer goods still prevails in many black South African (Drakakis-Smith, 1997). Rapid urbanization in Africa has taken place soon after independence (Abdel-Ati, 1998). In Sudan between 1956 and 1983 there has been an increase of 20.2 % . This rapid urbanization has not brought in urbanized people but people with strong rural backgrounds. This rapid urbanization is taking place without the concomitant economic development as well as the rule of law. Most Africa cities are no better off and in many cases actually worse off than at independence. Petty "rural" traders populate most urban areas in Africa. They gain access to commercial "stands" on pavements outside established shops and avoid or refuse to pay the market prices for that space.
The first generation of African urban authority managers were basically offsprings of a rural farmer. The management of environmental products ie allocation of land, management of waste, water supply and waste water management are handled as if they are rural environmental products which are free access resources. Indeed the natural resources are free. The consumer is paying for the labour costs for identification of the environmental products, transportation, treatment and infrastructure associated with the supply of the products to the home. Local authorities do not make a profit. They make enough to pay for the labour costs associated with the quality and delivery of the environmental products .

Environmental management in urban areas must be done for the best value of the environmental products for the residents of the city. The best value is not static but it is a constant search to improve the quality, efficiency of delivery and the effectiveness of services to the public by Local authorities. In conclusion I would like to state that the crisis of underdevelopment and ruralisation of African cities is so profound that there is need to re-schedule or re-visit the concept of sustainability in urban areas or cities with the elected local authorities. The efficiency of environmental products delivery in urban areas has a direct bearing on the economic growth of cities. Inefficient delivery of environmental products discourages investment by both foreign and local business people. Ultimately there should be a balance between the urban economic development and urban environmental sustainability. The concept of best value (Harris, 1999) of products and service means
Being clear about the urban community's development strategy, objectives, aims and priorities within their urban boundaries,

• Allocating resources and adopting programs related to them
• Setting standards and targets for performance which are measurable
• Agreeing on a year -on year performance of municipal departments
• Programmatic solutions based on the best value for money and effectiveness

For real change to take place the local authority must be motivated to change on its own. This cannot be imposed from outside. The elected leadership must develop a new culture of sustainable development in urban area as a strategy to improve the national economies. The bottom line for economic growth in any country is its urban economic development. The national economy is as good as the economy of its cities.

References
• Abdel-Ati, H.A. (1998) Small Towns under Conditions of Environmental Stress: The case study of Sinkat, Eastern Sudan
In: The Rural -Urban Interface in Africa; Expansion and Adaptation. Edited by Jonathan Baker and Poul Ove Pederson. Seminar Proceedings No. 27 The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.
• Camagni, R., R. Capello and P. Nijkamp (1998) Towards sustainable city policy: an economic-environmental technology nexus.
Ecological economics, 24, 103-118
• Drakakis-Smith, D.(1998) Strategies for meeting basic food needs in Harare.
IN The Rural -Urban Interface in Africa; Expansion and Adaptation. Edited by Jonathan Baker and Poul Ove Pederson. Seminar Proceedings No. 27 The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.
• Harris, J.C. (1999) The Challenge of Local government delivery.
Development Southern Africa, 16, 183-189
• Lee-Smith, Diana and Richard Stren (1991) New Perspectives on African Urban Management Environment and Urbanization 3:1
• Lee-Smith, Diana ( 1990) Squatter Land Lords in Nairobi: A case study of Korogocho in Housing Africa' s Urban Poor, edited by Phillip Amis and Peter Lloyd, Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press for the International African Institute.
• Prescott-Allen, R. (1996) Assessing Progress towards sustainability,
IUCN working paper presented at the OECD workshop Rome , Italy 1996.
• UNCHS (1999) Basic Facts About Urbanization. Paper presented at the UNCHS 17 session in Nairobi, May 1999
• USAID (1999) Making Cities Work: USAID' s Urban Strategy. An Initiative Launched by the Administrator and Prepared by the Urbanization Task force Presented at the 17 Session of UNCHS Nairobi, May 1999.