1st Megacities Conference: D-8’s Effort to Respond to Global Challenges

Jakarta, Indonesia | May 08, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

Bringing the theme of “Megacities and Climate Change, Responding to Global Challenges”, D-8 Organization is planning to organise the 1st D-8 Megacities Conference, from period of June 15-16, 2008, in Jakarta, Indonesia.

According to the recent demographic growth, within the next two decades, an increasing part of the world will be concentrated in megacities, which will continue to grow in number and size, especially in developing countries. Three billion people - nearly every second person on earth - already live in cities and by 2030 over 60 per cent of the world’s population (4.9 billion out of 8.1 billion people) will live in cities. Developed country cities are rapidly disappearing from the list of the world’s largest cities. Between 1980 and 2000, Lagos, Dhaka and Cairo - three capitals of D-8 countries — joined the list of 30 largest cities in the world. Within the end of this decade Lagos is projected to become the third largest city in the world, after Tokyo and Mumbai.

However, the overall situation of megacities in developing countries is characterized by a conflicting mixture of excessive poverty and wealth, great unemployment and great economic opportunities, often excessive consumerism, a side-by-side of state-of-the-art urban infrastructure and total absence of any such infrastructure in shanty towns. All trends of the negative parameters indicate that the situation will further deteriorate with an accelerated pace, especially also when the world also has been challenged to the negative impacts of climate change.

D-8 Secretary General Dr. Dipo Alam said that the increasing populations of the world’s megacities, have a large impact on energy use, water use, and global warming. These populations should be a major focus of efforts to tackle problems of megacities and trends of global climate change. The world’s cities emit almost 80 percent of global carbon dioxide as well as significant amounts of other greenhouse gases. “Therefore, if one would to tackle climate change, tackle the cities and their densed population properly,” he said in his office.

The UN Habitat State of the World’s Cities Report shows that a megacity’s success rests on local shoulders and that it is vital that the structures of governance be more responsive to individuals, households and communities so that both national and local authorities can better serve society, each through separate but complementary instruments.

In order to cope with the challenges of sustainable development in megacities, a number of major problem areas need to be addressed. They include:

1. Housing: More than one billion of the world’s urban residents live in inadequate housing, mostly in the sprawling slums and squatter settlements in developing countries. Extending urban citizenship to the poor is one of the most far-reaching decisions that can be taken in promoting a sustainable shelter strategy.

2. Health: Reducing health risks and improving sanitation.

3. Environment: Environmental degradation and pollution continue to constrain development and growth of cities. It is crucial to improve the relationship between the environment and development.

4. Natural Disasters:  Enhancing prevention of human induced and natural disasters.

5. Economy: Sustainable urban development in megacities will depend on the creation and maintenance of efficient land and property markets; the development of more and better housing finance options; a greater emphasis on job creation. Also, informal sector employment makes up 37 per cent of the total employment in developing countries as a whole, and is as high as 45 per cent in Africa. By relaxing rules and regulations, the informal sector can be expected to contribute further to job creation and, perhaps, eventually be integrated in the formal economy.

6. Good Governance: Improving governance systems, social insertion and security to make the cities more socially humane and honor environment.

In response, governors and/or mayors of megacities must find appropriate models for sustainable development. The principals of D-8 megacities, governors and/or mayors need exchange information, experiences and cooperate to develop megacities more to humane touch, better environment and well growing in current world paradigm.

This conference seek to reach outcomes which include an agreement to establish a platform and areas of cooperation, coordinating for cooperation between the mayor/governor of D-8 megacities under D-8 framework of cooperation; and establishing Framework, Actions Plan and programs for the areas of cooperation, joint-development cooperation, knowledge sharing, capacity building, etc.

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