URBAN GOVERNANCE

INTRODUCTION

 Good urban governance has been identified as indispensable or necessary to achieve sustainable development in contemporary times particularly in the developing world context. Good urban governance assures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of development resources.

This was why the UN-HABITAT in collaboration with the Government of Nigeria launched the good urban governance (GUG) campaign in Nigeria in April 2001 as part of its advocacy role to promote the Habitat Agenda, and in particular, the goal of achieving sustainable human settlements development and management in a rapidly urbanizing world. Besides, with more and more people preferring cities as their choice of settlement, the challenge lies not in stemming this tide of migration, but in managing and governing our cities better, to improve quality of life and living standards. The rapid urbanization in developing countries particularly in sub Saharan African societies requires more proactive and efficient actions to ensure its sustainability. 

 

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education…). Assignments will be nightly readings and a short paper relating an urban issue to the frameworks outlined in the class.

Urban governance has become a fashionable term, especially when “good” is used to qualify it. However, the concept has remained difficult to define, with attempt leading to as many definitions as there are researchers (Hufty 2009). It is the co-ordination, regulation, or steering of affairs between actors, in specific sectors (e.g. environment) or in a city, such as in urban governance.

Governance is a neutral concept in which the actors, mechanisms, processes and institutions can produce positive or negative results, hence the notion of “good urban governance”. As indicated in the UNDP policy document, good governance is a necessary ingredient to achieve equitable and sustainable growth and development.

In other to support the implementation of the Habitat Agenda goal of “sustainable human settlements development

WHAT IS URBAN GOVERNANCE

Urban governance can be defined as the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city.

Urban governance also refers to the ways in which all stakeholders and institutions interact to plan and manage the common affairs of a city. A number of public and private agents are involved in this process in Nasarawa town. In terms of official government, agencies at the federal, state, and local levels are involved in strategy formulation and oversight of policies.

Aluko (2010) also defines urban governance as the act or process of governing a nation, state, or legal entity. It is the activity of governing a country, controlling, ruling, managing, regulating, influencing, or directing a place. Governance recognizes that power exists inside and outside the formal authority and institutions of government. Most formulations of governance recognize government, civil society and the private sector as the key actors. At the local level, these groups can be further specified to include: Central Government, state or provincial government (where applicable), local authorities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), and the private sector. In the urban context, governance is the sum of many ways individuals and institutions plan and manage the common affairs of the city (Adegun, 2011).

THE PROBLEMS OF URBAN GOVERNANCE IN NASARAWA TOWN

Given the rapid pace of urbanization in developing countries, urban decision makers face a variety of challenges which are outlined in the following. However, these can not be examined separately since they all interact. Thus a city´s financial resources impact on its capacity to meet development goals just like its ability to manage diversity and security issues depends on its financial and capacity dimension. Below are common problems of urban governance in Nasarawa town. 

 

1.   Capacity: The inability of Nasarawa to keep pace with rapid urban growth first arose in the early 1990s till date. At this time slum and squatter settlements grew in number and extend throughout the town. Since the local government as well as stakeholders appeared to be overextended by the situation, often trying to limit these processes by zoning, low income residents reacted either via building uncoordinated individual dwellings or arranging “land-invasions”. However, in the course of time strategies shifted towards reforms in the governance of urban services including Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and co-operations with NGOs. 

 

2.    Financial resources: As aforementioned, the lack of capacity to meet service demands, is highly linked to an inadequate fiscal situation. Although there are several reasons for that, the devolution of responsibilities without sufficient financial authorities to the local level is a major one. As Nasarawa town face the problem of generating revenues, “informal” mechanisms of budget generation can emerge. Thus there is evidence of Nasarawa local governments gaining “off-budget revenues”. Those are composed of donations by enterprises (NGOs, CBOs FBOs etc) to specific public projects, profits from township-owned enterprises or incomes from the leasing of public land to enterprises. Although there is controversy on the legitimacy of such revenues, evidence shows that off budgets foster local participation and ownership in urban governance. While there are other prominent examples for participative fiscal governance mechanisms (such as Participatory Budgeting in Brazil), such processes bear the risk of local elites bestriding decision making, often referred to as “elite capture” (DEVAS 2004 : 30).

 

3.   Diversity: One of the major difficulties that is facing Nasarawa town is cultural and socioeconomic diversity this very pronounce with the presences of over five ethnic groups. Against the background of polarization and segregation, this challenge has a social as well as a spatial dimension. Thus the lack of coherence arises in dual structures. Gated communities offering exclusive schools and private water services stand opposed to illegal settlements without drainage, scant electricity and high crime rates. 

 

4.   Security: As crime rates are increasing in cities throughout the developing world, Nasarawa town is not left out; security has become a governance issue ever since. Hence the security dimension of city governance “implies that there are adequate mechanisms / process / systems for citizens’ security, health and environmental safety” and “signifies there are adequate conflict resolution mechanisms through the development and implementation of appropriate local policies on environment, health and security for the urban areas.”

 

5.   Authority: Since all dimensions of challenge mentioned above are interlinked, this applies to authority as well. As aforementioned, developing towns like Nasarawa have undergone massive change in the course of democratization and decentralization processes. While these transitions brought about devolution of powers and authorities to the local level, they were accompanied by massive demographic growth and geographical expansion. However, the urban growth, generally taking place at the fringes, is not necessarily in line with administrative borders. Finally, Nasarawa town is organized in different “models” of governance. 

 

Other Major Challenges the Local Authority Face In Urban Governance

The urban or local governments  in the course of urban governance are the primary providers of basic services  such as water supply, sanitation, sewerage, waste management, health, education and sometimes housing facilities.

Thus the following problems are face in the course of  providing such basic services to urban dwellers (Nasarawa town).

1. Governance (Weakness)
2. Slums and shelter (problems)
3. Environment
4. Local Economic Development
5. Basic Urban Services

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

The assessment of urban governance in the study area revealed a number of fundamental issues and problems associated with urban governance. As indicated above, the LGA lacks a clear cut vision/mission to guide and direct city development initiatives and activities. Thus developmental projects are articulated and implemented in ad-hoc and unorganized manner. Fundamental and constitutionally assigned responsibility to this tier of government is not being discharged thereby contributing to ineffective or poor urban governance in the area.

It is therefore recommended that there is need for restructuring of the LGA administrative system and practice in the area to make them more functional and efficient. New department such as Planning, research and statistics to collect and keep records of the Nasarawa town and Local government should be created and developed. Similarly, the local government does not have a department that is responsible for physical planning and control of development. Yet the LGA is constitutionally assigned this role. The need to create land use planning and control becomes absolutely essential and it is therefore recommended. The tax and rates collection system.

 

Mutual cooperation of the private and public institutions to deliver reliable, affordable, profitable, eco-efficient urban infrastructure services, and indicated possibility for adapting to developing countries like Nigeria.

REFERENCES

David Satterthwaite (2009); Editorial: What role for Majors in good city governance?  Journal of Environment and Urbanization. Vol 21 No.1 PP.3 – 17.

Kamal, A. (2000); “Accountable governance and poverty alleviation” Commission paper for  the Regional Workshops Democracy Forum 2000. “Democracy and Poverty: A  Missing Link? Kathmandu, Nepal.

Islam N. and M. M Khan (Editors) (1997); Urban Governance in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Centre for Urban Studies , Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Abiodun, J. O. (1997). “The challenges of growth and development in  Metropolitan Lagos”. In, C. Rakodi (Ed).

Adebayo, A. and Rowland, L. Management problems of rapid urbanization in Nigeria. Carton press ltd. Ibadan. 1973

National Population Commission (2009), 2006 Population and Housing Census of the Federal Republic of Nigeria  Structure Plan for Karu and Keffu Towns, Nasarawa State (author unknown) World Bank Report, The Economy and Employment Structure and Trends in Karu: Overview of Findings (www.isted.com/villesdeveloppement/cities_alliance/karu.pdf)