This debate is now necessitated because urban denizens are helplessly being pushed to submerge into a plethora of difficulties, while urban centers of this country are failing to produce and provide the desired quality of life.
Basic urban services such as the provision of paved roads, drainage, sanitation and drinking water are in perilously short supply. The river systems have been turned into sewers or dumping sites, which are brewing into potential health hazards. Likewise, agricultural lands are haphazardly becoming housing sites, engulfing greeneries and open space. With it, the traditional culture and social order is rapidly disintegrating.
Roads are getting choked at an increasing pace and the same can be said about the declining urban air quality. This environmental decline, especially in the larger cities, are incessantly worsening the physical as well as mental well-being of the urban citizens and also fast reducing the efficiency of the cities themselves. The state of affairs of smaller municipalities and towns are no rosier either: Much of these settlements still bear a much more rural ambience than an urban one.
Hitherto much understood as a rural phenomenon, urban poverty has now emerged as a serious challenge. The Human Development Report (2004) puts the urban poverty level of the country at about 25 percent, the manifestation of which is now visible in the advent of the squatter settlements that have come to emerge after the 1970s. In most instances, squatter settlements also tend to be extremely vulnerable to environmental hazards and disaster risks due to their marginal locations. The settlements have now become pressing problems for most municipalities around the country. Moreover, the poverty in the country is further aggravated by the income inequality and neglect of socially, economically and politically weaker sections from the planning as well as the decision making process, resources and opportunities. These anomalies foretell that our cities are not growing well and that the problems are becoming complex and multifold.
Why are we failing? The answer may possibly be found by examining the urban institutional setup that we have. For instance, in 1976, when the Kathmandu Valley Town Development Committee (KVTDC) was created to oversee the urban development of the capital region, it was still an agrarian society with a population of less than 700 thousand.
Entering into the 21st century, the Valley had already become a sprawling metropolitan region with a population exceeding one and half million. Contrary to the diverse responses required to cope with this radical change in the urban landscape, the KVTDC remains a by-stander, which has lost its path, holding only a mixed bag of land development and building regulations enforcement. Although it has somewhat championed in the former; it remains ineffective in enforcing building regulations and other investment and policy interventions necessary to guide implementation of its long-term development plan. With almost 90 percent of its 121 posts occupied by administrative personnel rather than multi-disciplinary experts, the KVTDC could never assert itself as an effective regional planning authority. Indeed, resurrection of the KVTDC into this original role, which would enable it to guide and manage the growth of the Valley in an orderly manner, was the main rationale behind the proposed Kathmandu Valley Urban Development Council bill, which is yet to find political consensus.
With weak planning and absence of concerted plan implementation efforts, the resultant haphazard development of the capital region is for all to behold. This state of affairs does not provide good practices to other urban centers of the country to emulate, nor does the capital-region become attractive for international investment and association, meaning that the planning and development failures of the Valley are likely to besiege other towns of the country as well. Already rapidly growing industrial and residential corridors along the highways in the Tarai encompassing multiple local jurisdictions pose complex institutional and environmental challenge for their management.
At the national stage, the institutional limitation is more conspicuous, as urban planning institutions such as the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC) and the plan implementing agencies such as the municipalities remain fragmented under different ministries. The much required institutional coordination in planning and implementation therefore continue to suffer. These plaguing institutional weaknesses rooted at the national and regional level are eroding municipal capability at the local level and making urban growth management difficult. The focus of municipal efforts therefore continues to remain limited to day to day problem solving rather than on a visionary approach to urban development.
With government priorities on urban development remaining at best volatile, along with the changing political parties, sustained and visible government investment to urban development is still lacking. Moreover, a majority of the municipalities still lack basic periodic plans, which result in much of the plans and programs remaining ad-hoc; the lack of harmonization in investment is further compounding the problem. Barring a few exceptions, international agencies tend to shy away from the urban development sector. As such, urban financing institutions such as the Town Development Fund (TDF) lack adequate capitals for investment. Consequently, most municipalities and small towns suffer from inadequate capital investment and fail to achieve positive transformation.
Despite this, the cities still offer the best hope for modernization or reducing poverty of the country. The global experiences show that country’s economic growth is strongly associated with the level of urbanization (WDR, 1999/2000). Already 65 percent of GDP in Nepal is being contributed by the non-farm sector concentrated around the cities (WDR 2009, cf. Sharma). This is despite the fact that current urbanization level in the country is just around 15 percent, which is being projected to double by 2030 (ADB, 2008).
All this means that Nepal is bound to confront urban challenges in a far greater degree in the future and our readiness is warranted. A way forward could be through thorough implementation by each stakeholder of the National Urban Policy of 2007, which is envisaged to be a road map for creating a balanced national urban structure as well as safe and prosperous urban environment. By having a deliberate investment in lagging regions, the policy aims for creating self-contained and self-reliant economic regions outside the Kathmandu Valley. The combination of regional planning and growth management, along with empowerment and capacity building of local bodies for plan implementation, especially by fostering their financing capabilities need further emphasis.
This also means the creation and strengthening of regional planning authorities whereby a coordination mechanism is sought for plan making and plan approval processes as much as for plan implementation. Both internal and external resources have to be mobilized as well as diversified, and to optimize the resource utility, the government resources are required to be channeled to medium and small towns, while seeking international, domestic or private funding for developing larger cities and specialized urban development projects. Furthermore, a national fund has to be established to promote housing for the urban poor, involving the community-driven processes. But to implement and oversee these initiatives, we may need an independent ministry of urban development as most neighboring South Asian countries do. Implications of such an initiative would be wide ranging from the national recognition of the importance of urban affairs to effective plan implementation. However, this becomes possible only when a greater urgency is attached to revamping the current institutional provision related to urban development.
Arjun Koirala is an Urban Planner with GTZ/Urban Development through Local Efforts Programme; Dr. Mahendra Subba is Deputy Director General, Department of Urban Development and Building Construction.
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