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4TH SESSION OF THE WORLD URBAN FORUM OF THE UN-HABITAT IN NANJING, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 3RD NOVEMBER 2008

Address by Hon. Dinesh Gunawardena, MP Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development Chief Government Whip of Parliament Sri Lanka Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development and Head of the Sri Lankan Delegation to the 4th Session of the World Urban Forum in the historic city of Nanjing in China, declared amongst wide applause to an audience made up of a wide array of leading personalities across the world, stakeholders of Harmonious Urbanization from different parts of the world that “at a time when $700 billion can be found overnight to bailout richest bankers in the world and $1000 billion can be spent on one single “WAR”, sovereign wealth funds in far rich countries alone are at $2500 billion and growing, it stretches cruelty when we are told and discussing for years that the world cant find an extra $80 billion a year to meet the basic needs of food, water, sanitation & housing for the majority of the world’s population”.

He continued to say that “Sri Lanka views that this should be seriously taken note of at the World Urban Forum, today, and given the highest consideration as a priority issue.” Minister Gunawardena, leading the Sri Lankan Delegation informed the participants at this Biennial Conference established by the United Nations to examine an array of experiences in dealing with rapid urbanization and its impacts on communities, cities, economies and policies that “Sri Lanka proposes to World Urban Forum to call for an urgent meeting to discuss the collapse of the world financial system and its affects and to find alternatives to meet the objective of the World Urban Forum”.

Hon. Ferial Ashroff, Minister of Housing and Common Amenities, is also attending the Conference associating with Minister Gunawardena on behalf of Sri Lanka. Expressing particular satisfaction that the Forum is being held in the Historic City of Nanjing in the People’s Republic of China with whom, the Minister reminded that Sri Lanka has been maintaining strong and historic bonds of friendship and cordiality with centuries of cooperation and partnerships.

He highlighted that “even at this moment The People’s Republic of China is generously contribution to the socio economic and cultural advancement of our people, thus also significantly impacting on Harmonizing Urbanization in Sri Lanka” – citing the commencement of the Chinese Government assisted new port development at Hambatota in the deep south of Sri Lanka where in other large capital investments in Urban Infrastructure and Institutional Development are ongoing - equipping a new Hub of Development to overcome longstanding regional disparity in development of the area as envisaged in the ‘Ten Year Development Strategy’ of the island nation as the outstanding highlight of the latest Economic, Technology Exchange and Cultural Cooperation agreements signed between China and Sri Lanka following a State Visit to China by His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka. Minister Gunawardena reiterated by saying that he himself was privileged to be the signatory to a Memorandum of Understanding between Sri Lankan and China, where China is to extend assistance in housing, sanitation and urban development sectors of Sri Lanka.

The Minister also thanked His Excellency President Hu Jin Tao of the People’s Republic of China, the government and the people of the People’s Republic of China and His Worship the Mayor, the Municipality Council and the Citizens of Nanjing for graciously hosting me and my delegation in this harmonious city steeped in centuries of traditions, reminding the audience that “China is the cradle of innumerable innovations that have served human development the world over for centuries” it was pointed out that, China forging ahead in development at such unprecedented scale and pace through innovative strategies - is an inspiration to ponder over”.

The Ministry of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development of Sri Lanka and that the strategies and programs for the development of slums and shanties and underserved settlements are derived by the policies of the ‘Mahinda Chintanaya’, essence of which was as highlighted by His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President in his message to the inaugural symposium of the ‘Arunodaya Urban Poor Housing Program’ in August 2007 and citing the target of the government’s 10 Year Development Strategy presented by His Excellency the President to the Parliament in November 2006 for every Sri Lankan family to have a house by 2016. Minister Gunawardena highlighted this by quoting His Excellency Mahinda Rajapakse “In our country it is the urban low income families that are mostly subjected to deprivation on account of not having a permanent house.

We are aware that a considerable section of the urban population lives without access to basic services in insecure environments and according in Mahinda Chintanaya drawn the attention to construct houses for them under urban settlement programs” The following are key highlights of Hon Dinesh Gunawardene’s presentation at the Forum which were in particular received with enthusiasm and interest by large sections of the audience clamoring for `more innovative affirmative pro poor action by the world community:- Participatory and Local Community Based Urban Services Development Programs Impacted upon by historic, cultural, social, and economic factors as well as large-scale development programs Sri Lanka’s settlement structure is made up of a network of villages, Townships and Cities. Within such pattern, a range of programs and projects to improve irrigation, roads, access to electricity, educational, cultural and social facilities as well as facilities for improving the economic conditions of the people are being carried out country wide at and by different tiers of government.

The Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program (CWSSP) and the “Gammedda” Rural Service Centre Development Program are two key responses of the Ministry of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development to check adverse effects of the urban sprawl and improve the living conditions and livelihood development of the rural-urban fringes of developing metropolitan structures. “Arunodaya Urban Poor Housing Program” is a lead program of the Ministry of Urban Development and Scared Area Development that combines slum and shanty replacement with processes of achieving local good governance in a refreshing outlook towards sustainable urban development in the implementation of the “Mahinda Chinthanaya”. It is a program:

1. that is funded without demand from the Consolidated Fund of the Government, and its funding secured through regulatory provisions made under the UDA Law by levy of a service charge of 1% of the estimated cost of construction of buildings exceeding 500 sq. m. in floor area dedicated to rehabilitation of slums and shanties and underserved settlements.

2. that is carried out based on initiatives and drive of organized slum and shanty communities and local level leadership and is locally driven,

3. with a clear framework methodology accommodating community specific initiatives and practices,

4. that incorporates within maximum and wide accountability through community and beneficiary responsibility for carrying out and monitoring expenditure. “Arunodaya” is the tool for mass self improvement of individuals and communities living in slums, shanties and mud huts in the cities and towns and their fringe areas through construction of hygienic core dwellings.

It is a propoor governance tool designed incorporating lessons learnt from the repository of experiences in participatory and community based programs carried out for the benefit of the poor and underprivileged in post independent Sri Lanka.

1) There is vast potential for Slum and Shanty rehabilitation through participatory and local community led methodology to achieve wide coverage within a limited time frame

2) There is adequate level of technical and management capability within communities and high degree of readiness of those with competence in and around the communities to contribute towards sound and timely decision making minimising conflicts.

3) Programs involving groups of beneficiaries are more effective in terms of achieving wider objectives of impacting the eradication urban poverty through strengthening communities than including dispersed individual allocations based on demands from local level leadership.

4) Quality and pace of achievement is dependent on:

a) Community interest to initiate (as against imposing upon community)

b) Strength of Community Organization ( as a “clout” of local or community leader)

c) Awareness of Community Leadership in participatory methods and practices (including ensuring accountability of public funds) and

d) the willingness of communities and local leaderships to learn from “success stories” as well as “failures” Urban Settlements Development Authority The Urban Settlement Development Authority (UDSA) enacted by Parliament a month ago in September 2008 contains landmark features in its powers and functions obligating the Authority to be responsive to target communities and significantly, for partnering with local authorities is the response to the need to establishing sustainable practices of planning and implementation of solutions to settlement development, particularly those of underserved settlement in particular.

The local level partnership obligations under the powers and functions also ensure economizing staffing and overheads of the Authority – an experience validated in practice in the implementation of “Arunodaya” and other similar. Through local based participatory methodology being built into powers and functions of the UDSA, they would ensure opportunity for involved stakeholders to manage undue interference and impositions of external bureaucracies. There are provisions for inbuilt checks and balances to ensure that the powers of the UDSA are exercised only in respect of targeted beneficiary communities – thus marginalizing possibilities of their misuse. Obligation of the Authority to prepare and make public annually “a report of achievements highlighting also variances from targets, lessons learnt and views and observations of partners and beneficiaries annually and make public on the first Monday in October every year designated by the United Nations as World Habitat Day" is a measure of accountability.

With such local based and community partnership approaches and measures for transparency and public accountability included, the Urban Settlement Development Authority (UDSA) is composed of necessary ingredients to achieve people centered and sustainable practices in attending to the needs particularly of the underserved and underprivileged and promotional of urban good governance. Observing that “while towns and cities are ‘engines of growth’ for the rapidly growing economies, unplanned and unmanned urbanization poses a serious threat to the very same growth. All urban areas in the region, big and small, face similar challenges of providing good governance, livelihood opportunities, adequate housing, water, sanitation, transport and other amenities to their residents ” and regretting that “ on MDGs-how the implementation and achieving of objectives has been limited to a series of long talk shops”. the minister warned that “the end of its original time frame set by the world community is coming to an end, very little have been achieved, the gap between the poor and rich has even more increased and this situation is further worsened by the collapse of the financial markets around the world.

” Whilst asserting that the ‘Trickledown Theory’ has proven as be a total failure and has resulted in aggravating the crisis even more and that the time has come to have a serious discussion on how world’s credit and financial instruments should be developed to address the key issues faced by the genuine stakeholders of global poverty alleviation and achieving “Slum Free Cities”, the following proposals highlighted by Hon. Dinesh Gunawardena on behalf of Sri Lanka were received by the audience with applause and appreciation of the country’s innovative programs and initiatives:

• Deliberate with priority establishment of guaranty mechanisms for multiple choice housing credit to poor homes builders towards easing of constraints experienced on account of lack of such mechanisms in efforts to achieve the Millennium Goal of “Cities without Slums”

• Canvas with priority the inadequacies of impact on reduced costs of building materials as should reasonably be expected to follow reductions in price of fuel

• Effective monitoring of impact of crisis in world financial centers in the developed world on on-going programs for achieving millennium goals particularly in the lesser developed urban centers/ Minister Dinesh Gunawardena held bilateral discussions with the Chinese counterpart on urban development programs in Sri Lanka as well as with the Turkish counterpart on urban housing initiatives during which he also thanked Turkey for the assistance given for post-tsunami reconstruction work.

Ministry of Urban Development & Sacred Area Development 3rd Floor, “Sethsiripaya”, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka Tel:+94-11-286-2368 Fax:+94-11-286-6447 Email: dinesh.gunawardena@yahoo.com minister@urbanlanka.lk

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