Kigali, 6 September 2013
President Kagame today received a delegation from the UNHabitat, who had been attending a three day Tripartite Conference for Africa and the Caribbean in Kigali, held under the theme “Sustainable Urbanization as Response to Urban Poverty Eradication.”
After meeting the President, Dr Joan Clos, Executive Director of UNHabitat based in Nairobi said the meeting in Kigali had been a resounding success:
“Rwanda is having the challenge of rapid development and this calls for vigilant urban planning in order to put order in infrastructure. I think Rwanda is on the right track for preferring the idea of intermediary cities. We have countries where there is no strategy and this is causing problems. When you walk around Kigali you can see a pattern of organization and I think there will be no problems as faced by other countries that lack planning.”
The Rwanda Minister of Infrastructure said:
“In Rwanda urbanization is moving at a rate of 4.8% per annum, compare to general average of about 1.8%, while in Kigali it’s even higher, at 9%. We have to look at how to handle this and we are working closely with UNHabitat to move forward. The conference was very successful and that’s why this delegation came here to thank the Presidency for providing good leadership on these issues.”
This conference follows the first international tripartite conference on urbanization challenges and poverty reduction in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that was held at the headquarters of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Nairobi from 8 to 10 June 2009