MALAWI GOVERNMENT

MINISTRY OF LANDS AND HOUSING PRESS RELEASE FORMULATION OF NATIONAL URBAN POLICY (NUP) AS PART OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MALAWI URBAN FORUM (MUF) RESOLUTIONS 1.0

BACKGROUND

Strategic and Implementation Planning Handbook v8 (2006)

The Malawi Urban Forum (MUF) was established in 2007 and the first session was held in December 2008 under the theme, “Harmonious Urbanisation: the Challenge of Sustainable Development in Malawi”. The second forum was held in October 2011 under the theme “Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Urbanisation in Malawi”. Both forums made key resolutions with regard to increasing levels of urbanisation and the challenges on its management in Malawi. MUF is organized in recognition that urban areas are engines of economic growth that present unparalleled opportunities with a bearing on poverty reduction. Participants to the two forums therefore, called for the need to strategise on well managed urbanisation and observed that this will depend on current decisions and actions to address and plan for the most pressing urban challenges. 2.0

CONCLUSIONS AND KEY OBSERVATIONS OF THE SECOND MUF OF OCTOBER 2011

Participants to the second MUF observed that: 1. Urbanization and industrialization contribute immensely to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) such that no country can achieve middle income status without them. 2. Sustainable urbanization is the key to meeting the Millennium Development Goals. 3. There is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of the Malawi Government and its partners’ to address the challenges of urbanization before, as it happens and after. 4. A positive national policy framework is needed as an essential element of sustainable urbanisation management. 5. The urban poor should be fully involved in the urban governance and development processes because they are also a key resource to the socio-economic development of urban areas in Malawi. 6. Urban centres are engines of growth, entrepreneurship and economic modernization making it important to aim urban policies at strengthening urban areas as economic, manufacturing and export processing zones. 7. Cities and towns act as incubators of economic and employment growth hence adequate support to the formal and informal sector should form a critical component of an urban policy.

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8. There is need for documented evidence and data on a number of urban issues not limited to water and sanitation, housing, access roads and energy to facilitate the process for urban policy development, decision making and resource allocation. 9. Infrastructure and service delivery in cities and towns cannot be managed on project by project basis but on a sector wide approach. 10. Densification and integrated management of cities, towns and neighbourhoods should be planned and encouraged to promote human scale urban development. 11. There is need to promote public private partnerships in the development of urban infrastructure, service delivery and improved facilities in slum areas. 12. There are insufficient legal and administrative instruments for private sector participation in public urban infrastructure financing and management. 13. Simple evidence of ownership like beaconing of plots should be used for slum upgrading while encouraging individuals who need titles for access to financing to pursue the titling process and registration. 14. There is need for subsidising the low income to access decent housing in order to improve the housing conditions in slum areas of the country. 15. Urbanisation affects all MDG targets such that the battle for achieving the MDGs in the country has also to be fought and won in urban centres to ensure sustainable urbanisation in Malawi. 16. There is need to put in place a National Urban Policy and finalise the National Housing Policy for sustainable urbanization in Malawi. To implement the above key observations especially 4, 6, 7 and 16, the Ministry of Lands and Housing is informing the general public and key urban development stakeholders that it has embarked on a process of developing a National Urban Policy (NUP). It is expected that once the policy is in place, a process to address all of the above issues would have began. 3.0

PROPOSED SCOPE FOR THE NATIONAL URBAN POLICY

Meanwhile, following the outcomes of the first and second MUF and a consultative stakeholder workshop on the NUP held on 4th October 2012, it is hereby proposed that the new National Urban Policy should: a.

Provide guidance for defining an urban area in Malawi.

b. Define an urban classification system and management based on agreeable criteria. c. Be linked to the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy II and sector policies to support the agenda of economic growth for development and poverty reduction in Malawi. d. Facilitate the development of plans and designs that promote compact, socially inclusive, better integrated and linked cities that foster sustainable urban development and are resilient to climate change at the city, regional and national levels. e. Encourage cities to become engines of economic growth by promoting investments and financial self-sufficiency at the local level. f.

Pave the way for vertical and underground growth of cities to economically manage the horizontal land development of cities in Malawi both in the short and long term.

g. Promote effective and efficient development and management of urbanizing rural growth centres and district towns to enable them grow into medium and small cities as a means of managing the equitable spatial distribution of population and development in the urbanizing Malawi. 2

h. Facilitate the coordination of institutions involved in the management of urbanization in Malawi. i.

Promote efficiency in the management of urban systems through sustainable human scale urban planning.

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Provide clear guiding principles for NUP implementation process.

k. Be in tandem with the policy drafting framework from the Office of the President and Cabinet in Malawi. In order to successfully formulate a comprehensive NUP, the process will involve conducting: a. A Situation analysis to come up with recommendations on the structure, content and issues to be addressed by the policy. b. Discussing with selected national stakeholders and representative local councils to strategise on the content of the draft NUP issues paper; and c. Conducting a national stakeholder workshop to solicit comments on key findings and recommendations to beef up the gaps in the draft NUP issues paper. 4.0

CALL FOR INPUT FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC

In order to promote participatory governance in the formulation process of this policy, the general public and all interested individuals, public and private organizations are being called upon to contribute what they consider very important for the National Urban Policy to contain and address. Such contributions will help in strengthening and adding value to the scope of the NUP as proposed in part 3.0 above. 5.0

PARTNERSHIP AND TIME FRAME

The NUP is being formulated with financial support from Cities Alliance and technical support from United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) under the Malawi City Development Strategy and Slum Upgrading Programme (CDS/SUP) Framework. Therefore, it has a timeframe within which tasks have to be accomplished. As such receipt of public submissions for this phase will close on 30 November 2012. The public submissions will help to fine tune the Terms of Reference and Scope of work which will define the working frame for the consultant to be tasked with the development of the policy. Therefore, written submissions should be sent to the Secretary for Lands and Housing, Zowe House, Off-Convention Drive, Private Bag 311, Capital City, Lilongwe 3 Attention: The Task Manager, Mr. Felix Tukula and Fax No. +2651772324. Electronic submissions should be sent to Mr. Gilbert Chilinde on [email protected] or SMS on +265999395801 or come in person for a face to face discussion in Room Number 39 top floor East Wing of Zowe House (by appointment only).

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION, A BED ROCK FOR SUCCESSFUL POLICY FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION

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