FIG Africa Task Force Workshop on Proactive Planning for
Infrastructure in Peri-Urban Settlements
Mombasa, Kenya, 11-12 November 2010
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Participants of the Africa Task Force workshop in Mombasa. |
The FIG Africa Task Force organised its first two-day workshop on
Peri-Urban Settlements: Tools & Techniques for Surveyors to ensure
Environmental and Social Resilience in Mombasa, Kenya, 11-12 November
2010.
The FIG Africa Task Force (ATF) was established by the General Assembly
in 2009 for period 2010-2014. It is a new initiative aimed at supporting FIG
member associations and academic members in Africa. The key purpose of the
Task Force is to enable the surveying profession in Sub Saharan Africa to
deal with social responsibility in terms of contributing to achieving the
Millennium Development Goals. In this regard, the role of the surveyors as
change agents engaging with the politicians is important.
Each year the Task force will invite an African member association to
co-host a workshop. The first workshop was held in Mombasa and it was hosted
in co-operation with the Institution of Surveyors Kenya (ISK).
The workshop was targeted at senior and middle level land professionals
in the private and public sector and educational and land professional
institutes. It brought together decision makers and practitioners from
several African nations (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South
Africa and Zambia) with expertise across the range land professional
disciplines within the FIG membership. The workshop was by invitation only
and number of participants was limited to 60 selected by AFT and ISK in
respect of national attendees.
African nations struggle with land governance issues associated with
achieving the MDGs and therefore the objectives of the two-day workshop were
to:
- Define the critical issues upon which to work;
- Develop raw material for support tools to enable the core team to
develop and disseminate for further decision at the FIG Working Week in
Marrakech in 2011;
- Devise appropriate tools that will be helpful to surveying
associations to help their own members to ensure environmental and
social resilience.
These objectives were achieved and a theme for a tool was agreed to be
worked upon over the next few months with a working document. The document
is expected to be uploaded on the Task Force web site soon.
Based on a participatory format, participants were expected to contribute
in both open forums and break out sessions. By designing an interactive
two-day workshop the participants were split into six groups of up to ten
members in which to carry out the two days’ activities. Participants
reviewed the content of information given, made criticisms, suggestions,
raised concerns as well as making additions to improve the existing
framework. An overview of peri-urban development was provided in setting the
scene with three presentations: Prof. Stig Enemark provided the
keynote, the MDG overview; Prof. Saad Yahya (Kenya)provided a view of
peri-urban Africa, definitions and categories; and Emmanuel Offei-Akrofi
(Ghana)presented Land for Periurban Infrastructure in Customary Areas, a
case study of Ghana.
During the first day, the delegates concentrated on what are the issues
to focus upon. The participants clearly identified these through a series of
group work and led by Prof. Michael Barry (Canada) who presented “Periurban
Systems: The Challenges of Change for the Surveyor” in which he provided
a useful list in which the groups could work. In addition an excellent
presentation of the pragmatic and effective work Umande Trust is doing to
provide sustainable sanitation solutions in informal settlements in Nairobi
truly empowered the participants to think outside the box, and also
reminding them of the benefit to the community. This list was refined to
provide six ideas that the group agreed could be concentrated upon as
priority issues.
The second day concentrates on how to create the tools. As a start, the
exercise was to consider how to narrow the six issues down to two or three,
which would enable them to then focus upon developing an appropriate sketch
outline for a tool. Consideration was given and debated in a rigours and
logical sequence to find ideas for action, the role of land professionals,
bringing the stakeholders and key actors together and understanding the
process, before then considering what tools and methodologies land
professionals would need to enable them to make a difference.
At plenary presentations of each group proposal were made. By the close
of the discussion over the two days, participants came to the conclusion
after a vote, that the single theme for a tool was “Slum Prevention:
Infrastructure routes”. It was agreed that the agenda for action would
involve working this sketch theme into a tool.
The consensus reached at the end of the workshop discussion is that in
May at the FIG Working Week in Morocco, the draft tool is brought to the
Roundtable for further discussion and agreement. A short workshop
publication based on the deliberations is being prepared and is planned to
be available as a briefing document for the roundtable in 2011.
Dr. Diane Dumashie, Chair of the FIG Africa Task Force and
organiser of the workshop, summarized the outcome of the workshop: that the
land professional asks some fundamental questions about the place of land
administration and management in modern African society. In what way does
good land economics - in this case, lateral thinking about
infrastructure routes – produce economic and social value? What do
rigorously imposed and monitored infrastructure routes give back in hard
financial and utilitarian terms to those who fund and use them? How can that
value be meaningfully captured so that community and government investors
and developers are persuaded that forward design adds to the bottom line and
gives their settlements a lasting edge?
The work of the AFT is intended to form part of a growing resource of
information which can underpin associations’ decisions and activities by
disseminating and further providing appropriate tools for their land
professionals. From FIG’s perspective, it performs part of an effort to
ensure that Sub-Saharan African land professionals have a platform in which
to raise and develop their own tools for their own country contexts.
For FIG the workshop was an excellent starting point from which to build
up the evidential core of work for land professionals in Sub Saharan Africa
(and elsewhere). The workshop was co-sponsored by the UN-HABITAT Global Land
Tool Network (www.gltn.net).
More to read:
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Dr.
Diane Dumashie, Chair of FIG Africa Task force making her
opening speech.
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Workshop facilitators
Michael Barry and Kwame Tenadu
together with Diane Dumashie following the workshop
discussions. |
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Workshop in
action. |
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Workshop in group
discussions. |
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Kwame Tenadu, Diane Dumashie and Wafula Nabutola,
Chair of FIG Commission 8, 2011-2014. |
Narrow street in the Old Town of Mombasa.
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A dhow at the Indian Ocean. |
The famous Fort Jesus in Mombasa. |
The lively vegetable market in Mombasa. |
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19 January 2011
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