Renowned
scholar and Professor of African economies at Oxford University, United
Kingdom, Professor Paul Collier is to lead expert discussion as Keynote Speaker
on the challenge of Africa’s future cities at the 2017 CVL Annual Lecture/International
Leadership Symposium scheduled to take place in Lagos on February 6, 2017. The
venue is Shell Hall, Muson Centre, Lagos.
The 14th
edition of CVL [Centre for Values in Leadership] Annual Lecture is also
parading the following Speakers and stakeholders in smart city initiatives: Mr.
Jabber Bin Hafez, CEO Smart City Dubai and Chairman, Smart City Lagos; Messrs
Akinwunmi Ambode and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Governors of Lagos and Enugu States
respectively. Lagos and Enugu were named in the Rockefeller Foundation Listing
of the world’s 100 most resilient cities.
The Speakers
would be joined by a panel of Discussants made up of Dr. Fred Olayele,
President, Global Economic Institute for Africa in Canada; Dr. Taibat Lawanson,
Associate Professor, Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of
Lagos; Mr. Kingsley Eze, Managing Director/CEO Private Estates International
West Africa- developers of Enugu Centennial Lifestyle City; and Mrs. Udo
Okonjo, CEO, Fine and Country West Africa.
The
Chairman of the event is Senator Liyel Imoke – former Governor, Cross River
State and Mr Godwin Obaseki, Governor of Edo State is the Chief Guest of Honour
while the Chief Host is Professor Pat Utomi, Founder/CEO CVL [Centre for Values
in Leadership]. Utomi is also Chairman of Private Estates International West
Africa and Vice Chairman, Smart City Lagos and the Lecture is on his 61st
birthday.
The theme
of the 2017 CVL Annual Lecture is Living
Well Together, Tomorrow: The Challenge of Africa’s Future Cities.
The
outcomes of the Annual lecture will provide Nigeria options to address the
bulging urban population in the country and associated social and economic
challenges. The United Nations has projected that the world’s population will
grow from 7.3 billion to 9.7 billion by 2050 largely in developing countries,
including regions such as sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is expected to contribute
major share of the sub-Saharan regional population growth. In 1953, Nigeria’s
urban population rose from 3.2 million to a staggering 70 million in 2007.
Based on the threshold of 20,000 inhabitants as minimum required to define an
urban centre by the National Population Commission, the number of cities in
Nigeria rose by fifteen fold from 56 in 1953 to 843 in 2004 with 6 cities
reporting population of one million or more!. The Lecture/Symposium will
integrate challenges from these trends and help define CVL’s agenda for
workshops in 2017.
Developed
economies are already responding to the challenges of the population explosion
with the introduction of smart cities. The United States and Dubai for example
have launched initiatives to help local communities tackle key
challenges such as reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, fostering
economic growth, managing the effects of a changing climate, and improving the
delivery of city services. Lagos and Enugu States have keyed into this global
concern and it is expected that national consciousness will be aroused as an
outcome of the CVL Annual Lecture.
A statement from CVL on the forthcoming
Annual Lecture said that today, the world is faced with the
promise and challenge of living well, together, in the face of globalization,
migration, global warming, naturalization and urbanization. Many cities are
growing on a daily basis; some have grown beyond the master plan of these
cities, thanks to rural-urban migration, to the extent that their populations
now exceed the infrastructural provisions – housing, transportation, security
etc of these cities. Today, many countries and cities find it difficult to
accommodate people from other civilizations in view of challenges that new
population growth has thrown up. For Nigeria, it is projected that more than
65% of the population will live in urban settlements by 2020 at a time housing
infrastructure is in deficit of about 10 million;
Overtime, urban
planners have experimented different models and concepts, from mega cities, to
satellite cities and legacy cities. Yet, the problems refuse to go. In an
attempt to answer the question of how to make cities more efficient, experts
have proposed smart cities, sustainable cities and resilient cities. These, are
cities designed not only to cater to the housing needs of the inhabitants, but
also to address the issue of how to live well, together in the face of the
rapidly growing populist culture of rejection of globalization as can be seen
in Brexit in the UK and election of Trump in the US and in other parts of
Europe where this populist culture is manifesting itself like Italy and France.
The big question is
this: Is the new model of smart cities, the solution to the challenge of
efficient housing for all? Why are inhabitants of cities with the best planning
and infrastructure not living well, together?
These among other
things, are the issues for discussion at the 2017 CVL Annual
Lecture/International Leadership Symposium, the 14th in the lecture
series.
This 14th
edition of the lecture series as the theme suggests, will look at issues such
as:
Cities of the Future
Urban Renewal
Urban Governance
Promoting and developing well-planned and
efficient cities around the world
Peaceful co-existence of people of different
culture, religion and race.
Provision of adequate housing for all
Cities and Living Well Together
Developing habitable rural areas
Developing mega cities, smart cities,
megalopolis, sustainable and resilient cities.
In
partnership with Lagos State Government, Smart City Lagos & Private Estates
International West Africa (PEIWA), CVL will lead a national discourse and
initiative that will provide new knowledge on emerging urban trends and new
thinking around building smart cities, efficient cities, functional cities and
resilient cities in Africa.
This
initiative will involve concerted efforts by the 4 collaborating organizations
to drive nationwide activities aimed at challenging governments to build
habitable rural areas, urban centres, cities, mega cities, mega regions,
megalopolis, smart cities, sustainable cities and resilient cities. It will
also look at issues such as urbanization, living well together, urban
governance, human settlements and efficient housing development.
Both
formal and informal surveys show that many of our citizenry lack adequate
housing and infrastructure needed to live meaningful life, thus exposing them
to a lot of health risks and hazards. Therefore, helping people get adequate
housing and efficient habitation is a duty to which all citizens should feel
called and which we at CVL feel particularly obligated to.
RASHEED ADEGBENRO
Senior
Vice President
CVL
(Centre for Values in Leadership)
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