The Right to the City and its Implications for Kampala

Ronald BusiingePresentation at Golf Course Hotel Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Structure of Presentation

• Preamble

• Study Objectives

• Findings

• Conclusions

• Recommendations

Preamble

• Study Commissioned by OSIEA• An attempt to find a solution that city inhabitants

find themselves into• Henri Lefebvre popularized the slogan in 1968 • First World Social Forum (held in the city of

Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001) • World Urban Forum – Barcelona 2004• World Urban Forum V in 2010• Cross sectional survey conducted• Study concentrated in Nakawa Division that has

the largest number of evictees

Study Objectives

• To conduct a desk research in order to assess and analyse the conceptual grounding (theory, Charter) of the Right to the City and its implications for Kampala;

• To carry out field work in Kampala City with emphasis on the recent evictions and the extent to which the Right to the City was observed

• To convene Focus Group Discussions on the ways and means to enshrine the Right to the City in Kampala’s development processes at the local and central government levels;

Findings

• Conceptual Grounding

• Why R2C– R2C draws on the UN’s 1948 Universal

Declaration of Human Rights – A collective right where citizens are ‘active

agents of change – Cities have fluid populations, many not

formally defined as citizens

Why R2C

– half the world population lives in cities and predictions are that by 2005 the degree of urbanization will have reached 65%.

– urbanization processes which contribute to the depredation of the environment and the privatisation of public spaces generating social and physical segregation.

• What Right– a cry and a demand – the right to information, the rights to use of

multiple services, the right of users to make known their ideas on the space and time of their activities in urban areas

– The right to the city is a claim and a banner under which to mobilize one side in the conflict over who should have the benefit of the city and what kind of city it should be.

– It is a moral claim, founded on fundamental principles of justice, of ethics, of morality, of virtue, of the good

– Intrinsic in the Right to the City is the right to participation and to appropriation

• Whose Right– is both a cry and a demand, a cry out of

necessity and a demand for something more. – the demand for the Right to the City comes

from the directly oppressed; the aspiration comes from the alienated

– Public space for debate and claim of democratic rights, but also for those excluded from the commodified private domain

• What City– it is not the right to the existing city that is demanded,

but the right to a future city – not necessarily a city in the conventional sense at all,

but a place in an urban society in which the hierarchical distinction between the city and the country has disappeared.

– ‘the city of heart’s desire’ – a city where material needs and aspirational needs

are met, the needs of the deprived and of the alienated

• Recent Evictions and the R2C– Railway evictions in Ndeba and Banda– Demolitions– Taxi operators– Schools– Street vendors and street buyers– Boda Boda– City Abattoir– Urban Farming– Kasokoso

http://www.redpepper.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/bodaboda-cyclists-in-Kampala.jp

Implications

• Urban militarism is the new way of managing cities

• Kampala City as a site of conflict• Kampala’s politics can be reduced to issues of

traffic, unplanned market vending and street hawking and high rise hotels, this is done through bargains between wealthy elites that often violate planning and other regulations.

• The policy, legal and regulatory environment of KCCA is weak right from the conceptualization, contextualization and aspirations in relation to R2C.

Implications contd

• KCCA is more dictatorial and does not consult with the city inhabitants, only gives directives.

• The formal institutions for managing the city particularly relating to land and planning have been undermined by informal bargaining between elites and urban interest groups

• The current political squabbles between Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and government (KCCA) have denied the city inhabitants of the political leadership

Implications Contd

• Under the KCCA Act 7 (i) a) the authority is mandated to initiate and formulate policy. Unlike other authorities that are created as a result of policy, it’s unique for Kampala.

• The R2C is in tandem with the Uganda National Urban Policy (UNUP). Though, the KCCA Act seems not to reflect the same ideals.

• Each year thousands upon thousands of individuals make the move away from rural areas to seek a better life in the city. But what waits in the city is no easy street to riches, but rather a fight for limited space on land that is scarce and valuable.

• Many city inhabitants in informal settlements are largely excluded from the city’s formal systems and services.

Conclusions• Kampala is yet to become a signatory city for the World Charter on

the Right to the City. – First, there is no legal mandate to compel KCCA to implement

the provisions of the said charter. – Second, there is a moral case for KCCA to implement the

provision of the charter in order to fit in their newly found vision of a “Vibrant, Attractive and Sustainable City. It, also, tallies with KCCA Mission “To Deliver Quality Services to the City” and KCCA core values of excellence, integrity, innovativeness, teamwork and client care.

– Third, there is will on the part of government to pursue the Right to the City as exemplified by governments (President Museveni) presentations at the WUF5.

– Most provisions of the 1995 constitution, the Draft National Urban Policy 2010, National Development Plan, Land Policy 2012, and other frameworks are in tandem with the provisions of the World Charter on the Right to the City.

Conclusions contd• Kampala City as it is cannot deliver rights.

– While a great deal of planning work has been done in both the colonial and postcolonial eras, the postcolonial era experienced little application and implementation of the planning ideas and plans

– This is attributed to governance issues, lack of financial resources and manpower, the complicated land tenure systems emerging from 1900 Buganda agreement, lack of political commitment, and importation of foreign models without reorienting them to the local context, and so forth. He further observes that there is an existence of dualism in Kampala dating back from colonial days; Mengo for the Native Baganda peoples and Kampala for the Europeans, a dualism that existed for much of the period before 1968. Modern town planning was particularly applied to the colonial city while the native city grew with little attempts to planning.

Conclusions contd

– The 1900 Buganda Agreement complicated the land tenure in Uganda to such an extent that in Kampala alone, there exists multiple land tenure systems including that makes is hard to plan for the city’s development.

– The 1995 constitution augments the situation as it emphasizes that lands recent abolition belongs to the people coupled with the recent abolition of Land Acquisition Act.

– ‘Racially’ grounded, the city fails to celebrate it cultural diversity. Instead of Kifumbira being a basis of celebrating “Kifumbira” culture, it is often associated with slums and low cadre of citizens as is with Kitooro.

Recommendations• A new policy, legal and regulatory framework for the governance

and service delivery in the city is suggested, one that espouses notions and provisions of the World Charter on the Right to the City akin to Law no. 388/1997 in Colombia and Law no. 10.257/2001 in Brazil.

• City inhabitants ought to be at the helm in determining the kind of city they want not one in the minds of KCCA. There is need to build a new ‘Kampala’ that can be planned well in advance, one that can deliver rights to city inhabitants. Ideologically, this should be a city in the peoples heart; one where the city inhabitants are partners with city management and work together to build a city.

• There is need for a monitoring mechanism that would monitor compliance of KCCA with the provisions of the World Charter on the Right to the City. A multi-stakeholder initiative is proposed one that would work under a Public Private Partnership.

Recommendations Contd• Civil society ought to take one advisory, educative and community

roles; advocacy, research roles and legal roles pertaining to R2C. • KCCA ought to grass root the right to the City in all policies,

strategic plan and programs and projects. • Government of Uganda takes up her commitment as enshrined

under the World Charter for the Rights to the City and World Urban V report. International Agencies are called upon to open participatory spaces for the consultative and decision-making bodies of the United Nations that facilitate the discussion with respect this initiative.

• Further research is recommended on legal implications of the Right to City with particular reference to Kampala; delivering the Right to the City under multiple land tenure systems in Kampala; implications of the Draft Urbanisation Policy 2010 and delivering the Right to the City as well as designing and developing a monitoring framework to monitor implementation of the provisions of the World Charter on the Right to the City.

END

Thank you