Lake Victoria Region City Development Strategies (CDS)

UN-HABITAT through its Urban Management Programme (UMP), with support from SIDA, initiated the Lake Victoria Region City Development Strategies Programme in early 2002. It was in a bid to strengthen the capacities of urban centres located along the shores of Lake Victoria.

This initiative aims to mobilize the local authorities and stakeholders to develop a programme laying out City Development Strategies for improved urban environment and poverty reduction. It also seeks to address the absence of effective planning. The respective local authorities have endorsed the CDS programme, and multi-sectoral coordinating committees have been set up. The initiative has focused on building a consensus on key environmental issues. The consensus has been used as the framework for preparing and implementing City Development Strategies for the three countries.

The pioneer CDS cities in Phase I of the Lake Victoria CDS initiative were Kisumu (Kenya), Kampala (Uganda), and Musoma (Tanzania).

The Second Generation of Lake Victoria CDS cities, Homa Bay (Kenya), Entebbe (Uganda), and Bukoba (Tanzania) were selected by UN-HABITAT in consultation with the Lake Victoria Regional Authorities Cooperation (LVRLAC) to participate in the CDS programme. The Phase II cities have each prepared a profile and prepared the CDS document.

In Phase III of the project, Jinja (Uganda) and Mwanza (Tanzania) were selected to participate in the Lake Victoria CDS. The overall objective of the third phase was to develop a regional approach to improved urban environment and reduced poverty in the Lake Victoria region by enhancing efficiency in the use of local environmental resources, reducing environmental risks and strengthening application of environmental conventions and agreements; reducing poverty by promoting more equitable access to resources and environmental services; mobilizing and strengthening local capacities to plan, co-ordinate, and manage sustainable local development in partnership, and combining the complementary strengths of UN-HABITAT and other partners in supporting sustainable development commitments including improved local environmental governance.

The overall purpose of this programme was to enable municipal authorities to better address priority local environmental issues and to better achieve sustainable urbanization by providing them and their partners with an improved environmental planning and management capacity, and policy application processes. The broader purpose was to reduce poverty by more efficiently and equitably managing the use of environmental resources and the control of hazards and by promoting employment through improved environmental services delivery.

more information on this program can be got from the links below

1. www.unhabitat.org
2. www.lvrlac.net