960404

ABAD chief

invited to South

Asian mayors

moot in Kathmandu

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: A four-day South Asian Mayors and Local Authorities Conference is being held in Kathmandu from Monday next to discuss various strategies and options for partnership between private sector investors and local authorities for development of urban infrastructure and services.

The conference is being organized jointly by the United Nations Conference on Human Settlement (UNCHS Habitat-II),Mayor of Metropolitan City of Kathmandu, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the UNICEF.

Abdul Karim Tai, Chairman, Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) who has been invited by the organizers as a representative of the private sector in urban development, told Business Recorder on Thursday that the report and declaration of the conference would provide the necessary input for the conference on World Assembly of Cities and Local Authorities to be convened on the occasion of Habitat-II conference in Istanbul, in June next.

Some of the main objectives of the conference are: - to assess ways of establishing and strengthening local partnership for urban development through interactive collaboration for good governance and encouraging strategic partnership with private sector, NGOs and CBOs to share responsibilities of local government; to assess prevailing constraints on business and investment opportunities in the urban sector and suggest suitable methods to remove the constraints and barriers; and, to facilitate exchange and interchange of information on innovations in urban management and stimulate the process of transfers between cities and countries with the region strengthening South-South cooperation.

The discussion at the conference is likley to focus on four items:

- a) decentralization: given that the sustainability of human settlement will determine the quality of economic growth, it becomes imperative that the issue of resource mobilization and functional & financial devolution be discussed in the region. There is a further need to examine options and possibilities for local authorities in financing and providing much-needed urban services that will in turn mobilize private involvement.

- b) local government capacity building and urban management & municipal training institute.

- c) cities for tomorrow's children and women.

- d) Review of the role of Mayors and Local Authorities in Habitat II Conference.