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[ Back to Volume15 #1-2 Table of Contents ] [ back to Africa Recovery home ] [ Email this article ] From Africa Recovery, Vol.15 #1-2, page 36 Cleaning a town, from the ground up Habitat project on "Localizing Agenda 21" By Roman Rollnick, Nakuru This dusty town some 160 kilometres northwest of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, used to be known as the cleanest town in East Africa. It is famous for its saline lake, one of the world's most important flamingo breeding sites and heartland of the Lake Nakuru National Park, widely regarded as Kenya's premier game park. Thousands of visitors from around the world come each year, but all is not well for Nakuru's estimated 360,000 residents, whose numbers are growing at a staggering rate of 7 per cent a year, according to estimates by the UN Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS). This rapid urban development is causing problems for municipal officials and wildlife authorities alike. Buffaloes regularly crash through the park fence and baboons able to climb over it can clean out a mature maize field overnight. When it rains, streams of human waste and debris are carried down to the lake, creating health problems for people and animals alike. Meanwhile, Nakuru's poorer residents suffer from inadequate shelter, sporadic or non-existent electricity, and an acute shortage of fresh water. To improve local urban and environmental conditions, UNCHS, also known as Habitat, launched a long-term project, known as the Localizing Agenda 21 Programme in the early 1990s. It gets its name from Agenda 21, the programme of action adopted a decade ago at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Habitat started pilot projects in three medium-sized cities around the world: Nakuru, the Moroccan town of Essaouira and Vinh City in Vietnam. 'The ideas were not imposed' With the agreement of the municipal authorities, a permanently-staffed UNCHS office was established in the council building, managed by an experienced Kenyan town planner, Ms. Margaret Ng'ayu. "The ideas were not imposed by us. Every initiative undertaken by Habitat was discussed at length in regular meetings with the municipality and local community leaders," Ms. Ng'ayu says. "We wanted to hear what they felt were the most important needs, and then to see how we could work together and implement the improvements. At every stage, we hold meetings with them to ensure a holistic approach with proper representation at every level." Studies by UNCHS and local government authorities revealed some startling statistics. They showed that 75.9 per cent of the people live in just one room, which they usually have to share. Only 3.1 percent own their homes. Less than 10 per cent have indoor kitchens, toilets and bathrooms, and fewer still have any running water or electricity. "It is usually the women who have to spend a good deal of their time ensuring there is sufficient water for their households," says Ms. Ng'ayu. "They can buy it from vendors, or they have to go and collect it." The National Water Corporation supplies only 13,000 cubic metres per day, out of the 75,000 cubic metres the town requires. A new borehole, built under the Localizing Agenda 21 Programme, now provides another 26,000 cubic metres. Local residents can collect water from it for a token price and sell it for a small profit. Rubbish and sewage In recent years, rubbish collection depots have been built in the suburbs along the game park, considerably improving hygiene. Every two weeks, a waste compacting truck provided by the World Bank empties each of the rubbish depots. And plans are under way to build a drainage system so that human waste is properly disposed. "With the assistance of local communities, the human waste sewage system, which four years ago provided only 19 per cent coverage for Nakuru, now covers 30 per cent," says Mr. Simon Kiarie, the municipal officer in charge of sewage and waste management. The coverage, he adds, will rise to 70 per cent once the programme is fully implemented. Habitat also is encouraging people to build homes with bricks that it produces cheaply from local volcanic sand and cement. More than 100 homes have been built recently in this way, "and people are catching on fast," says Mr. Paul Chege, the local municipal planner. As conditions in Nakuru visibly improved, UN officials noted that one of the key factors was the availability of good information on various aspects of urban development. "I cannot stress how important we have found it to streamline existing information management practices within the local municipality," says Ms. Ng'ayu. Ensuring that information on different sectors was routinely available to senior managers was a prerequisite for more integrated urban development planning and management, as well as for building up credibility with external donors. "We have to lift ourselves up, and we can do it," said Mr. Erastus Makuna, a science teacher and local community leader who has been consulted at every stage of the Habitat programme. "It takes time -- years -- but we are slowly seeing improvements. We want Nakuru to become known as it once was -- the cleanest town in Africa." Related articles: [ Back to Volume15 #1-2 Table of Contents ] [ back to Africa Recovery home ] [ Email this article ] [ New Releases ] [ Magazine - Current/Past issues ] [ Index / Search ] [ About us ] [ UN Home ] [ UN News ] [ UN Key Reports ] [ UN Africa Links ] Material from this article may be freely reproduced, with
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