{Rwanda is targeting to increase its urbanization rate to 35% and create secondary cities in six years.}
The Rwandan government has tried for two years to urbanize Musanze, Rusizi Bugegesera, Huye, Rubavu and Nyagatare Districts.
James Musoni, Minister in charge of infrastructure, said Saturday that small cities should develop and have master plans to accelerate the implementation of these activities, which will make the dream a reality.
“With the limited time remaining, we must move quickly and work together to support activities that will allow us to bring the annual growth of 4% to at least 12% a year,” he said.
“We need to work on the factors of attraction to achieve urbanization and transform our cities into settlement towns. We must also be able to identify settlement sites and source of funds we need to support that” he added.
Esther Mutamba, CEO of Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA), for her part stressed the need to achieve an annual urban growth of 12% in the short remaining period.
“With the current urbanization rate of 4.1% and 17% of the national population living in urban areas, more efforts are needed to achieve the objectives of urbanization to 35%” she said.
According to the RHA, districts should also establish land banks (buy and preserve land for future projects), developing affordable housing financing mechanisms, take care of scattered dwellings and accelerate the development of real estate for an improved service delivery.
Source: Xinhua
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