Theme 4: Water and Human Settlements of the Future
Nairobi, Kenya: one of the 10 fastest emerging cities
One of the major challenges of the 21st century is to provide safe drinking water and basic sanitation for all. At present close to 1 billion people lack access to improved water sources, and over 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation – nearly all of these live in cities in developing countries. Today, cities all over the world are facing a range of dynamic regional and global pressures, such as climate change, population growth, deterioration of urban infrastructure systems and more. Due to these pressures cities of the future will experience difficulties in efficiently managing scarcer and less reliable water resources and to provide sufficient sanitation.
In the past urban development pathways have created very complex systems of infrastructure and institutional framework that interact and influence each other. Strategies to build resilient urban water systems must adopt a broader perspective that recognizes the interdependence of the different water systems. Realities on the ground and the challenges of future pressures have made it obvious that business as usual is not the way forward. New approaches for the water management in the city of the future have to be developed. In this respect five focal areas are proposed game changing approaches and technologies, system wide changes for integrated management approaches, institution and leadership for extracting the maximum benefits from water (beneficiation) and integration, opportunities in emerging cities of developing countries, and integrated development in rural human settlement. The case of rural settlements and cities in developing countries merit a special emphasis, including <s>its</s> slums or peri-urban areas that often are the most deprived.
Focal Areas
For more information on each focal area and the implementation plan, please follow the links below:
Implementation Matrices for Theme 4 Focal Areas
- Focal area 4.1 - Game changing approaches and technologies
- Focal area 4.2 - System wide changes for integrated management approaches
- Focal area 4.3 - Institution and leadership for beneficiation and integration
- Focal area 4.4 - Opportunities in emerging cities in developing countries
- Focal area 4.5 - Integrated development in rural human settlement