Daily Trust (Abuja)
Mustapha Suleiman
9 July 2009
Abuja — The Minister of State for Works, Housing and Urban Development Mrs. Grace Ekpiwhre yesterday inaugurated the national steering committee of the Cities Alliance at headquarters of the ministry.
Mrs. Ekphiwhre explained that Cities Alliance is a coalition of cities and its development partners committed to the eradication of slums and poverty in cities, creating well -managed cities and promoting local economic development. She said Cities Alliance was initiated by the World Bank and UN-HABITAT in 1999 as part of strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goal of improving the lives of slum dwellers.
The minister disclosed that Nigeria is the first African country to join membership of the Cities Alliance, adding that Cities Alliance has approved the preparation of " The State of Nigerian Cities Report. "
She added that the purpose of the project is to gather necessary information on Nigerian Urban Centres with a view to addressing the challenges in the city centres for sustainable development, saying it will enhance the capacity of the ministry to coordinate a nationwide project to document the contribution of cities to the economic growth of the country.
She said that the preparation of the report will serve as a base for stock taking of Nigerian cities on the basis of a sample of 20 largest cities drawn from the six geo-political zones of the country, adding that the report will include analysis of their growth trends, productivity, resources and governance for better understanding of their" specific economic and demographic context. "
She said that " the cities of Lagos, Yola, Abuja, Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Gombe, Jos, Minna, Makurdi, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Oshogbo, Port Harcourt , Benin City, Calabar, Onitsha, Aba and Enugu have been identified to be in the first phase of the study."
Mrs. Ekpiwhre emphasised that apart from Lagos and Abuja which are mandatory in the list, the remaining 18 additional cities comprising of 3 from each of the six geo-political regions were selected based on the size of their population.
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