Urban jungles to test UN resolve at summit
Urban jungles to test UN resolve at summit
Dean Yates, Reuters, Jakarta
Seemingly oblivious to the overpowering stench and buzzing flies, Adin pokes at garbage on a foetid canal piled so thick he can stand without sinking.
Adin earns US$2 a day from local authorities in the Indonesian capital Jakarta sorting through the tangle of plastic bottles, used aerosol cans and coconut husks.
Each month a crane lifts the rubbish to the bank, where it is burned.
"How can anyone do something like this? But I need the money," 50-year-old Adin said listlessly while taking a break as children played near a row of wooden shanties that line the filthy canal.
Scenes like this play out each day around the developing world in urban jungles such as Jakarta, under-scoring the health, environmental and social woes of life in megacities which the U.N. hopes to tackle at its environment summit in Johannesburg in August.
Megacities, defined as those with more than 10 million people, place immense strain on local governments and the millions who flock from rural areas seeking jobs and then have to fend off sickness, crime, unemployment and often communal unrest.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg -- dubbed Earth Summit 2 -- is being billed as the largest U.N. conference ever, where delegates are expected to work on a plan to drag millions out of poverty while protecting the environment.
But with the summit to open in less than a month, governments have yet to reach agreement on an action plan, causing environmental groups to predict the conference will flop.
Of course, for the tiny number of mega-rich in giant cities in the developing world, and the growing middle class, life beyond traffic jams and pollution offers opportunities their parents never had: cinemas, restaurants and travel.
But for many more megacity residents, life can be rough. Indeed, Toshi Noda, UN-Habitat director for Asia and the Pacific, said slum dwellers comprised more than 50 percent of the population in megacities in developing countries.
Take Calcutta. From 15 million people today, the Indian city is projected to have 22 million within its outer limits by 2025.
"Calcutta will become a huge expanse of degraded human settlement...," said Monideep Chattopadhyay of the Center for Human Settlements Planning at Calcutta's Jadavpur University.
"It's a doomsday scenario."
UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency that deals with urbanization, projects the world will have 21 megacities in 2015 from only five in 1975 and 17 last year. Previous estimates have shown more by 2015, with some forecasting up to 27 by that time. The vast majority of the megacities will be in the developing world, with more than half in Asia.
By 2015, cities like Bangladesh's capital Dhaka will need to cope with 22.8 million people, Sao Paulo in Brazil 21.2 million and Jakarta 17.3 million, according to the UN-Habitat figures. The U.N. hopes the Johannesburg summit can make a difference, but independent experts believe it will have its work cut out.
Finding the funds and political will to take action will test local authorities. But where governments were failing to deliver, experts said citizens' groups were stepping in, influencing decisions and playing a key role in improving living conditions.
World leaders at Johannnesburg are expected to pledge to "significantly improve" by 2020 the lives of 100 million of the world's slum dwellers. Part of that involves boosting access to clean water, modern energy, land and basic services.
Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said while there were signs of hope to improve life in megacities, the challenges were "overwhelming".
"It may take decades to bring about more fundamental change in energy, infrastructure, urban settlements, transport systems, consumer technologies, and particularly, lifestyles," he said a speech last May in the Chinese megacity of Shanghai.
Speaking from his office in Japan, UN-Habitat's Noda said megacities should be viewed more positively than negatively, partly because they were vital to reducing poverty and would increasingly become the main players in the global economy.
That perspective can be seen in China's capital Beijing, which has changed dramatically in recent years as foreign investment has poured in and the economy powered ahead.
"The city is a lot more cultured and the job prospects are better. (But) when I first came here I could hardly breathe because of the smog," said 29-year-old Shi Xiao, who came to Beijing from the central province of Anhui seven years ago in search of work.
Pollution is just part of the problem in megacities. Disease stalks crowded slums, causing health complaints ranging from diarrhea to respiratory disorders and skin problems and increasingly patients suffering from AIDS.
In Asia, the sheer size of populations in countries such as China and India will ensure major headaches for urban planners.
Although Africa boasts no megacities yet, according to UN- Habitat, cities from Freetown to Nairobi, Cairo to Luanda, are among the most miserable on the planet.
The Nigerian capital Lagos will be the African continent's first megacity, coming in with 16 million people in 2015.
While megacities are less common in the developed world, the biggest of all is the Japanese capital Tokyo, home to 26.5 million people according to UN-Habitat figures, which take into account the sprawl beyond the formal city limits.
Despite its size, Tokyo has clean streets and low crime. But many Japanese suffer from the distances they commute to work. On some train lines, passengers are packed in during rush hour.
"This is hell," said one businessman in his thirties as he headed to an eastern suburb after work one evening.
Back at the canal in Jakarta, Mugeni gazes around the small wooden shanty he built for his family when he was evicted recently from another slum to make way for a building project.
"This life is unbelievably hard," he said.
Asked about the smell from the canal, the 64-year-old shrugged his shoulders. "It smells, but you get used to it."