Last week Wednesday, the world celebrated Africa Day, to mark the African Union ( AU) anniversary. The AU is now almost 60 years old. Just a week prior to the celebration, Kisumu played host to the 9th Africites Summit.
This summit is the brain child of United Cities Sand Local Governments (UCLG) an umbrella organisation and voice for local governments in Africa.
The summit came at a time when Kenya is about to go into elections which will lead to a change of guard in some counties. What this means is that we will have new governors in some counties and cities including Nairobi.
Nairobi has a series of master plans, policies and so on that cover the city’s plans in the coming years. However, from an article I came across, Nairobi still does not have clear policies on climatic change response actions.
While there are some policies on climatic change, they are minimal and more needs to be done to transform Nairobi into a green city. It is ironical that Nairobi was once known as the “green city in the sun.” Nairobi is a maasai word meaning “the place of cool waters, so named by locals hundreds of years ago.
African cities such as Nairobi have many needs including infrastructure to support growing populations and security. However African cities also require a plan to address access to healthy environment and climatic change mitigation initiatives.
Nairobi is part of the green cities initiative which lists down some priority areas cities can take to mitigate climate change.
Some of the issues that arise when it comes to green cities initiative is waste management and food supply. There are recommendations on planning and partnerships, access to clean air and water, provision of fresh food and linking urban and rural areas. Other responses include having vertical farms and rooftop gardens to minimise air pollution.
Most of the green cities in the world are found in Europe. Vienna is reputed to be the greenest city in the world.
I hope that the incoming governor will prioritise environment and climatic change responses. Rwanda has set an example for the rest of Africa. There are plans to develop the Green City in Kigali, a huge project that is expected to take up about 620 hectares of land.
The projections include 30,000 housing units, green buildings, adoption of renewable energy and water, usage of clean technologies and other green initiatives.
I truly believe that if the city streamlines its green initiatives then it will be able to attract even more partners and investors. Research shows that green bonds attracted a 49 percent growth rate between 2016 and 2021.
Green bonds are fixed-income securities issued to finance green projects. A green bond can be an innovative way to raise municipal funds for projects. These statistics show that investors are looking out for green bonds.
There is an initiative, the green bonds programme, which is run by several partners to look into creating a domestic market for green bonds.
Nairobi city can attract investors to invest in key climatic change response initiatives. However, as with all investments, the green initiatives have to be sustainable and have good returns.
The Constitution provides a good foundation for environmental sustainability. Article 42 provides the right to clean environment and this includes the right to protect the environment for the sake of future generations. The environment laws and policies are in place, now we just need to implement these.
