FUTURE HARARE: TOWARDS A WORLD-CLASS CITY

On behalf of the citizens of the city of Harare and the city councilors, it is my pleasure to introduce this study towards the future of the city of Harare as part of the initial steps towards becoming a more inclusive World Class City.

The Harare 2040 project is the beginning of a dialogue about the future of Harare greater metropolitan area. This cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary approach to planning will help the city tackle old problems in new ways and look at new challenges as opportunities for growth and enhancement of our existing assets. Moreover, the great vision of Old Mutual in their funding of this type of avant-garde study is to be commended. It is an indication that the future of Africa and its cities can be greatly enhanced by a consolidation of Public-Private Partnerships.

Harare accounts for 40%, if not more, of the country’s GDP. Many Zimbabweans have left the country to pursue their dreams in foreign lands because it has not been possible to do so in Zimbabwe. Therefore, it follows that if we fix Harare, the toughest part of our challenge is done. Our city can learn many lessons from contexts and organizations across the globe, like Gensler and the University of Pennsylvania, that have encountered similar issues in their communities and their work around the world. As co-president of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), I had the opportunity to take advantage of the many opportunities and resources coming out of the UCLG. Some of the resources include urban transportation system templates generated from more mature cities, implemented in places like Stuttgart by Mayor Wolfgang Schuster. Additionally, across the African continent there is a need to decentralize service delivery and stop looking to central governments for funds. People want to wake up in the morning, turn on the tap and find there is clean, potable water. Those who are fortunate enough to have cars should be able to drive over pothole-free roads. These are issues that necessitate separation of city development from Central Government politics. Moreover, mayors can and should leverage the assets, which the city owns so that these assets can be leveraged with a view to making them bankable and generate funding from financial institutions.

A world-class city implies all those imperatives that constitute a liveable city. Harare should be able to attract the right social and economic investors. Before we can reach our goal, we need to address the basic infrastructure issues such as water, sanitation, and electricity. We can only take on so many issues and be careful not to bite off more than we can chew. Once we have taken on the basic issues, then we can take the steps needed to make Harare grow into a sought-after destination for people who want to live in a progressive city. The research and proposals presented in this book represent the initial steps towards creating a vision for our city; and the future is bright for our sunshine city if we can use the ideas to collectively formulate and implement workable solutions.