City Growth: Issues and Challenges of Urban Sustainability in Republic of Benin

Aboubakari Moussa

doi:10.3844/jssp.2017.208.215

Abstract

The reason behind the sustainable urban development in many developing countries, including Benin are diverse such as socio-economic, environment and cultural challenge. The aim of this paper therefore is to examine the growth of cities in Benin, issues and challenges of urbanization in order to have a sustainable urban development. The mains area addressed in the paper are: issues related to local institutions and local governance, the challenge of urban growth sustainability in Benin and then the need to reinvent a new model of governance for a sustainable urbanization and for the financial sufficient of municipalities in Benin. Further, to reach my goal I will answer to the following questions: which policies for the effective and sustainable urban development? How cities/municipalities can accumulate wealth from local resources in order to be more or less dependent from the central state or others external source rather than their own?

Highlights

Urbanization is increasing and cities have come to have a dominant role in global development and its impacts on environment and socio-economic challenges (UN-Habitat, 2010)
Urban population is growing steadily over time since the world population is increasing in a high rate
In the 45 years the UNs projected two billion person increase in the world urban population ensures this growth in cities will continues

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization is increasing and cities have come to have a dominant role in global development and its impacts on environment and socio-economic challenges (UN-Habitat, 2010). The local governance will be widely discuss in the paper by taking into account the decentralization and the management of local institutions in developing country in Benin. Decentralization is see as the way to reduce overload and congestion in the central state management It is often seen as a meant of increasing the ability of central government officials to get better and less suspect information about local or regional conditions, to plan local programs more responsively, and to react more quickly to unanticipated problems that inevitably arise during implementation (Maddick, 1963). The legal and institutional framework adopted in 1999 which steward this new political and administrative system (decentralization) transfer a welldefined competences to the municipalities (Giz, 2010) Before this decentralization came effective in Benin, it takes different step as follow. On 25 January 1993: the Minister in charge of territorial administration set up an interministerial monitoring committee to prepare the draft of decentralization laws

On 9 March 2000: promulgation by the Head of

Findings

Conclusion and Remarks