HONIARA HAVE LARGEST URBAN VILLAGES: ADB REPORT

Honiara is among other Melanesian Pacific capitals that have the largest urban villages according to the Asian Development Bank’s Emergence of Pacific Urban Villages – Urbanisation Trends report.

The ADB report says it is estimated that approximately one million people in the Pacific live in urban villages.

It says Honiara along with Port Moresby, Port Vila, and Suva have urban villages to varying degrees.

The report suggested that new approaches are needed to address the challenge of rising urban dwellers in the Pacific who live in poor quality housing with inadequate provision for basic services in
settlements known as ‘urban villages’.

Meanwhile, Head of ADB’s Pacific Sub-regional office in Suva, Fiji, Robert Jauncey said there has been a rapid rise of urban villages in recent years due to increased poverty and the negative impacts of climate change.

He said these informal or unplanned settlements are often neglected and excluded from the government’s planning system adding we need to rethink approaches to urban management and development to include urban villages in the mainstream policies, strategies, projects, and programs.