DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- More than 50 mayors, urban planners and technical experts from 25 cities around the world on Monday began their four-day meeting in Dar es Salaam to share experiences on managing rapid urban expansion through metropolitan planning.
As the first such meeting being held in Africa since the initiative was launched in April 2013, the Global Lab on Metropolitan Strategic Planning is jointly organized by the World Bank and the city of Dar es Salaam.
"Dar es Salaam is one of the fastest growing cities in the world," said Philippe Dongier, the World Bank Tanzania country director.
"As a city grows rapidly, it becomes essential to ensure a strong local tax base for municipal governments...to enable city- wide metropolitan planning and management, to implement zoning policies that facilitate growth of industries as well as good and safe living conditions and heritage conservation," he said.
Dongier said it also became critical to enable competitiveness of enterprises to generate the large number of productive jobs that are needed by the booming urban labor force.
Didas Massaburi, Mayor of Dar es Salaam, said cities had to think of the people and the communities that live in surrounding districts, who will be impacted by the economy, social activities and environment of the entire region.
