BRICS conference on urban transition to begin on Wednesday

PTI

Ministers and experts from BRICS countries will discuss the transition and challenges they face in urbanisation during a three-day conference which will begin on Wednesday in Visakhapatnam.

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu will inaugurate the conference on 'Urban Transition in BRICS', which seeks to promote cooperation among member countries in the urban sector.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, ministers from other BRICS nations, besides a large number of urban planners, experts and members of the academia will attend the conference, an official release said.

The conference will discuss and evolve a common agenda for BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa) countries to be presented at the HABITAT-III Conference which will be held in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, next month.

The other issues which will be discussed at the conference are development of smart cities, financing urban infrastructure, inclusive housing, climate change, regional planning, water and sanitation management and new reforms for urban renaissance, it said.

India currently holds the chairmanship of BRICS and has chosen 'Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions' as the theme for this year. The BRICS Summit will be held in Goa in October this year.

In his message to the conference, Naidu said, "The underlying rationale of cooperation on urbanisation between BRICS countries is to share urban knowledge, develop mechanisms for peer to peer exchange, promote evidence based policy making and learn useful lessons from individual experience of urban transition." 

BRICS nations account for over three billion people constituting 53.40 per cent of the world's population, 23.10 per cent of global GDP and 26.70 per cent of world's geographical area, spread over four continents.

The range of urbanisation varies from 84 per cent in Brazil, 73 per cent in Russia, 64 per cent in South Africa, 57 per cent in China and 32 per cent in India.