Managing historic urban growth to create inclusive, sustainable communities is a priority for cities around the globe, and Kigali is hosting 80 municipal leaders from 20 countries as part of an on-going effort to help cities learn from one another.

The four-day event – called the Global Lab on Metropolitan Strategic Planning or MetroLab – is co-organised by the World Bank Group and the City of Kigali’s Office of Urban Planning and Construction One Stop Center.

The Kigali MetroLab is the seventh in the series, preceded by Rio, Paris, Dar es Salaam, Seoul, Mumbai and New York City

MetroLab brings together cities in all stages of development. From small and medium-sized cities like Kisumu, Arusha and Kobe to large urban areas such as Mumbai, Buenos Aires, and Karachi. It provides a platform for solutions to manage urban growth in a way that is not only inclusive and sustainable, but also serves to alleviate poverty and share prosperity.

The Kigali venue gives city officials, urban planners and technical experts an opportunity to learn about the country’s regional planning efforts with site visits to the Central Business District, the Special Economic Zone and Rwanda Housing Authority’s Building Material Centre.

The Kigali MetroLab also takes participants outside the city limits to visit Muhanga, one of the secondary cities selected to fasttrack the nation’s urbanisation programme. The visit to Muhanga not only allows participants to experience the transitions between Rwanda’s urban, peri-urban and rural settlements, it also provides the opportunity to visit the Nyabarongo Power Plant I, a hydropower plant inaugurated in 2014. At 28MW, the plant contributes a significant amount to the country’s energy portfolio.

Given MetroLab’s focus on participatory planning and citizen engagement, the Kigali MetroLab has changed its traditional Monday through Thursday schedule to Wednesday through Saturday, so participants could join Umuganda, Rwanda’s unique nationwide community work day.

Participants will join communities in all three of Kigali’s districts for Umuganda, working to replot a neighborhood for affordable housing and build a new drain alongside a pedestrian street that is being introduced in Kigali’s pilot project in urban upgrading. The city is excited to share this experience with the MetroLab participants, as it truly exemplifies the country’s approach to inclusive and sustainable metropolitan growth.

The opening day of the MetroLab includes a public lecture at City Hall by Dr Ronald Wall, Head of the Urban Competitiveness and Resilience (UCR) department at the Institute for Housing and Urban Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Dr Wall holds the Johannesburg City Chair in Economics at the Faculty of Law Commerce and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Dr. Wall’s work will be featured in the State of African Cities 2017, which will examine how foreign investment impacts urban development.

In an effort to address topics closely related to Rwanda’s impressive urbanization efforts, the Kigali MetroLab addresses four principal Metropolitan Themes: (i) smart cities: data for development; (ii) promoting systems of cities and making polycentric metro regions inclusive, efficient and sustainable; (iii) land administration and planning: registration, valuation, taxation and decentralization and (iv) participatory planning and community engagement in action.

In addition tothe topical discussions, participants heard from municipal leaders representing Kigali, Seoul, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kobe, Mumbai, Douala, Nairobi, Accra,and Paris, among others, on innovations in urban flood, air quality and solid waste management, as well as metropolitan perspectives on transport, land use and urban sprawl.

Mukaruliza Monique is the Mayor of Kigali City, and Yasser El-Gammal the World Bank Group Country Manager for Rwanda