This conference will highlight and develop concrete initiatives that will assist developing and rapidly urbanizing countries in their work towards poverty eradication and achieving the millennium development goals and how national development agencies, International financing institutions and NGO’s can contribute by integrating environmental concerns into their practice.
This conference will focus on issues of particular relevance to the sub-saharan African region while giving continued attention to trends and topics from other regions.

The conference will promote a new development paradigm. The current approach which favours small, dispersed and fragmented projects, may not be as effective as a more comprehensive integrated local planning framework. Experience shows that economic development is more effectively achieved when local authorities implement and integrate local planning instruments in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.