The Solomon Islands Ministry of Lands, Housing and Survey together with the Honiara City Council is organizing a workshop on the issues and challenges of urbanization in Honiara.
The workshop will run fro two days and is jointly sponsored by UN Habitat and the government.It will look into urbanization from a holistic stance where stakeholders attending will be able to discuss with authorities the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat of Urbanization on their livelihood.
The Lands, Housing and Survey's Permanent Secretary, Tione Bugotu says the workshop is overdue, and the country will need to address these issues head on.
Mr Tione says that poverty is creeping into the social fabric of urban society in the Solomon Islands, much worse than the rural areas.
He said, poor housing conditions, inadequate diet, poor services such as water and sanitation, environment degradation, petty crimes, pollution, difficulties in securing land and lack of participation in economic development have driven our urban dwellers further and further from achieving the millennium development goals.
Squatter settlements are mushrooming all around Honiara, and over-spilled onto Guadalcanal province.
He revealed that during the last National census, Honiara has just grown to over 64-thousand-600 people, growing at two-point-seven percent, the same as the national growth rate .
This is 12-point-5 percent of the total population of Solomon Islands living in Honiara.