This month we managed to sit down with Samuel Njuguna, an Urban Law & Governance expert, in UN-Habitat, Nairobi. We were thrilled to hear about his important and pathbreaking work.
Tell us about yourself;
I am a lawyer with a Master’s Degree in International Law from the University of Manchester, UK and a Bachelor’s Degree in Law from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya. I have over eight years of UN experience working in international comparative urban law and governance with expertise in partnership development and legislative reform in developing countries. I am an urban law and governance expert within UN-Habitat’s Policy, Legislation and Governance Section where I provide normative, advisory, and technical assistance services including knowledge management and capacity development activities to National and Sub-National Governments on Legislation and Governance frameworks. Specialty areas include rule of law, spatial planning law, environment and climate change, legislative drafting, urban governance, and project management. I have worked on several legal and governance projects in various regions and countries where my input has contributed to establishing inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable urban development. For instance, I have worked with the governments of Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Oman to promote resilient and low carbon urban development through UN-Habitat legal methodologies such as the Urban Law Module of the Law and Climate Change Toolkit and the Planning Law Assessment Framework. I am also an accomplished researcher having authored, co-authored, and edited over 20 UN-Habitat research articles and publications on human rights, rule of law, governance, planning and climate law. Prior to joining UN-Habitat, I have worked in the Kenyan judiciary at Makadara Law Courts where I gained useful experience in litigation, advocacy, communication, and logical reasoning.
What are you passionate about?
I am passionate about supporting policy and legal reforms in different countries for more effective legislation; be it on housing, planning, land, environment and so on. This is because I believe that law is a powerful tool for transformative change and the achievement of SDGs. Law sets binding obligations and if this are gotten wrong the first time, there are dire consequences in many ways such as human rights violations, the most common form in urban areas being forced evictions. Then the complexity with laws, is that changing them takes time if not decades and the process is very costly. This goes to show that laws need to do many things at many levels. They need to be clear and effective, inclusive, participatory, rights based, and capable of facilitating a just and human-rights based approach where all of humanity can reap the benefits of sustainable development. I am also passionate about promoting the rights of all especially the marginalized in our urban spaces, such as children, girls and women so that they can influence and meaningfully participate in decision-making at all levels of governance. Beyond this, I enjoy learning new things. I am especially drawn to thought leadership and innovation because I enjoy exploring, forming partnerships and working multilaterally to achieve our common sustainability agenda.
What are you working on these days?
I am currently engaged in a lot of interesting work!
I will mention just a few. I am supporting the Kingdom of Lesotho to draft their new housing law covering issues such as affordability, accessibility, housing standards, financing mechanisms, tenure security, and governance. I am also supporting two government institutions in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to reform their urban legislation with a special focus on urban development and spatial planning looking at the coordination and hierarchy of plans; participatory planning; contents of spatial planning instruments and urban classification, and so on.
Furthermore, I am working with my colleagues in developing an interesting publication that would be of great interest to PLPR members. It’s called HLP-Sensitive Urban Law: Enhancing urban law to protect HLP across the conflict cycle (conflict prevention, emergency response, early recovery and reconstruction) which recognizes that urban law has a role to play in preventing conflicts, by addressing the conditions which undermine the housing, land and property (HLP) rights of city dwellers in humanitarian contexts and in creating the conditions for peace and security during post-conflict recovery.
Another interesting one is the SDG legal checklist which is aimed to be a user-friendly and accessible diagnostic legal tool to facilitate the achievement of SDGs in cities and allow for progress tracking and create city awareness on how key legislative frameworks drive sustainability and climate justice. It covers the thematic areas of inclusive planning, land tenure, environmentally friendly urbanization and digital governance. We are aiming to impact 1,000 cities/1 billion lives by 2030 and we are working with several partners such as the Commonwealth Associations (CLA, CAA, CAP).
Then finally, UN-Habitat is organizing the 12th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF) in Cairo, Egypt (4-8th November) which is the premier global conference on sustainable urbanization. WUF aims to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies. There will be lots of interesting side events there and hope to see most if not all of you there!
What brings you to PLPR?
I have worked with the current PLPR President Prof. Rebecca Leshinsky over the years, the main outcome of our work being a study we did on effectiveness of planning law in 18 cities from land-rich developed countries where she worked on Sydney, Australia. There were interesting findings especially when we compared it with the study from 18 cities from Sub-Saharan Africa where the former had planning systems that are 100 per cent decentralized while the latter had 53 per cent. Then recently she contacted me about working on a comparative planning law dictionary given that UN-Habitat has rich case studies on this topic. During this exchange, she mentioned PLPR, which I was aware of through a former colleague, but I hadn’t been involved in great detail. It turned out to be a great suggestion and I wish I had made the connection sooner! Hoping that I can make it for next year’s annual conference in March in Cardiff, Wales.
Anecdote: things we don’t know about you?
My wife, Alice and I recently became first-time parents late last year and it has been the most amazing experience interacting with the little boy and watching his gradual milestones – he is called Zayne Joseph. We are also quite excited to have him travel internationally for the first time, in UAE, Dubai in late September, but if I am being honest, it’s a very nice excuse for Alice and I to reward ourselves.😊 I am a huge movie fan (anything Marvel), I enjoy outdoors (nature and animals, which we have plenty in Kenya) and I love meeting new people especially like-minded professionals which is what PLPR will offer in plenty!
