rural-urban dynamics_report.pdf - Khazar University

GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2013 URBANIZATION AND THE MDGS 169
growing the fastest (Lora 2010). This pace of
urbanization is creating daunting challenges
for intermediate and emerging cities in the
region. 5
These emerging cities are still characterized
by unacceptably high proportions of
the population living in poverty, with limited
governance and an enduring scarcity
of resources. The challenges are multiplied
when considering the efforts of cities to cope
and adapt with the adverse effects of climate
change. Events such as flooding and storm
surge increasingly impact cities in the region,
generating significant economic losses. Political
decentralization has advanced substantially
in the region over the last two decades.
Local governments have assumed greater
responsibilities for the provision of social
services. However, fiscal decentralization
has not kept pace, and most municipalities
are not fiscally independent and do not manage
their fiscal affairs well. They have very
limited fiscal space to accommodate necessary
investments in sustainability, and in
most cases are not creditworthy partners to
the private sector (PPPs transactions). Their
capacities to improve the quality of life of
their citizens are limited.
Emerging and Sustainable Cities
Initiative
The first phase of the Emerging and Sustainable
Cities Initiative (ESCI), launched
in 2011, was a pilot test to develop ESCI’s
methodology and its application in five cities:
Goiania in Brazil; Santa Ana in El Salvador;
Trujillo in Peru; Port-of-Spain in Trinidad
and Tobago; and Montevideo in Uruguay.
In February 2012, the Bank’s Board of
Directors approved the second phase of the
ESCI, which includes scaling up of the program
to a total of 26 cities in the region
between 2012 and 2015. The purpose of
the Initiative is to improve the sustainability
and quality of life in emerging cities in Latin
America and the Caribbean. The Initiative
provides a set of tools that intermediate cities
can use to identify key bottlenecks they
may face in their path toward sustainability;
weigh and prioritize the identified problems
to guide investment decisions in the sectors
that may generate more positive impacts;
find specific solutions according to their costbenefit
that would pave the way toward sustainability
(“prioritized interventions”); and
follow up on progress in closing gaps and
reaching goals.
The Initiative works in three key
dimensions:
• T h e environmental and climate change
dimension is concerned with environmental
management and local pollution control
issues (including air and water contamination,
solid waste management, and disaster
prevention), climate change mitigation
(through energy efficiency and other measures),
and climate vulnerability reduction
and adaptation measures.
• The urban development dimension refers
to the effects of the city’s design and footprint
(or its ability to control its growth
through effective planning and land use
control), social inequality and uneven distribution
of urban services, efficiency of its
urban transportation network, economic
competitiveness, and the level of public
safety.
• T h e fiscal sustainability dimension is
related to the ability of local governments
to prioritize and finance needed investments,
fund and maintain their urban and
social services, control adequately their
expenditures and debt, and make decisions
in a transparent manner.
ESCI’s methodology
Deployment of the Initiative in cities consists
of two distinct stages. The first stage
involves the development of an action plan,
which begins with data collection, analysis
and diagnosis, and prioritization through the
application of different filters (environmental,
economic, public opinion, expert opinion).
The IDB ensures support for generation of
expertise and diffusion of innovative experiences
among the cities’ governments.
The IDB, together with McKinsey &
Company, has developed a rapid assessment
diagnostic tool that analyzes 150 indicators