rural-urban dynamics_report.pdf - Khazar University

Overview
The Global Monitoring Report (GMR),
jointly produced by the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund (IMF), is an
annual report card on the world’s progress
toward the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). Now in its 10th edition, the GMR
also outlines prospects for the attainment of
the MDGs and assesses the support of the
international community. Achieving as many
MDGs as possible before 2015 remains an
urgent endeavor for the development community.
This GMR highlights those MDGs
that are lagging in progress and consequently
need additional attention, while pointing out
that accelerating toward attainment of one
MDG will likely provide positive spillovers to
the attainment of others. The Report shows
that official development assistance (ODA)
and progress with aid effectiveness have been
less than stellar.
Each annual report has a thematic focus,
an aspect of the development agenda on
which the GMR provides a more in-depth
assessment. The theme of GMR 2013 is
rural-urban disparities in development and
ways urbanization can better help achieve
the MDGs. Not only is the theme highly relevant
for assessing progress within the current
MDG framework, but it also has the
potential to inform discussions about the
post-2015 development framework in which
urbanization will be a major factor—96 percent
of the additional 1.4 billion people in the
developing world in 2030 will live in urban
areas.
Urbanization matters. In the past two
decades, developing countries have urbanized
rapidly, with the number of people living in
urban settlements rising from about 1.5 billion
in 1990 to 3.6 billion (more than half of
the world’s population) in 2011. The report
finds that urban poverty rates are significantly
lower than rural poverty rates and that urban
populations have far better access to the basic
public services defined by the MDGs, such
as access to safe water and sanitation facilities,
even though within urban areas asymmetries
in access are large. If the forces of
urbanization are not managed speedily and
efficiently, slum growth can overwhelm city
growth, exacerbate urban poverty, and derail
MDG achievements. As the GMR points out,
however, people are located along a continuous
rural-urban spectrum, and large cities
are not necessarily places where the urban
poor are concentrated. Smaller towns matter
greatly for urban poverty reduction and service
delivery. As urban centers continue their
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