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rural-urban dynamics_report.pdf - Khazar University

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GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2013 URBANIZATION AND THE MDGS 173<br />

BOX 3A.4<br />

Cities Alliance: A new business model to promote systemic change and scale<br />

The Cities Alliance is a global partnership whose<br />

members include multilateral and bilateral development<br />

agencies, donor and developing-country governments,<br />

international associations of local government,<br />

and two international nongovernmental<br />

organizations, one of which represents slum dwellers.<br />

Launched by the World Bank and UN-Habitat in<br />

1999, the Cities Alliance was immediately successful<br />

in ensuring that the issue of slums was integrated into<br />

the international development agenda. Today, working<br />

through its members, the Cities Alliance seeks<br />

to strengthen and promote the role of cities in poverty<br />

reduction and sustainable development, improve<br />

synergies between and among members and partners,<br />

and improve the quality of <strong>urban</strong> development<br />

cooperation.<br />

Good <strong>urban</strong> policies need to be based on solid<br />

data, the generation of which the Cities Alliance has<br />

supported: from the sophisticated and comprehensive<br />

HABISP model in São Paulo, a which provides comprehensive<br />

information on housing and other socioeconomic<br />

conditions of the <strong>urban</strong> poor, to the Know<br />

Your City campaign, which sees that slum dwellers<br />

collaborate with their local governments to find solutions<br />

to problems faced by slum dwellers.<br />

To help its partners better respond to the challenges<br />

of <strong>urban</strong>ization, the Cities Alliance recently<br />

completely restructured its organization, adopted a<br />

new charter, and changed its business model. Moving<br />

decisively away from single, often ad hoc projects, the<br />

Cities Alliance used a $15 million grant from the Bill<br />

and Melinda Gates Foundation to move the fulcrum<br />

of its work program to longer-term, programmatic<br />

support in the form of multifaceted country programs.<br />

The combination of multiple activities in support<br />

of a coherent national program holds very real promise<br />

for the systemic change and scale impacts that the<br />

Cities Alliance is seeking to support. In Uganda, for<br />

example, that support is focused on all 14 secondary<br />

cities, which is not only where the bulk of <strong>urban</strong>ization<br />

is taking place, but also where capacity constraints,<br />

infrastructure backlogs, and affordability<br />

challenges are most extreme.<br />

With the support of Cities Alliance members,<br />

including both the World Bank and Slum Dwellers<br />

International, the government of Uganda is drafting<br />

a national <strong>urban</strong> policy. In small cities like Arua,<br />

Jinja, and Mbarara, slum dwellers are forming savings<br />

groups and carrying out slum enumerations.<br />

Slum dwellers and local governments are now talking<br />

to each other, land is being made available, and basic<br />

services are being provided. A $130 million World<br />

Bank loan will soon start to provide much needed<br />

critical infrastructure in these secondary cities.<br />

a. www.habisp.inf.br.<br />

Notes<br />

1. In the United States, transaction taxes are<br />

around 1–2 percent of property values.<br />

2. This includes national government clearing of<br />

subnational borrowing.<br />

3. http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/cps-kaz-<br />

2012-2016-ssa-03.<strong>pdf</strong>.<br />

4. http://www.adb.org/sites.default.files/cps-uzb-<br />

2012-2016-ssa-04.<strong>pdf</strong>.<br />

5. Emerging cities are defined as cities with populations<br />

of 100,000 to 2,500,000 that are growing—economically<br />

and demographically—<br />

faster than the national average. Currently,<br />

more than 140 cities, with a total population of<br />

about 70 million inhabitants, fit that definition.<br />

References<br />

AfDB (African Development Bank). 2011. Transforming<br />

Africa’s Cities and Towns into<br />

Engines of Economic Growth and Social<br />

Development. AfDB, Tunis.<br />

———. 2013. “Fostering Shared Growth, Urbanization,<br />

Inequality and Poverty in Africa.”<br />

AfDB, Tunis.<br />

Ahmed, W., and I. Menzies. 2012. “Using<br />

Output-Based Aid in Urban Projects.” OBA<br />

Approaches Note 44. The Global Partnership<br />

on Output-Based Aid, Washington, DC.<br />

Alm, James. 2011. “Municipal Finance of Urban<br />

Infrastructure: Knowns and Unknowns.”<br />

Working Paper 1103, Tulane <strong>University</strong><br />

Department of Economics, New Orleans.

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