rural-urban dynamics_report.pdf - Khazar University
rural-urban dynamics_report.pdf - Khazar University
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.