SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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172 City governments need to have the necessary resources and authority for better planning and service delivery shifting a mindset that separates rural from urban development. Like the two sides of the human brain, these areas are closely intertwined; each can either limit or unlock possibilities in the other. Integrate sectors and services. National urban policy should provide a general framework to orient actions by the diverse ministries and service providers with an impact on urbanization. Housing, transport, basic infrastructure and other policies need to become more flexible and adapted to the realities of cities and towns. Housing, land management and property administration responsive to needs that vary across different age groups—such as requirements by elderly citizens to have accessible buildings and transport links—require specific policies and improved legal and regulatory frameworks. Coordinated planning and implementation of diverse policies helps ensure that they are well aligned and build on each other. MOVE TOWARDS MORE EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE AND INSTITUTIONS Strengthening the capacities of national, regional and city governments to develop more liveable, productive, inclusive and sustainable cities requires a strong legal foundation, capable institutions and adequate financial instruments, including to manage decentralization, coordination and collaboration. Sound planning, based on a well-defined understanding of often rapidly shifting trends and dynamics, including those related to the demographic transition, should be aligned with a vision of how a city can deliver human development, in a sustainable manner, to all its citizens. Aim for well-designed and managed decentralized government. This is the foundation of effective urban service delivery. The devolution of appropriate responsibilities and resources should cover issues such as clearly defined functions, accountability, independent financial resources, and autonomy to make decisions on investment and service delivery. City authorities need adequate technical and managerial skills, and strong capacities to design, implement, monitor and evaluate local public policies and works. Moving towards a more proactive, bottom-up urban policy, in other words, calls for more than designing a new territorial administrative structure. Both horizontal and vertical coordination are important. The first works across sectors, such as transportation and land use, and neighbouring towns and cities. The second orchestrates actions by central, provincial and city governments. An integrated urbanization ministry, such as India’s Ministry of Urban Development, can help champion the urban agenda and facilitate consistent coordination. Make governance inclusive. Participatory governance can propel well-balanced urban development, and should ensure the involvement, on an equal footing, of women and all other excluded groups. Elected local governments can do much to ensure, for instance, that quality services reach everyone in a fair manner. Decentralization can change the way citizens interact with governments. In Indonesia, the introduction of direct elections of provincial and local government executives and legislatures has helped make them more accountable to local electorates. The Philippines witnessed a noticeable increase in citizen participation in local governance through new mechanisms for consultation, including local referenda and a requirement that members of non-governmental organizations comprise 25 percent of local development council representatives. Improve information flow, including through technology. In many Asia-Pacific cities, it can be difficult to find information about municipal activities; data collection and management is generally poor. But some, such as the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, publish information on the use of funds, and citizens are free to request information via official procedures. Bangladesh has enacted comprehensive right-to-information legislation, yet some 29 percent of citizens have reported facing harassment and 8 percent have recounted having to pay additional money when seeking information from public authorities. 51 India is developing 100 ‘smart’ cities that harness digital and information technology to improve the quality of life. Smart cities are essentially urban clusters with smooth transportation links,
e-governance, and better social infrastructure, including for health care and education. ICT will be used to improve day-to-day city management and provide real-time information guiding efficient service provision. 52 Increasingly, Asia-Pacific cities are using new technologies, especially e-governance, to bolster transparency and access to information. In India, Mumbai has set up an online public complaint management system, while Bangalore has posted the city’s quarterly financial statements online. 53 Malaysia’s Ministry of Housing and Local Government has instructed all local authorities to use computers and the Internet for public transactions. 54 In general, several issues block more widespread application of e-governance, however, including a ‘digital divide’, problems in connecting different systems across government entities, and security and privacy concerns. SECURE ADEQUATE FINANCE AND DISTRIBUTE IT EQUITABLY Many cities need to find ways to address the chronic imbalance between local government BOX 5.6: Better financial management boosted income in Ahmedabad, India About 80 percent of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s income is derived from taxes levied on residential and non-residential properties, and goods imported into the city. But at one point, the collection rate was very low, so in the mid-1990s, the Corporation decided to implement a series of improvements. These included stiffening penalties for avoidance of taxes on goods, and the preparation of valuation books on the basis of prevailing market rates. Goods entering the city were randomly verified to prevent underinvoicing and undervaluation. Additional vigilance squads were deployed in roundthe-clock checking of vehicles entering the city, and checkpoints were equipped with systems for rapid communication. responsibilities and their revenue. As a basic starting point, each city, regardless of size, needs a well-defined administrative area over which it has full autonomy, and a clear formula for intergovernmental transfers. In Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, governments have created transparent, formula-based finance-allocation mechanisms, rather than ad hoc ones, to fund their cities. Over time, if capacity for local government administration improves, localities can often boost local resource mobilization, such as through better tax assessment and collection practices. They can also ensure more equitable distribution, and plan more systematically for infrastructure investment, operations and maintenance (Box 5.6). Large metropolitan governments have significant economic bases and can be expected to have higher local revenue mobilization capacity, compared with smaller cities. They might be capable of self-financing given their economic resources and potential fiscal capacity. Such an arrangement favours making proportionally larger transfers to smaller and medium cities with insufficient capacity to fund public services. In terms of property taxes, stronger enforcement was taken against defaulters, including by shutting down water and drainage services. Warrants were issued for attachment of movable and immovable properties. Properties were put to auction for tax recovery. Through these strategies, the city’s income rose by 50 percent after one week and doubled after one month. Later, the city registered its first annual surplus in 10 years. After paying off its debts, the municipality decided to access the debt market and obtained a credit rating, becoming the first South Asia city to obtain a rating of A+. After six months, the rating was improved to AA, higher than that of the national Government. The city issued municipal bonds in 1998 and raised $25 million from over 5,000 investors to finance infrastructure development. New partnerships, alternative financial instruments and effective resource mobilization underpin successful cities Source: ADB 2000. 173
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ASIA-PACIFIC HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPO
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ASIA-PACIFIC HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPO
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FOREWORD We live in times of great
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Asia-Pacific H
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Table of Contents Foreword iii Pref
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1.15 Population age-composition is
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Acronyms ADB Asian Development Bank
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Overview SHAPING THE FUTURE: HOW CH
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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA-PACIFIC:
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FIGURE 2: Wealthier countries tend
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a strong emphasis on protecting wor
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could provide job matching assistan
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Asia-Pacific leave the workforce at
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WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS REPORT This
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Chapter 1 HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
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sustainable, reaching everyone whil
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FIGURE 1.1: The Human Development I
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TABLE 1.1: Asia-Pacific still has l
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married couples to have children, a
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FIGURE 1.5: Population pyramids in
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FIGURE 1.8: The median age is high
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FIGURE 1.10: Disparities in fertili
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Improved overall human development
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TABLE 1.5: Countries in Asia-Pacifi
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“When relatively large generation
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38 Having fewer dependents on worki
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40 In developed Asia- Pacific, the
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TABLE 1.6: Demographic dividends fl
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44
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2. MORE PEOPLE AT WORK: THE FOUNDAT
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encouraged labour-intensive industr
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FIGURE 2.3: Peaks within subregions
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A DEMOGRAPHIC RETURN FOR HUMAN DEVE
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BOX 2.1: Women bear a larger burden
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FIGURE 2.8: Growth in labour produc
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WHAT’S BEEN LEARNED IN CHINA, JAP
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FIGURE 2.13: Japan is past its work
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FIGURE 2.15: Thailand still has tim
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make this a key aim of national dev
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investment climate, as well as enco
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TABLE 2.4: Shares of workers in the
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Even before leaving home, migrant w
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Promote health and safety at work:
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BOX 2.8: Malaysia transforms an ind
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of resilient infrastructure are joi
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Chapter 3 NURTURING CHILDREN, UNLOC
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Asia-Pacific is home to 1.7 billion
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Commendable progress in education m
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Quality primary education mitigates
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In most Asia-Pacific countries, sec
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Strong tertiary education is a buil
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FIGURE 3.3: Access to tertiary educ
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94 TABLE 3.9: Youth illiteracy has
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TABLE 3.11: Child mortality rates b
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BOX 3.7: Malnutrition and disabilit
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Despite social and economic progres
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FIGURE 3.8: The share of youth who
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104 Young migrants are highly vulne
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as an important challenge. But they
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TABLE 3.15: Some countries with lar
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Immunization saves children’s liv
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BOX 3.10: Germany’s vocational tr
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BOX 3.12: Partnering with youth in
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116
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4. AGEING SOCIETIES: NEW OPPORTUNIT
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Page 137 and 138: TABLE 4.1: East Asia is the oldest
Page 139 and 140: BOX 4.2: Responses to poverty among
Page 141 and 142: BOX 4.3: A plan of action for older
Page 143 and 144: FIGURE 4.9: Per capita health-care
Page 145 and 146: BOX 4.5: China moves towards univer
Page 147 and 148: TABLE 4.3: Social pensions are an i
Page 149 and 150: FIGURE 4.12: Pension replacement ra
Page 151 and 152: BOX 4.7: Increasing links between p
Page 153 and 154: cupy space in some public buildings
Page 155 and 156: ment bodies, encourage regular inte
Page 157 and 158: BOX 4.9: Ageing countries begin enc
Page 159 and 160: help coordinate the work of other g
Page 161 and 162: for older people. Many advanced cou
Page 163 and 164: action. Free public transport, and
Page 165: Chapter 5 TAPPING THE HUMAN DYNAMIS
Page 168 and 169: In the last 30 years, Asia-Pacific
Page 170 and 171: FIGURE 5.3: Even countries with few
Page 172 and 173: FIGURE 5.6: Most people will contin
Page 174 and 175: 160 Social, cultural and economic i
Page 176 and 177: The benefits of urbanization have n
Page 178 and 179: BOX 5.2: Pioneering urban poverty r
Page 180 and 181: vehicles on the road. Beijing issue
Page 182 and 183: Municipal governments in Asia-Pacif
Page 184 and 185: TABLE 5.4: Revenue mobilization opt
Page 188 and 189: Investing in essential infrastructu
Page 190 and 191: 176 in East Asian cities, and occur
Page 192 and 193: BOX 5.9: The Republic of Korea emba
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Page 197 and 198: 6. AN AGENDA FOR ACTION: SHAPING TH
Page 199 and 200: Development Report argues, decent w
Page 201 and 202: with ministries overseeing youth, e
Page 203 and 204: This is an urgent priority in a reg
Page 205 and 206: SUSTAINING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS
Page 207 and 208: plan automatically enrols people in
Page 209 and 210: BOX 6.3: Developing Delhi’s metro
Page 213 and 214: End Notes CHAPTER 1 1. UNFPA 2014b.
Page 215 and 216: 63. WHO 2014b. 64. UNFPA 2012. 65.
Page 217: produces 40 percent of total econom
Page 220 and 221: 206 The Asia Foundation. 2013. “T
Page 222 and 223: 208 CODI (Community Organizations D
Page 224 and 225: 210 Global Migration Group. 2014.
Page 226 and 227: 212 Janwani. 2010. “Annual Report
Page 228 and 229: 214 ———. 2012a. OECD Employme
Page 230 and 231: 216 ———. 2011. “Follow-up t
Page 232 and 233: 218 York. [www.unfpa.org/sites/defa
Page 234 and 235: ———. 2012c. Malaysia Economic
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tables include the Caribbean countr
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224
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TABLE 2: Trends in the Human Develo
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TABLE 4: Gender Inequality Index 22
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TABLE 6: Trends in income poverty,
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TABLE 8: Fertility rate and crude d
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TABLE 10: Trends and share of child
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TABLE 12: Trends and share of young
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TABLE 14: Trends and share of older
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TABLE 16: Education indicators and
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TABLE 17: Health indicators 242
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TABLE 18: Employment and unemployme
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TABLE 19: International trade, fina
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ABOUT ASIA-PACIFIC HUMAN DEVELOPMEN
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SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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