SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

176
in East Asian cities, and occurring in the near
future in many others. This entails taking proactive
measures to ensure adequate health care,
financial security and opportunities for civic
participation. Many large cities need to review
and extend social pension schemes. Both
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have increased
the benefit level above the mandated rate, but
these pensions have reached only 63 percent of
targeted populations, compared to 89 percent in
other urban areas and 78 percent in rural areas. 59
Urban planning strategies also need to pay
specific attention to the rights and needs of women
and girls, as well as people with disabilities.
Safe street lighting and adequate policing can
reduce rates of gender-based violence. Ramps
and elevators are among the many interventions
improving mobility for the disabled.
Tap the benefits of citizen participation and
collaboration. Building well-designed, inclusive
and ecologically friendly cities demands
partnership and decision-making involving a
spectrum of actors—national and local governments,
civil society, community-based organizations,
non-governmental organizations,
international supporters, academia and private
sector entities. Since governments may not
possess all the resources required to provide
urban infrastructure and services at the rate and
scale demanded, citizen participation can be a
way to build consensus on priorities, efficiently
allocate scarce funds, and pinpoint the most
needed improvements in economic and social
development.
Bridging the still often wide gap in many
Asia-Pacific cities between citizens and governments
involves strengthening lines of accountability,
and increasing government transparency
and openness. Governing approaches need to
commit to responding to citizen needs. In some
cases, greater local accountability has come
through involving local users in evaluating
service delivery, establishing benchmarks for
institutional and service quality, strengthening
the performance of the civil service and enacting
anti-corruption legislation.
International assistance has in some areas
helped push practices of public engagement
forward. Through participatory budgeting and
allocation mechanisms in Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Pakistan and the Marshall Islands, 60 citizens
influence choices to allocate public resources
in their community. In Pune, India, municipal
authorities have involved residents in budgeting
processes at the ward level, leading to better
solid waste collection and public transport. 61
Encourage citizen action. Citizen action also
opens room for participation, as well as innovation
and creative problem solving (Box 5.8).
Increasingly, urban dwellers, rich and poor, are
organizing to improve local government responsiveness.
The Asian Coalition for Community
Action Program supports a community process of
citywide upgrading in 150 Asian cities, including
through conducting community-driven surveys,
networking, building partnerships, dealing with
eviction problems and strengthening community
savings among the urban poor. 62
Women have organized to influence solid
waste management in Pammal, a rapidly growing
industrial town on the periphery of Chennai,
India’s fourth largest urban region. They initiated
a neighbourhood-wide clean-up and waste-recycling
campaign eventually championed and
expanded by the mayor of Chennai. 63
BUILD ENVIRONMENTALLY
SUSTAINABLE CITIES
The massive growth of Asia-Pacific cities over
the past 40 years has significantly affected the
environment, with fallout felt from the local to
the national levels, and even across borders. Increasingly,
the environmental costs of not dealing
with rapid urbanization will be excessive and
difficult to reverse. It is more cost-effective to
begin now to plan and work towards sustainable
urbanization.
Scale up environmental management. Urban
areas need new environmental management
measures to protect their environments, clean
up pollution and waste sites, and reduce carbon
emissions, as highlighted in Agenda 2030.
There is deepening understanding of the need
to improve energy efficiency, develop renewable
energy and cleaner production technologies,
adopt green growth strategies (Box 5.8), and put
cities at the centre of national plans to mitigate
and adapt to climate change.