Sustaining poverty reduction and growth in Latin America will depend upon the ability of local governments to deliver basic services to citizens and to strengthen administrative, planning, and management capacity. Cities need the systems, human resource capacity, and medium-term policy vision to meet citizen demands for growth, job creation, services, and living standards in a fiscally responsible manner. World Bank support in the Latin American and Caribbean region for improving the management of cities includes technical assistance for preparing medium-term poverty reduction and growth strategies (e.g. City Development Strategies), systemic work with local and central governments in building mechanisms for the sustainable financing of capital investment, and direct support to local governments for investment and reform for improving the provision of decentralized services. SELECTED PROJECTS AND ANALYSIS Improving Municipal Management for Cities to Succeed. This World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) study takes stock of the Bank’s support to municipalities in Latin America, Africa and East Asia in the areas of strengthening planning, finance and service provision. The report covers 190 Bank projects and more than US$ 14.5 billion in lending to developing countries between 1998 and 2008. Street Addressing and the Management of Cities.This book reviews the role of addressing within the array of urban management tools and explores the links between addressing and civic identity, urban information systems, support to municipal services, tax systems, land management and tenure issues, slum upgrading, support to concessionary services, and economic development. It outlines current and future applications, highlights practices in many African countries, and offers a methodological guide for implementing street addressing initiatives which is widely applicable in other parts of the world.
The Challenge of Urban Government: Policies and Practices. This volume examines wide-ranging issues confronting cites, and reviews tools, strategies and practices to address them. It examines nine "windows" of urban management in the context of the new urban strategy of the World Bank. The book recognizes that cities are crucial in efforts to address poverty and development issues. It combines theoretical discussions of new, fundamental principles of urban management with practical discussions that show how concepts are translated into policy tools and strategies. Connecting Cities with Macro-economic Concerns: The Missing Link. This book examines the influence of local public services on the economics of cities. The relationship between economic development and urbanization is indisputable; less clear, however, are the ways in which cities directly contribute to economic growth and employment creation. Current economic thinking holds that the ability of cities to create wealth depends on agglomeration economies; that is, the geographic concentration of industries and people which enables economic actors to come together, interact, and become productive. However, this ability to promote productive interaction depends on several factors, one of which is the provision of local public services. City Indicators: Now to Nanjing. (850kb pdf) This paper was presented by the World Bank at the Third World Urban Forum in Vancouver, 22 June, 2006. It outlines a proposal by the World Bank to begin an initiative for the development of a set of indicators, collected and used by cities, representative and comparable across countries, and rigorous enough to enable third-party verification.
Mexico Urban Development: A contribution to a national urban strategy. The study aims to contribute towards a national urban strategy, in an effort to maximize Mexico's cities competitiveness, and livelihoods, in the urban economist's terms - to maximize agglomeration economies, while minimizing congestions costs.
Lima, Peru: City Development Strategy. (3.2M pdf) s The Bank has been engaged with the Metropolitan Municipal of Lima since 2002 to assist in the development of a participatory city development strategy focused on poverty reduction and growth. The strategy engaged a broad cross-section of civic, private sector, and public actors and outlines a clear and actionable vision for improving the living standards of Lima’s population. In addition to the core City Development Strategy, the local government, with support from the Bank and IFC, has launched a program of administrative barriers reduction (red tape reduction) to improve the business climate and reduce the transaction costs involved in establishing new businesses. The Metropolitan Municipality is also implementing, with support from the Bank and Government of Japan, a grant-financed Rapid Empowerment Fund to support innovative poverty reducing subprojects at the grassroots level. Greater details and analytical work can be found at www.construyamosfuturo.org*. Cali, Colombia: Toward a City Development Strategy, a 1999 Bank-financed study carried out in Cali, Colombia demonstrates that research and cooperation can bring results. Leaders of a Colombian umbrella group of 60 NGOs collaborated with labor representatives, businesspeople, politicians, and government officials to analyze a four-year decline in growth, employment, and social services. The study produced information from which the community developed a series of well-received proposals. It also raised awareness of the need for government-civil society cooperation and socially oriented investment. As a result of the CDS, a new program, "Youth in Action", aiming to generate employment for youth, emerged and received funding from the World Bank. Subnational Capital Markets in Developing Countries - From Theory to Practice. (3mb pdf) In developing countries the twin tasks of building more dispersed and democratic governments and opening economies to freer markets and greater private ownership have been attempted in tandem-and have proved a difficult undertaking. This publication examines the challenges of these emerging and developing economies.
The Challenge of Urban Government Policies and Practices. s (1mb pdf) The World Bank Institute (WBI) has responded to the challenges of urban development and city management by launching a number of important initiatives. Chief among these is the program on Urban Challenges of the 21st Century, under which the Institute developed a number of courses on urban and city management that have been conducted worldwide. These courses were designed in the context of a new urban strategy in the World Bank. The strategy recognizes that cities are crucial in efforts to address poverty and developmental issues, but acknowledges that this potential will not be realized unless cities are livable, competitive, well-governed and managed, and bankable--all themes that are explored in this book.
"Using Rapid City Surveys to Inform Municipal Social Policy - an Application in Cali, Colombia". (329k pdf) Many developing countries assign local governments increasing responsibilities in fighting poverty. This requires local social policy to go beyond the execution of centrally designed and funded education and health programs. Hence, local governments and their partners have both an opportunity and a need to analyze key local bottlenecks for poverty reduction and social development. Drawing on an example from Cali, Colombia, the author describes a tool for such policy formulation at the local level- a rapid city household survey.
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