Urban Development Series Knowledge Papers

19 items available

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Produced by the World Bank’s Urban Development and Resilience Unit of the Sustainable Development Network, the Urban Development Series discusses the challenge of urbanization and what it will mean for developing countries in the decades ahead. The Series aims to explore and delve more substantively into the core issues framed by the World Bank’s 2009 Urban Strategy Systems of Cities: Harnessing Urbanization for Growth and Poverty Alleviation. Across the five domains of the Urban Strategy, the Series provides a focal point for publications that seek to foster a better understanding of (i) the core elements of the city system, (ii) pro-poor policies, (iii) city economies, (iv) urban land and housing markets, (v) sustainable urban environment, and other urban issues germane to the urban development agenda for sustainable cities and communities.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 19
  • Publication
    Decision Maker’s Guides for Solid Waste Management Technologies
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09) Kaza, Silpa; Bhada-Tata, Perinaz
    The Decision Maker’s Guides for Solid Waste Management Technologies were created to help mayors and decision makers understand the various technologies and when they would be appropriate based on local circumstances. Mayors are often approached by different solid waste management technology vendors and these guides aim to provide objective guidance and critical considerations. They offer insights into implementing environmentally sound treatment and disposal solutions. The guides include: (i) A basic description of what each technology is and how it works; (ii) Key considerations when thinking about pursuing a specific technology; (iii) Financial implications and suggestions for reducing and recovering costs; (iv) Examples of where the technology has succeeded and failed; and (v) Questions to ask the solid waste vendor to assess appropriateness of the technology and vendor for the local context.
  • Publication
    Sustainable Infrastructure Financing for Small Towns in China: Approaches to Attract Long-Term Capital for Small-Scale Infrastructure Projects
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Campanaro, Alessandra; Reja, Binyam
    China has experienced rapid urbanization in the past three decades, which has successfully brought unparalleled economic growth, employment creation and improvement in living standards. This paper is focused on exploring the feasibility of establishing a pooled Infrastructure Financing Facility (IFF) at the sub-national level to provide sustainable long-term finance to infrastructure projects in small towns. The paper reviews China’s fiscal and infrastructure financing system, including the 2014 amendment of China’s Budget Law and associated regulations, presents an overview of pooled IFFs, and explores the potential application of a pooled financing facility in China, specifically for urban infrastructure projects in the greater Shanghai region.
  • Publication
    Financing Landfill Gas Projects in Developing Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-09) Markgraf, Claire; Kaza, Silpa
    Landfill gas (LFG) management can help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the overall safe operation of a landfill, sometimes simultaneously generating revenue. However, financing these systems can be a challenge, particularly in low-resource settings. Recognizing that landfill emissions are expected to rise into the foreseeable future, this report outlines a variety of ways that city governments, private landfill owners, or other project developers finance LFG management systems that mitigate these emissions. It is intended to offer policy-makers and practitioners an overview of financing models that have been used around the world and insights from existing projects, including key enabling conditions and risk mitigation strategies.
  • Publication
    Sustainable Financing and Policy Models for Municipal Composting
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-09) Kaza, Silpa; Yao, Lisa; Stowell, Andrea
    Municipal solid waste generation is expected to continue rising, especially in low- and middle-income countries, along with the associated greenhouse gas emissions. This report attempts to understand how cities can more sustainably manage organic waste through composting. It presents successful municipal-level composting models and the social, policy, and financial environments that enabled them. Starting with the pre-conditions needed in the initial planning phase to potential financing sources and supportive policies, this report walks through the key factors a city must deliberate prior to pursuing composting as a waste management solution.
  • Publication
    Inclusive Cities and Access to Land, Housing, and Services in Developing Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Serageldin, Mona
    Paralleling the increasing disparities in income and wealth worldwide since the 1980s, cities in developing countries have witnessed the emergence of a growing divergence of lifestyles, particularly within the middle classes, reinforced by the widening gap between the quality of public and private educational and health care institutions, spatial segregation, gated communities, and exclusive semiprivate amenities. This erosion of social cohesion and citizenship in urban society has sharpened the growing perception and reality of exclusion. This book is arranged as follows: (i) chapter one discusses on the growing importance of inclusion in urban areas; (ii) chapter two describes trends affecting social inclusion in urban areas; (iii) chapter three focuses on infrastructure and public services: a powerful tool to promote social inclusion; (iv) chapter four explains restoring the social function of public space; (v) chapter five deals with access to land: a critical factor at the core of inclusion and exclusion; (vi) chapter six describes the erosion of inclusive options for affordable housing; (vii) chapter seven talks about generating revenues to finance urban improvements: land-based financing; (viii) chapter eight focuses on the right to the city; (ix) chapter nine describes Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) and Community-Based Organizations (CBO) as strategic partners in driving the implementation of inclusionary programs; and (x) chapter ten has concluding remarks.
  • Publication
    On the Engagement of Excluded Groups in Inclusive Cities: Highlighting Good Practices and Key Challenges in the Global South
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Mitlin, Diana Clare; Satterthwaite, David
    The term “inclusive cities” is increasingly being used as a “catch-all” phrase to signify intent but with little precision in its use. In this note we use “inclusive cities” to mean cities in which we see a commitment to an inclusive politics with the establishment of institutionalized interactions between organized groups of disadvantaged citizens and the state with local government taking a primary role. They are also cities in which governments have undertaken specific measures to secure improved access for low-income and otherwise disadvantaged groups to a range of essential goods and services including secure tenure for housing, inclusion in access to basic services and where required approval of and support for housing improvements. This note begins by considering who is excluded and from what and how. Seven challenges to the achievement of more inclusive cities are discussed: (i) lack of household income and the continuing prevalence of informal incomes; (ii) a lack of state investment capacity; (iii) a lack of political will; (iv) a lack of the basic data needed for identifying and addressing exclusion; (v) a lack of space for participation, especially by the lowest income groups; (vi) a lack of vision for what an inclusive city means within city government; and (vii) the constraints on inclusion from city governments organized sectorally. The note then discusses the metrics and indicators that can help inclusion and that have relevance for the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. These are challenges that governments and communities must tackle through their collective efforts. In terms of collaboration between groups, three particular challenges must be addressed:(i) to avoid being partial in their efforts and so to reach out to all groups in the city through finding forms of engagement that incentivize a breadth of activities drawing in all of those in need; (ii) to set up processes that outlive specific administrations or interests and that provide for continuity in collaboration between civil society and the state in each city; and (iii) to link across cities and city regions. We see a need to think about collaboration and joint efforts between city administration and surrounding municipalities, as well as a need to link experiences and efforts across cities. This should help in ensuring appropriate central government policies, regulatory frameworks, and the redistribution of resources.
  • Publication
    Results-Based Financing for Municipal Solid Waste
    (Washington, DC, 2014-07) World Bank
    Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management is a crucial service provided by cities around the world, but is often inefficient and underperforming in developing countries. This report provides eight examples of RBF designs, each tailored to the specific context and needs of the solid waste sector in the specific city or country. These projects are currently in various stages of preparation or implementation; hence, lessons can be inferred only in terms of how solid waste projects can be developed using RBF principles. The eight examples could be classified into three main categories: (a) RBF to improve solid waste service delivery and fee collection: in Nepal and the West Bank, the projects use RBF subsidies to improve the financial sustainability of MSW services by increasing user fee collection while simultaneously improving waste collection services; (b) RBF to promote recycling and source separation: in the cases of China, Indonesia, and Malaysia, an incentive payment model is used to improve source separation and collection of waste through changes in behavior at the household level; and (c) RBF to strengthen waste collection and transport in under-served communities: in Mali and Tanzania, projects were designed to strengthen secondary waste collection and transport for under-served communities. In the case of Jamaica, the project was designed to improve waste collection in inner-city communities and to encourage waste separation as well as general neighborhood cleanliness. This report presents the challenges faced in the design and implementation phases as well as general recommendations on how to address such challenges in future projects. Some of the lessons learned and recommendations are generally applicable to the preparation of any MSW project, whereas others are particular to the design of RBF projects for MSW.
  • Publication
    Climate-resilient, Climate-friendly World Heritage Cities
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06) Bigio, Anthony Gad; Ochoa, Maria Catalina; Amirtahmasebi, Rana
    While the negative impacts of climate change on urban areas are well-known and widely discussed, its implicit impacts on historic downtowns have not been studied as extensively. In recent years, cultural heritage conservation and valorization have increasingly become drivers of local economic development. Many projects supported by the World Bank in this field help leverage cultural heritage for economic development while developing infrastructure and services for residents and enhancing the livability of cities. The World Bank has also been very active in addressing climate change risks and increasing resiliency of urban areas. This paper is an effort to merge these two critical agendas. The paper investigates the impacts of climate change on 237 world heritage cities (WHC) and provides an overview of the geographic distribution of these cities around the globe. It discusses the importance of historic downtowns and provides various options available to the governments of these cities to address risk mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Further, it provides examples of WHC which have taken action to address vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change. This report is organized in following five sections: section one presents an overview of WHC, geographic distribution, and the growth of the urban agglomerations to which they belong. Section two presents the natural hazard risks and climate change impacts facing WHC, their location on the coastline or interior, and their rank in terms of level of vulnerability. Section three outlines the characteristics that historic cities have in terms of carbon emissions and potential for climate change mitigation. Section four discusses the sources of financing which WHC may turn to in order to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. Section five presents the climate change adaptation and mitigation action plans being implemented in the WHC of Paris, Tunis, Edinburgh, Mexico City, Hue, and Quito.
  • Publication
    Building Sustainability in an Urbanizing World : A Data Compendium for the World's 100 Largest Urban Areas
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07) Hoornweg, Daniel; Freire, Mila
    Cities are hubs of global change, and their global influence continues to grow. Cities contribute significantly to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. At the same time, cities experience impacts like climate change first and with greatest intensity. Further, cities are becoming leaders worldwide in efforts to address global environmental and social problems. Some of the most important smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerging from Rio+20 (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) were initiated by or focused on cities. Even as the conference reinforced the increasing difficulty of reaching consensus on global challenges, it also saw smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerge. Some of the most important "microagreements" focused on cities.
  • Publication
    Building Sustainability in an Urbanizing World : A Partnership Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07) Hoornweg, Daniel; Freire, Mila; Hoornweg, Daniel; Freire, Mila; Baker-Gallegos, Julianne; Saldivar-Sali, Artessa
    Cities are hubs of global change, and their global influence continues to grow. Cities contribute significantly to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. At the same time, cities experience impacts like climate change first and with greatest intensity. Further, cities are becoming leaders worldwide in efforts to address global environmental and social problems. Some of the most important smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerging from Rio+20 (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) were initiated by or focused on cities. Even as the conference reinforced the increasing difficulty of reaching consensus on global challenges, it also saw smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerge. Some of the most important "microagreements" focused on cities.