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
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Publication
Decision Maker’s Guides for Solid Waste Management Technologies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09)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
Financing Landfill Gas Projects in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-09)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)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
Results-Based Financing for Municipal Solid Waste
(Washington, DC, 2014-07)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)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 Partnership Report
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)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
Conserving the Past as a Foundation for the Future : China-World Bank Partnership on Cultural Heritage Conservation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-09)The rich cultural heritage of China is an essential touchstone of its collective identity. The country's archaeological sites, historic architecture, expressive arts, cultural landscapes, and ethnic diversity also are treasured around the world. Despite their importance, China's cultural assets are under tremendous pressure due to the country's rapid development, particularly its rapid urbanization. Moreover, rising incomes and mobility have significantly increased domestic tourism, leading to the overdevelopment and deterioration of cultural heritage sites. However, many of China's government officials, conservationists, and community groups have recognized these threats and, over the past several decades, have worked tirelessly to protect their country's cultural heritage. Based on the 12 projects developed under this partnership, this report presents an overview of the project approaches and experiences, takes stock of the challenges, extracts initial lessons learned, and identifies new directions and challenges ahead. The principal audience of the report is national, provincial, and municipal decision-makers engaged in conserving China's cultural heritage. This report also is intended to be of relevance to World Bank staff and those in the international community who wish to gain an overview of the projects conserving cultural heritage in China that have received World Bank financing. -
Publication
Cities and Climate Change : An Urgent Agenda
(Washington, DC, 2010-12)The report discusses the link between climate change and cities, why cities should be concerned about climate change and adopt early preventative policies, and how the World Bank and other organizations can provide further support to cities on climate change issues. The report is one in a series of activities that explore the nexus of cities and climate change. This report, cities and climate change: an urgent agenda focuses on three broad issues pertaining to cities and climate change. This paper argues that climate change is an urgent agenda for cities for two reasons. First, climate change is a cumulative process. Second, embracing the climate change agenda now makes eminent sense from an individual city's perspective, be it economic, social, or political. It shows that the city is part of the global sustainable development agenda. This report presents an urgent situation. In rapidly growing cities, especially in Asia, current development paths are locking in emissions and lifestyles. Many people, particularly the poor, are already affected by climate change. The next decade will be particularly challenging. Cities will take a more active role in global dialogues and policy development as citizen's demand more comprehensive and immediate responses from all levels of government. -
Publication
The Urban Rehabilitation of Medinas : The World Bank Experience in the Middle East and North Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-05)The paper presents the key objectives for the rehabilitation of historic centers or medinas in the Middle East and North Africa as elaborated by the World Bank on the basis of twenty years of past and present lending and technical assistance operations to the governments of the region. These are: 1) the conservation of the urban and cultural heritage; 2) the local economic development of the historic city; and 3) the improvement of the living conditions of the resident population. The paper presents some innovative ways to classify the contemporary users of the medinas into different catagories which then become the market segments to reach via the rehabilitation initiatives given the readically changed present role of historic cities as urban cores of much larger urban agglomerations.The paper reviews the financial and fiscal instrucments that can be used to mobilize the necessary resources, including the roles of scaled up private sector investments and of internaitonal development financing in support of national and local governments. As sustainale culutral tourism I sput forth as the main economic rationale for investment of financial reosurces in medina rehabilitation, the paper also presents an innovative multi-vriteria index to determine the tourism potential of historic cities in the region, which has been recently used in the case of Morocco for a national strategy for the rehabilitation of its historic cities.