Why Cities Climate Finance Matters

By |2024-01-04T08:45:02+01:00September 23rd 2019|

At the Climate Action Summit, it is widely acknowledged that cities are key in addressing climate change. Yet, sufficient funding for necessary measures is often hard to come by. Barbara Buchner presents some new and promising approaches of mobilising finance for building resilient urban infrastructure.

Looking at Subnational Governments from a Global Perspective: The New and Unique Findings of the World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment (SNG-WOFI)

By |2024-01-03T17:04:01+01:00June 27th 2019|

The SNG-WOFI initiative collects comparable data on national, subnational, regional, and municipal government finance flows in order to enable informed and targeted policy-making. Following are the latest key findings of the Observatory as presented at its international conference on June 17, 2019 in Paris, France, summarised for URBANET by Isabelle Chatry, Senior Policy Analyst at the OECD.

Real World Civic Tech Implications of South Africa’s Grassroot Platform

By |2024-01-03T17:04:36+01:00June 25th 2019|

Enabling participatory democracy is the goal of South Africa's online platform Grassroot, where community members get together to change their municipalities for the better – with considerable success, as Katlego Mohlabane, outreach and campaigns coordinator at Grassroot, illustrates with examples from Mnandini and Mzondi.

Boosting Urban Development in Africa Through New Mechanisms of Financing

By |2024-01-03T14:57:53+01:00June 18th 2019|

With the sectors for development and finance closely intertwined, a municipality's financing mechanism of choice significantly influences its development path. Khady Sarr, Programme Director of the Dakar Municipal Finance Programme, outlines several models and explains the advantages of bond loans – for municipalities and investors alike.

How to Change the World with Better Financial Awareness & Financial Literacy

By |2024-01-03T14:58:08+01:00June 13th 2019|

Many people around the globe struggle with finance management and debt. Michael Ochieng Nyawino describes why it is important to teach everyone financial literacy skills to tackle the problem.

The Role of Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations in Kenya’s Housing Finance Sector

By |2024-01-03T14:58:21+01:00June 11th 2019|

Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations play a key role for housing security in Kenya. Davina Wood explains how they work and discusses benefits and current challenges.

Who Captures the Gain from Urban Land Value?

By |2024-01-03T14:59:37+01:00June 4th 2019|

Urban land offers governments in developing countries a vital opportunity for self-financing development. While authorities often see these taxes as administratively burdensome and politically impossible, this doesn’t have to be the case.

Promoting Innovative Financing Solutions for Cities

By |2024-01-03T10:24:46+01:00March 14th 2019|

About 75 per cent of the infrastructure that needs to be in place by 2050 does not exist today. Getting such an immense scale of infrastructure development right will be critical to whether or not the world locks into a high- or low-carbon growth path. The newly established City Finance Lab tries to contribute innovative, replicable and scalable solutions to reach this ambitious goal.

Understanding and Tracking Affordable Housing Investment Opportunities in Africa

By |2024-01-03T10:25:12+01:00March 12th 2019|

Housing has become a policy issue that interests not only housing departments and local construction authorities, but Central Banks and financial players as well. Kecia Rust from the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) explains why housing has become an investment opportunity, and the role that policy makers play.

How M-Pesa is changing everyday life in Kenya

By |2023-12-19T15:18:53+01:00July 31st 2017|

Mobile money has revolutionised the lives of many people in the Global South, most of all the ones living in difficult economic circumstances. The M-Pesa service in Kenya is one of these success stories. Judith Owigar describes how it helps making basic services like water and energy available to citizens.

10 years of the Leipzig Charta: a model for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs?

By |2023-12-19T15:21:22+01:00June 14th 2017|

This year’s Federal Congress on National Urban Development Policy in Germany focuses on the Leipzig Charta’s 10th anniversary and future perspectives for sustainable cities in Europe. Timo Munzinger of the German Association of Cities (Deutscher Städtetag) discusses the relevance of the Leipzig Charta for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, calling for the Leipzig Charta to be brought up to date to meet current urbanisation challenges.

“Productivity increases with the size of a city” – An Interview with Rüdiger Ahrend, Head of Urban Policy Programme at OECD

By |2023-12-19T14:53:58+01:00January 27th 2017|

A lot of processes in cities depend on the financial resources of the municipal and national government. But how can these resources be generated? How can cities make money, how can they save money? And what role does urbanisation play? We talked to Rüdiger Ahrend, Head of the Urban Policy Program at the OECD, about how cities can approach these challenges.

Investing in Asia’s Urban Future

By |2023-12-19T14:54:41+01:00January 23rd 2017|

Asia is one of the regions of the world that is experiencing extremely rapid urbanisation. The Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) has recently launched a photobook in which case studies of four cities in Asia illustrate innovative ways to tackle issues in key sectors such as flood and drainage management, water supply, transport and waste management.

Access to finance a key consideration for urban leaders at the C40 Mayors’ Summit

By |2023-12-19T14:30:35+01:00December 21st 2016|

In early December, mayors, city delegates and urban experts met in Mexico City for the sixth biennial C40 Mayors’ Summit. The summit emphasised the key role cities play in global low-carbon, resilient, and inclusive development. Providing our cities with adequate access to financing is one of the most pressing issues that need to be addressed.

After Habitat III – How to implement the New Urban Agenda

By |2023-12-19T14:17:06+01:00October 17th 2016|

The official Habitat III conference has not yet started, but a whole range of initiatives and representatives of organisations already shared their views on how to implement the New Urban Agenda once it has been adopted.

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