Energy in Cities

Powering Africa’s Future: Leading the Energy Transition with Covenant of Mayors (CoM SSA)

By |2024-01-04T16:41:43+01:00April 4th 2023|

CoM SSA supports cities to access clean and resilient energy, lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce costs and boost employment. The best part: these cities do not need their own investment.

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.

UN-Habitat’s Integrated Municipal Finance Programme – Part 2

By |2024-01-03T16:20:21+01:00August 22nd 2019|

UN-Habitat's municipal finance programme is witnessing an exciting evolution in Kenya that offers lessons for local governments worldwide. Marco Kamiya, UN-Habitat’s Chief of the Urban Economy and Finance Branch describes the challenges cities face in their efforts to advance the sustainable development agenda.

UN-Habitat’s Integrated Municipal Finance Programme – Part 1

By |2024-01-03T16:20:56+01:00August 20th 2019|

UN-Habitat's municipal finance programme is witnessing an exciting evolution in Kenya that offers lessons for local governments worldwide. Marco Kamiya, UN-Habitat’s Chief of the Urban Economy and Finance Branch describes the challenges cities face in their efforts to advance the sustainable development agenda.

A Pulse for Cities: What Makes Open Contracting Essential to Modernizing City Governments

By |2024-01-03T16:53:15+01:00August 6th 2019|

Contracting is an unacknowledged superpower that cities have at their disposal to ensure high-quality service delivery to their citizens. Kathrin Frauscher explains how to go about it.

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.

Building Rights and Municipal Finance – The Experience of São Paulo, Brazil

By |2024-01-03T14:58:43+01:00June 6th 2019|

Revenue from building rights, or land value capture, plays an important role for municipal finance. Martim O. Smolka and Camila Maleronka report on the specific challenges and achievements in the city of São Paulo.

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.

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