ANNUAL REPORT Positioning the Partnership for Development Impact EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE CITIES ALLIANCE IN 2017: POSITIONING THE PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT IMPACT The year 2017 was a challenging, but ultimately BURKINA FASO highly rewarding one for Cities Alliance. In addition The programme is widely viewed as a success and has to implementing our annual work programme, we been recognised within Burkina Faso as influential at all successfully completed four major pieces of work: three levels (national, local and community). An audit by Our World Bank legacy portfolio; the Land, Services the prime minister’s office gave the Country Programme and Citizenship grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates the highest possible rating for results. Highlights include: Foundation; the Intermediation Portfolio, which we managed on behalf of the Gates Foundation; and our • A framework to guide Burkina Faso’s urban Future Cities Africa initiative. At the same time, Cities development that is in line with its national Alliance prepared for the next phase in its history. development strategy. • National and municipal urban forums have A NEW STRATEGIC PLAN FOR generated concrete results and become effective platforms for consultation towards inclusive urban DEVELOPMENTAL IMPACT policy, planning, and governance. • Community-led infrastructure projects have In December 2017, the Cities Alliance Assembly approved brought dynamism to communities, which are a new Strategic Plan 2018–21 that positions the Cities now better able to organise themselves and are Alliance to play a key role in realising global agendas. recognised by local authorities. It outlines a Mission, Vision and Strategic Objective for the partnership: To improve the lives of 20 million of the world’s urban poor and empower women in more than 60 LIBERIA cities across seven or more countries by 2021. Nearly two years into implementation, the Liberia The plan also structures Cities Alliance’s activities within Country Programme has fostered a real recognition at two windows: A Country/City window, and a Global the national level that developing the national economy window. Our work programme through 2021 focuses on means having efficient and effective cities, which in four main themes: Equitable economic growth; resilience, turn require mechanisms for mobilising capacities and cities and climate change; gender equality and women’s engaged citizenship. Slum dwellers are being recognised empowerment; and cities and migration. as residents of the city who need to be fully engaged in its planning and development, while petty traders are increasingly viewed as contributors to the economy THE COUNTRY/CITY WINDOW instead of nuisances. FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE Highlights of 2017 include: • A Slum Upgrading Unit established within the This window provides technical assistance at the city and National Housing Authority (NHA) that recognises national level across multiple countries. Our established the need to work in slums, provide housing Country Programme model is at the core of this window, solutions to low-income families, and take the which also includes the smaller, flexible Innovation Fund. needs of the urban poor into consideration in national planning. Country Programmes • The first-ever Greater Monrovia City Urban Forum In 2017, Cities Alliance completed the first programming established a consensus on a city development cycle of the Burkina Faso Country Programme, the strategy process for the metropolitan area that last of our original five Land, Services and Citizenship includes the voice of all residents. programmes. We synthesised the lessons from this first • An agreement was reached between the police, tranche of programmes and began designing the second local authorities and petty traders around phase, in Liberia and Tunisia. We took the evidence Monrovia’s main central market that allows the and data collected through the Future Cities Africa traders to practice their trade without harassment. programme and used that knowledge to enhance the new Country Programmes for a more coherent approach. 1 Cities Alliance | Annual Report 2017 • Community profiling of 60 informal settlements Highlights of 2017: has provided valuable data that will be used • The CityWorks project in Bangladesh is helping to inform community-led small infrastructure women domestic migrant workers gain skills and projects. understand their rights. • In December, the European Union announced • The Bangalore Urban Metabolism Project has that it would provide $7 million (EUR 5.9 million) mapped ground water levels in the city and in funding for two projects on Primary Waste provides a good example of how water planning Collection, Solid Waste Management, and Waste- can be done effectively in urban India. to-Energy options for Greater Monrovia, thus expanding the Country Programme. • A grassroots mobilisation project in four walled- off neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem supported the development of an urban database to serve as TUNISIA an advocacy tool so that residents can proactively The Country Programme supports Tunisia’s cities to engage decision makers and donors and enhance build their capacity for strategic urban planning and their living conditions. city management, with special emphasis on lagging • The UrbaPEJ project in Dalifort-Foirail, Senegal inland cities. Many different organisations are active in has focused on mobilising, training and creating Tunisia, and the Country Programme has stood out by jobs for youth. The project was implemented building coherence of effort and bringing these various by youth start to finish with support from the stakeholders and groups together for more effective Senegalese charity Enda-ECOPOP. engagement. • The Migration and Shaping the Inclusive City activity is helping Durban, South Africa develop a Highlights of 2017: new response to migration that emphasises social • The Madinatouna city development strategy (CDS) inclusion, integration and participation through an initiative supports strategic city planning in eight awareness campaign. secondary cities. A ninth city, La Soukra, used its own funds to join the process. All the cities have concluded the initial diagnostic phase of the CDS process and begun the second phase to agree on A GLOBAL WINDOW TO strategic thrusts. The Ministry of Local Affairs TACKLE KEY POLICY ISSUES and Environment is seeking to mobilise funds to bring two more cities into the initiative, and The Global window promotes new analytical and it has closely linked the project to the national collaborative approaches to tackle key policy issues. sustainable cities programme. It comprises our Joint Work Programmes (JWPs) and Regional Programmes. • The World Bank is leading a study on the role cities play in regional development that focuses primarily on disadvantaged regions. The findings Joint Work Programmes will be used to plan future interventions. In 2017 the Cities Alliance had four active JWPs: • A grant agreement was signed with UNDP in Promoting Equitable Economic Growth in Cities, Cities December for a municipal cooperation project in the Global Agendas, Resilient Cities, and Gender and that will look at how neighbouring cities can work Women’s Empowerment. A fifth JWP on Migration and together on cross-cutting issues, such as waste Cities is expected to launch in 2018. management. CITIES IN THE GLOBAL AGENDAS CATALYTIC FUND This JWP embodies the partnership’s clear commitment to the global agendas and their implementation in cities. With the new Strategic Plan 2018–21, the Catalytic Fund It provides a space for members to come and discuss will transition into a broader innovation programme and issues, such as how the urban dimension of the SDGs Fund. The Catalytic Fund has been a useful instrument will be reviewed, how different stakeholder groups can that has adapted over the years, and it has generated participate, and the implementation process for the New a diverse portfolio of projects that have catalysed Urban Agenda. urban transformation, created partnerships among development actors, and leveraged funding. In 2017, a framework document was completed outlining the main activities and focus areas. The document Since its launch in 2012, the Catalytic Fund has funded 31 establishes two main priorities: promoting national innovative projects in 48 cities in 32 countries, disbursing urban policies and using citizen-generated data in USD$ 6.1 million in grant funding. It has issued three reporting for the global agendas. thematic calls for proposals: Migration, Know Your City, and Youth and the City, with one open call. 2 Cities Alliance | Annual Report 2017 The JWP produced knowledge products to support its Highlights of 2017: advocacy on why engaging cities is important and how it • A grant to ICLEI – Local Governments for can be done based on solid evidence: Sustainability to support its Transformative • Local and Regional Governments in the Follow- Action Program, which aims to accelerate the up and Review of Global Sustainability Agendas, implementation of local action to tackle climate which looks at how different stakeholders can be change. The grant helped identify robust city involved in the follow-up and review process of the resilience projects and linking them to appropriate global agendas; and funding mechanisms. • A second major publication to be released in 2018 • Funding to the World Resources Institute that analyses the urban component within six (WRI) to work on Urban Community Resilience global agendas and explores what they mean for Assessments (UCRAs), a tool that takes resilience cities and local governments. planning to the neighbourhood level. It was successfully piloted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the Cities Alliance grant allowed the UCRA process EQUITABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CITIES to be expanded to Surat, India and Semarang, This JWP aims to learn more about how public services Indonesia. can foster equitable economic growth, especially in • A grant to C40 to improve the CURB tool’s secondary cities. In 2017, it moved out of the preparatory approach to informal settlements and apply it in phase and into its first real year of implementation. Accra, Ghana; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Dakar, Senegal; A highlight of 2017 has been the rollout of the Campaign Quezon City, Philippines; Quito, Ecuador; and Cities initiative in three pilot countries and six secondary Santiago, Chile. CURB is an interactive scenario cities: Sylhet and Narayanganj in Bangladesh, Agona planning tool designed specifically to help cities Swedru West and Cape Coast in Ghana, and Mbale take action on climate change. and Gulu in Uganda. With the Campaign Cities, JWP members work with cities in partner countries to GENDER AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT support local initiatives that promote equitable access to public goods and services. This JWP provides a platform for promoting the role of women in development and focuses on mainstreaming The results have been visible and positively received on gender within the Cities Alliance work programme. the ground, and the methodology used in the initiative While the JWP’s efforts in 2016 centred around ensuring has generated excitement among local authorities and that gender was addressed in the global agendas, 2017 development partners. dealt primarily with mainstreaming gender in the Cities The JWP produced knowledge products to explore Alliance Secretariat. the relationship between access to public services and Significant progress was made in that area. From 2016 to economic growth, including a draft global report on 2017, mainstreaming gender in our grants improved by public space and a report on gender and access to public 158 per cent; in 2006, one-third of our projects discussed services. gender equality or women’s empowerment: By 2017 that number had risen to 54 per cent. As of 2017, no grant can RESILIENT CITIES be approved without a minimum threshold regarding This JWP has helped to place Cities Alliance at the centre gender mainstreaming. of the resilience debate, with its emphasis on partnership and knowledge. It brings together a range of different organisations working on resilience who otherwise would not necessarily find themselves at the same table, and these various perspectives have helped the JWP expand the discussion on resilience beyond climate change to include informality, equity and the urban poor. The first phase of the JWP’s framework document ended in 2017. A second phase has been developed with three components: Finance, capacity, and an integration of priorities to consolidate plans for resilience and adaptation. 3 Cities Alliance | Annual Report 2017 ASIA REGIONAL PROGRAMME LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN Cities Alliance activities in Asia aim to strengthen the REGIONAL PROGRAMME capacities of local governments and create an enabling With the SDGs and New Urban Agenda in place, the environment so they can undertake governance reforms, Cities Alliance LAC Regional Programme has focused plan, and implement programmes for sustainable, on supporting the implementation process in the inclusive cities. region. We have consolidated our regional presence and now have strong pillars and opportunities to develop In 2017, our Asia programme supported implementation deeper assistance in countries. Cities Alliance has been of two activities: institutionalised as a key stakeholder in LAC and is • A Cities Enabling Environment (CEE) Ratings recognised as a strong advocate on behalf of cities at the assessment that takes the approach piloted in regional level. Africa and adapts it to Asia. It assesses the city Highlights of 2017 include development of the Urban and local government enabling environment in 28 Housing Practioners’ Hub (UHPH), a regional network countries and helps local governments identify for urban housing practitioners that connects them with and address gaps in policy, legal and institutional policy planning; and technical assistance for national frameworks that are impacting their efficiency. policies in Paraguay and Jamaica. UCLG Asia-Pacific (ASPAC) • The Heritage Cities Development and Cities Alliance also produced two knowledge products: Augmentation Scheme (HRIDAY), which helps An overview of national urban laws in Latin America and cities integrate cultural heritage with city the Caribbean: case studies from Brazil, Colombia and development and local economic development Ecuador, which maps out all the urban legal frameworks in a way that brings better service and livelihood in LAC; and UrbFavelas, a Portuguese-language opportunities. Activities in 2017 focused on publication that captures the learning from a national advocacy and negotiation with the government conference on slum upgrading in Brazil. of Rajasthan on guidelines for a heritage development programme and testing the approach with the cities of Jodhpur and Nawalgarh. The World Bank 4 Cities Alliance | Annual Report 2017