Central America is undergoing an important transition, with urban populations increasing at accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges as well as opportunities to boost sustained, inclusive and resilient growth. current rates of urbanization, the region’s urban population will double in size by 2050, welcoming over 25 million new urban dwellers, calling for better infrastructure, higher coverage and quality of urban services and greater employment opportunities.
... See More + As larger numbers of people concentrate in urban areas, Central American governments at the national and local levels face both opportunities and challenges to ensure the prosperity of their country’s present and future generations.The region’s main development challenges are linked to the lack of social inclusion, vulnerability to natural disasters, and the lack of economic opportunities and competitiveness.Due to rapid urbanization in the region, Central American cities increasingly concentrate these development challenges.The region’s development challenges can be addressed in cities by focusing on the economic opportunities they offer.The Central America Urbanization Review provides a better understanding of the trends and implications of urbanization, and the actions that central and local governments can take to reap the intended benefits of this transformation. The report makes recommendations on how urban policies can contribute to addressing the main identified development challenges—lack of social inclusion, high vulnerability to natural disasters, and lack of economic opportunities and competitiveness. Specifically, the report focuses on four priority areas for Central American cities—institutions for city management, access to adequate and well-located housing, resilience to natural disasters, and competitiveness through local economic development.This Executive Summary summarizes the main messages developed throughout the Urbanization Review, which includes one diagnostic chapter and four sectoral chapters: Chapter 1, How Urbanization is Transforming Central America offers a diagnostic of present and future urbanization trends, including an overview on the speed and spread of urbanization, the characteristics of the system of Central American cities, and the concentration of economic activity in cities. It also introduces economic and social challenges facing cities, which will be explored in more detail in the four remaining sectoral chapters.Chapter 2, Managing Cities and Agglomerations: Strengthening Institutions for Effective Planning and Service Delivery highlights the key role of local governments in effective city management to ensure quality service delivery, as well as coordinated planning with the national government for a coherent and sustainable development of urban areas. Chapter 3, Making Cities Inclusive by Improving Access to Adequate and Well-Located Housing discusses the constraints in the housing sector, which policymakers need to address in order to drive a more efficient, inclusive and sustainable model of housing, integrated with urban development. Chapter 4, Making Cities Resilient to Reduce Central America’s Vulnerability to Natural Disasters advocates building resilient cities to reduce the long-term impact of natural disasters on the population and economy.Chapter 5, Making Cities More Competitive to Create More and Better Jobs discusses the potential for LED in raising local and country-level competitiveness, contribute to fostering macroeconomic stability, and strengthening private sector development. It applies the World Bank’s global framework on competitive cities to the Central American context.
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This main report is about Africa that is rapidly urbanizing and will lead the world’s urban growth in the coming decades. Currently, Africa is the least‐urbanized continent, accommodating 11.3 percent of the world’s urban population, and the Sub‐Saharan region is the continent’s least‐urbanized area.
... See More + However, the region’s cities are expanding rapidly, by 2050; Africa’s urban population is projected to reach 1.2 billion, with an urbanization rate of 58 percent (UN‐HABITAT 2014). With this rate of growth, Africa will overtake Asia as the world’s most rapidly urbanizing region by 2025 (UN 2014). Although the nature and pace of urbanization varies among countries, with over a quarter of the world’s fastest growing cities, Africa is undergoing a massive urban transition. Globally, cities are major drivers of economic growth, and the quality and location of housing has long-term consequences for inclusive growth. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization is not accompanied by the level of per-capita economic growth or housing investment that is observed elsewhere in global trends. Incomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) have not kept pace with urbanization, which, in many African countries, has not necessarily been accompanied by industrial growth and the structural transformation as has occurred in other regions. Housing stocks, along with investment and employment in related construction and finance industries, constitute a major component of national economic wealth. The key challenge for African cities, however, has been the comparatively low growth in per‐capita income, which limits the resources that households have to consume or invest in housing. At the same time across the region, the formal channels through which quality housing is produced and financed face major constraints that limit access to a large share of urban households. Hence, the formal housing sector is only a small part of the economy because the construction and finance services have very little effective demand, evidenced by the lack of formal investment in housing across the region. Recent studies have found that in Africa, formal housing investment (in national current accounts data) lags behind urbanization by nine years (Dasgupta et al. 2014). Furthermore, the capital investment in infrastructure needed to handle rapid urbanization typically happens (if at all) after housing has already been built, often in informal settlements.
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This main report is about Africa that is rapidly urbanizing and will lead the world’s urban growth in the coming decades. Currently, Africa is the least‐urbanized continent, accommodating 11.3 percent of the world’s urban population, and the Sub‐Saharan region is the continent’s least‐urbanized area.
... See More + However, the region’s cities are expanding rapidly, by 2050; Africa’s urban population is projected to reach 1.2 billion, with an urbanization rate of 58 percent (UN‐HABITAT 2014). With this rate of growth, Africa will overtake Asia as the world’s most rapidly urbanizing region by 2025 (UN 2014). Although the nature and pace of urbanization varies among countries, with over a quarter of the world’s fastest growing cities, Africa is undergoing a massive urban transition. Globally, cities are major drivers of economic growth, and the quality and location of housing has long-term consequences for inclusive growth. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization is not accompanied by the level of per-capita economic growth or housing investment that is observed elsewhere in global trends. Incomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) have not kept pace with urbanization, which, in many African countries, has not necessarily been accompanied by industrial growth and the structural transformation as has occurred in other regions. Housing stocks, along with investment and employment in related construction and finance industries, constitute a major component of national economic wealth. The key challenge for African cities, however, has been the comparatively low growth in per‐capita income, which limits the resources that households have to consume or invest in housing. At the same time across the region, the formal channels through which quality housing is produced and financed face major constraints that limit access to a large share of urban households. Hence, the formal housing sector is only a small part of the economy because the construction and finance services have very little effective demand, evidenced by the lack of formal investment in housing across the region. Recent studies have found that in Africa, formal housing investment (in national current accounts data) lags behind urbanization by nine years (Dasgupta et al. 2014). Furthermore, the capital investment in infrastructure needed to handle rapid urbanization typically happens (if at all) after housing has already been built, often in informal settlements.
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Big data can sound remote and lacking a human dimension, with few obvious links to development and impacting the lives of the poor. Concepts such as anti-poverty targeting, market access or rural electrification seem far more relevant – and easier to grasp.
... See More + And yet some of today’s most groundbreaking initiatives in these areas rely on big data. This publication profiles these and more, showing how data on an unprecedented scale has the potential to improve lives in unprecedented ways. The featured case stories illustrate the diverse range of big data applications in development. For the World Bank, with twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, big data is big news – and this is just the beginning. The Big Data program brings togetherdata scientists, social scientists and sector specialists in a work program with two main objectives: To accelerate organizational capabilities in big data analytics for use in research and operations – to help the World Bank Group (WBG) better work towards ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. To position WBG as a leader in the use of big data solutions in development. The program aims to scale early pilots into projects that solve significant development challenges, and to establish best practices for using big data analytics to steer evidence-driven development. Launched in September 2014, the Big Data Innovation Challenge has been key in encouraging big data approaches. Exceeding all expectations, it attracted 131 innovative proposals and awarded 14 with funding and expertise to enable big data analytics in their projects. The winning initiatives cover an exciting range, from using satellite imagery to improve poverty mapping, to mining social media data to understand political sentiment, or cellphone data to increase the use of banking services. Others promote traffic flows or accountable road building, anticipate crop yields, predict violent crime and promote registration of land rights. This publication profiles 16 extraordinary initiatives from the Challenge winning teams and finalists. The case stories examine the application of big data analytics and how it can help achieve project goals.
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Africa is the globe’s least-urbanized continent, accommodating 11.3 percent of the world’s urban population, and the Sub-Saharan region is the continent’s least-urbanized area.
... See More + Nonetheless, the region’s cities are expanding rapidly. Globally, cities are major drivers of economic growth, and the quality and location of housing has long term consequences for inclusive growth. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), urbanization is not accompanied by the level of per-capita economic growth or housing investment that is observed elsewhere in global trends. Although the housing sector in Africa is highly heterogeneous with substantial differences between countries, some consistent patterns emerge as a function of overall poorly functioning housing markets. The majority of housing investment in most African countries comes from government debt or domestic savings rather than from international capital markets as is the case in developed economies. As a result, the existing housing stock in SSA remains overcrowded and of limited quality, and there is typically a backlog of housing. As a result of low incomes and high costs of formal housing, the informal delivery of housing as a less expensive alternative has been the norm in SSA, while formality is the exception. In general, housing shortfalls can be calculated based on three different qualities: (i) the numerical shortfall in dwellings (deficit); (ii) the qualitative shortfall in physical conditions (obsolescence or substandard construction with non-durable building material); and (iii) the space shortfall within dwellings (overcrowding). Under this approach, total housing stock is an aggregate of different shelter types (new units and existing units) and tenure arrangements (rental versus ownership for example). These approaches rely on estimates of new household formation and an ideal occupancy ratio per dwelling unit, which may not reflect typical conditions. The challenge for policy makers is to improve housing delivery value chains in a way that allows residents to steadily transition toward more formal housing conditions. At the same time, improvements to formal sector value chains can reduce the cost of construction and broaden access to finance for consumers and developers.
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Turkey’s demographic and economic transformation has been one of the world’s most dramatic, with urban growth and economic growth proceeding hand in hand.
... See More + Distinguishing Turkey from many other developing countries has been the pace, scale, and geographical diversity of its spatial and economic transformation. Fast-growing secondary cities bring added challenges that define Turkey’s second-generation urban agenda. New and differentiated service standards will need to be established across both dense urban built-up areas and small villages and rural settlements within the newly-expanded metropolitan municipality administrative area. These developments make planning, connecting, and financing important policy principles for Turkey’s second-generation urban development agenda. This policy brief frames a second-generation urban development agenda to support Turkey’s transition from upper middle income to high income.
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Turkey’s demographic and economic transformation has been one of the world’s most dramatic, with urban growth and economic growth proceeding hand in hand.
... See More + Distinguishing Turkey from many other developing countries has been the pace, scale, and geographical diversity of its spatial and economic transformation. Fast-growing secondary cities bring added challenges that define Turkey’s second-generation urban agenda. New and differentiated service standards will need to be established across both dense urban built-up areas and small villages and rural settlements within the newly-expanded metropolitan municipality administrative area. These developments make planning, connecting, and financing important policy principles for Turkey’s second-generation urban development agenda. This policy brief frames a second-generation urban development agenda to support Turkey’s transition from upper middle income to high income.
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This main report is about Africa that is rapidly urbanizing and will lead the world’s urban growth in the coming decades. Currently, Africa is the least‐urbanized continent, accommodating 11.3 percent of the world’s urban population, and the Sub‐Saharan region is the continent’s least‐urbanized area.
... See More + However, the region’s cities are expanding rapidly, by 2050; Africa’s urban population is projected to reach 1.2 billion, with an urbanization rate of 58 percent (UN‐HABITAT 2014). With this rate of growth, Africa will overtake Asia as the world’s most rapidly urbanizing region by 2025 (UN 2014). Although the nature and pace of urbanization varies among countries, with over a quarter of the world’s fastest growing cities, Africa is undergoing a massive urban transition. Globally, cities are major drivers of economic growth, and the quality and location of housing has long-term consequences for inclusive growth. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization is not accompanied by the level of per-capita economic growth or housing investment that is observed elsewhere in global trends. Incomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) have not kept pace with urbanization, which, in many African countries, has not necessarily been accompanied by industrial growth and the structural transformation as has occurred in other regions. Housing stocks, along with investment and employment in related construction and finance industries, constitute a major component of national economic wealth. The key challenge for African cities, however, has been the comparatively low growth in per‐capita income, which limits the resources that households have to consume or invest in housing. At the same time across the region, the formal channels through which quality housing is produced and financed face major constraints that limit access to a large share of urban households. Hence, the formal housing sector is only a small part of the economy because the construction and finance services have very little effective demand, evidenced by the lack of formal investment in housing across the region. Recent studies have found that in Africa, formal housing investment (in national current accounts data) lags behind urbanization by nine years (Dasgupta et al. 2014). Furthermore, the capital investment in infrastructure needed to handle rapid urbanization typically happens (if at all) after housing has already been built, often in informal settlements.
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This main report is about Africa that is rapidly urbanizing and will lead the world’s urban growth in the coming decades. Currently, Africa is the least‐urbanized continent, accommodating 11.3 percent of the world’s urban population, and the Sub‐Saharan region is the continent’s least‐urbanized area.
... See More + However, the region’s cities are expanding rapidly, by 2050; Africa’s urban population is projected to reach 1.2 billion, with an urbanization rate of 58 percent (UN‐HABITAT 2014). With this rate of growth, Africa will overtake Asia as the world’s most rapidly urbanizing region by 2025 (UN 2014). Although the nature and pace of urbanization varies among countries, with over a quarter of the world’s fastest growing cities, Africa is undergoing a massive urban transition. Globally, cities are major drivers of economic growth, and the quality and location of housing has long-term consequences for inclusive growth. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization is not accompanied by the level of per-capita economic growth or housing investment that is observed elsewhere in global trends. Incomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) have not kept pace with urbanization, which, in many African countries, has not necessarily been accompanied by industrial growth and the structural transformation as has occurred in other regions. Housing stocks, along with investment and employment in related construction and finance industries, constitute a major component of national economic wealth. The key challenge for African cities, however, has been the comparatively low growth in per‐capita income, which limits the resources that households have to consume or invest in housing. At the same time across the region, the formal channels through which quality housing is produced and financed face major constraints that limit access to a large share of urban households. Hence, the formal housing sector is only a small part of the economy because the construction and finance services have very little effective demand, evidenced by the lack of formal investment in housing across the region. Recent studies have found that in Africa, formal housing investment (in national current accounts data) lags behind urbanization by nine years (Dasgupta et al. 2014). Furthermore, the capital investment in infrastructure needed to handle rapid urbanization typically happens (if at all) after housing has already been built, often in informal settlements.
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This paper provides the first systematic empirical assessment of the pace at which housing investment has responded to rising demand from urbanization.
... See More + The assessment used National Accounts Statistics to build a data set of residential housing investment for more than 90 countries. The data set explicitly accounts for investment by households, the government, and the private sector. The analysis finds that housing investment follows an S-shaped trajectory taking off around per capita GDP of about $3,000 (US$2005) and tapering down at per capita GDP around $36,000 (US$2005). The analysis also finds that between 2001 and 2011, housing investment in low-income economies averaged 4.56 percent of gross domestic product and 9.12 percent in upper-middle-income economies. An important finding is that countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have housing elasticities similar to comparable low-income and lower-middle-income economies. In financing housing investment, the paper finds that developing countries tend to rely much more on domestic savings and government debt, whereas high-income Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries lever capital markets by tapping foreign savings. Not only does excessive reliance on domestic savings and government debt increase the sensitivity of housing investment to the cyclicality of growth of gross domestic product, it also can potentially crowd out investments in health and education.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7110 NOV 01, 2014
Rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa places immense pressure on urban services to meet the needs of the burgeoning urban population. Although several country- or city-level reports offer insight into the housing challenges of specific places, little is known about regional patterns affecting housing markets.
... See More + This lack of clear knowledge on the relative importance of the factors influencing households' housing demand in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa inhibits policy makers, researchers, the private sector, and development partners from making informed decisions when addressing affordable housing provision and the rapid increase in and growth of informal settlements. To shed light on the contours of housing patterns and impediments impacting the region's households, this paper provides a systematic review of housing conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. By drilling down into the housing issues in the region from the perspective of the household, the paper analyses the trade-offs households make in allocating their budgets over time to housing and other amenities and provides a first approximation at understanding the differences in households' expenditure patterns and housing decisions across countries. The findings suggest that rather than emphasizing policies that purport to increase expenditures on housing at this stage of development, policy makers in Sub-Saharan Africa should focus on extending access to basic services and strengthening coordination between land use planning and service provision. As incomes increase, this focus would allow households the opportunity to access houses that are equipped with basic infrastructure and help countries move toward better overall quality of housing.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7112 NOV 01, 2014
Urbanization is the single most important transformation that the African continent will undergo this century. More than half of Africa's population will live in its cities by 2040.
... See More + In the face of rapid urbanization, there is a narrow window of opportunity to harness the potential of cities as engines of economic growth, and use this as a powerful leverage to achieve sustainable development and poverty reduction. Despite its rapid urban growth, Africa is less than halfway through the urbanization process and in some countries, a large number of people reside in rural areas. Rapid urbanization, if well managed, can curb urban sprawl, deteriorating access to services, greater inequality, and increased crime. The concentration of people in cities also elevates the risks and costs associated with extreme weather and natural disasters resulting from climate change. The World Bank Group's (WBGs) support will focus on three key areas: metropolitan areas and large cities; secondary and tertiary cities; and informal settlements. This will include both multi-sectoral investment programs that integrate a basket of services (for example, upgrading of electricity, water, sanitation, roads, drains in unplanned settlements); and sector specific projects (for example, in urban water, solid waste, and transport) to improve the effectiveness of service delivery. This paper is organized in following chapters: chapter one discusses why is it urgent to get Africa's urbanization right?; chapter two gives the vision for efficient, inclusive, and sustainable urbanization; chapter three presents priorities for Africa's policymakers; and chapter four deals with working with Africa to support efficient, inclusive, and sustainable cities.
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Working Paper 81546 SEP 01, 2013
Kariuki, R. Mukami; Bakalian, Alexander E.; Lall, Somik; White, Roland; Parby, Jonas Ingemann; Huang, Chyi-Yun; Wheeler, Sonia; Gracia, Nancy Lozano; Dasgupta, Basab; Mukim, Megha; Shi, TuoDisclosed
The report is organized into three chapters: chapter two looks at the pace and patterns of India's urbanization, providing a 100-year perspective on demographic shifts and a 20-year perspective on the spatial distribution of jobs across India's portfolio of settlements.
... See More + The review is based on a careful, spatially detailed analysis of data from economic and demographic censuses, annual surveys of industry, national sample surveys, and special surveys of freight transport. This chapter provides diagnostics on whether Indian industry is adequately exploiting agglomeration economies and whether there are hints of specific barriers to the natural tendency of standardized industry to reshuffle from large metropolitan areas to smaller urban areas. Chapter three examines specific policy issues and investment bottlenecks that are curbing the pace and benefits of urbanization in India. The policy issues relate to land markets and housing, connectivity (within and between cities), and access to basic services. The purpose of this analysis is to unravel the specific distortions that may be preventing India from reaping the entire range of benefits of urbanization. Chapter four provides some options for policy reform, distilling lessons from relevant international experience. It provides options for establishing the 'rules of the game' that can define the workings of land and property markets as well as coordination of land use and infrastructure in cities. This chapter also provides a framework for policy makers to identify the role of regulatory and price reform in expanding infrastructure services and to make investments that enhance capacity.
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This review analyzes the profile, trends and challenges of Georgia's changing urban landscape since independence in 1991 and provides policy suggestions to facilitate the economic transition of the country through its cities.
... See More + In its analysis and subsequent recommendations on policy interventions, this report draws on a program of diagnostics called the 'Urbanization Review' (UR). The UR diagnostic is based on three main pillars of urban development which have emerged as key areas of policy engagement for successful cities. These are: a) planning, charting a course for cities by setting the terms of urbanization, especially policies for using urban land and expanding basic infrastructure and public services; b) connecting, physically linking people to jobs, and businesses to markets; and c) financing, raising and leveraging up-front capital to meet the increasing demand for infrastructure and services. In moving forward, the review recommends that Georgia focus on: a) developing a national urban strategy that recognizes the contribution of each city to the overall economy, i.e. a 'systems of cities' approach that can assist in reducing regional disparities; b) assisting cities to develop urban plans, including local economic development plans, c) reforming building and planning codes; and d) assisting cities in improving their local governance and finances.
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Around the world, in both developed and developing countries, policy makers use a variety of tools to manage and accommodate urban growth and redevelopment.
... See More + Government officials have three main concerns in terms of land policy: (i) accommodating urban expansion, (ii) providing infrastructure, and (iii) managing density. Together, the planning for infrastructure and urban expansion, land use, and density policies combine to shape the spatial structure of cities. This paper reviews global experience on using land based instruments to accommodate urban development and financing infrastructure. The review suggests that urban transformation is most efficient when land markets are fluid, particularly when they are grounded in strong institutions that (i) assign and protect property rights, (ii) enable independent valuation and public dissemination of land values across uses, and (iii) enable the judicial system to handle disputes that may arise in the process.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6312 JAN 01, 2013
The efficiency and productivity of Colombia's urban system will be a key determinant in the ability of the country to transition from a middle income to a higher-income economy.
... See More + Colombia, as with most Latin American countries, has experienced positive growth rates in the past few years, mitigating the potential adverse impacts of the global financial crisis. High commodity prices as well as improvements in macroeconomic and financial management, diversification of trading partners (particularly through stronger links with China), and the safe integration into international financial markets are the main drivers for recent success in Colombia and the Latin American region (World Bank 2011). This book is organized as follows: chapter two concentrates on establishing patterns and trends of the spatial and urban transformation in Colombia. Key policy issues for Colombia's urbanization process are highlighted and policy alternatives considered. It also attempts to identify areas where further in-depth analysis would be valuable. Three of these areas are further developed in chapters three through five. The remainder of this chapter will highlight key messages from each of the three crosscutting themes of connectivity, coordination, and finance. The chapter will conclude with a discussion on the World Bank's strategic engagement strategy for sustainable cities.
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Three-fourths of the Colombian population, around 34.5 million people, live in urban areas. Bogota, the capital, with almost 8 million inhabitants, is one of the densest cities in the Western Hemisphere.
... See More + In recent decades, Colombian cities have been engines of growth, while at the same time improvements in quality of life has been directly associated with urbanization. Nevertheless, this development represents enormous challenges, for which a wide range of innovative solutions is needed. Among the challenges facing the Government of Colombia are congestion, mobility, disaster risk management, urban environmental protection, housing and basic services, as well as redevelopment of cities. This report provides a first effort in analyzing the urban system, in order to maximize urbanization's benefits and minimize its externalities.
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