The development objective of Support to the Afghanistan Independent Land Authority-Arazi Project for Afghanistan is to support the Afghan government to develop the policy and regulatory framework and build capacity to deliver transparent, pro-poor land services.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (i) minimize the effect of dust on the surrounding environment resulting from earth mixing sites, vibrating equipment, temporary access roads, etc. to ensure safety, health and the protection of workers and communities living in the vicinity dust producing activities; (ii) ensure that noise levels emanating from machinery, vehicles and noisy construction activities (e.g. excavation, blasting) are kept at a minimum for the safety, health and protection of workers within the vicinity of high noise levels and nearby communities; (iii) ensure that existing water flow regimes in rivers, streams and other natural or irrigation channels is maintained and or re-established where they are disrupted due to works being carried out; (iii) prevent oils, lubricants and waste water used or produced during the execution of works from entering into rivers, streams, irrigation channels and other natural water bodies or reservoirs, and also ensure that stagnant water in uncovered borrow pits is treated in the best way to avoid creating possible breeding grounds for mosquitoes; (iv) prevent and minimize the impacts of quarrying, earth borrowing, piling and building of temporary construction camps and access roads on the biophysical environment including protected areas and arable lands; local communities and their settlements; (v) upon discovery of ancient heritage, relics or anything that might or believed to be of archeological or historical importance during the execution of works, immediately report such findings to the Severelectro (SE) so that the appropriate authorities may be expeditiously contacted for fulfillment of the measures aimed at protecting such historical or archaeological resources; (vi) discourage construction workers from engaging in the exploitation of natural resources such as hunting, fishing, and collection of forest products or any other activity that might have a negative impact on the social and economic welfare of the local communities; (vii) implement soil erosion control measures in order to avoid surface run off and prevents siltation, etc; (viii) ensure that garbage, sanitation and drinking water facilities are provided in construction workers camps; (ix) ensure that, in as much as possible, local materials are used to avoid importation of foreign material and long distance transportation; and (x) ensure public safety, and meet traffic safety requirements for the operation of work to avoid accidents.
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This paper examines the spatial organization of jobs in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, and applies the Lucas and Rossi-Hansberg (2002) model to explain the observed patterns in terms of the agglomeration forces and the commuting costs of workers.
... See More + The paper suggests that: (i) Economic activities are concentrated in the downtown -- beyond which employment is spatially dispersed. (ii) Geographically weighted regressions identify five potential subcenters in 2011; however, none of these contribute significantly to employment. When explaining the variation in employment density across localities in Kampala, the research highlights that (i) density falls by 23.5 percent per kilometer increase in distance from the nearest potential subcenter; (ii) an increase in local production externalities of 10 percent increases density by 3.7 percent; and (iii) production externalities in Kampala's potential subcenters are extremely weak to have any significant impact even on nearby tracts.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7655 APR 27, 2016
This paper presents early evidence from the first large-scale randomized-controlled trial of a land formalization program. The study examines the links between land demarcation and investment in rural Benin in light of a model of agricultural production under insecure tenure.
... See More + The demarcation process involved communities in the mapping and attribution of land rights; cornerstones marked parcel boundaries and offered lasting landmarks. Consistent with the model, improved tenure security under demarcation induces a shift toward long-term investment on treated parcels. This investment does not yet coincide with gains in agricultural productivity. The analysis also identifies significant gender-specific effects. Female-managed landholdings in treated villages are more likely to be left fallow—an important soil fertility investment. Women further respond to an exogenous tenure security change by moving production away from relatively secure, demarcated land and toward less secure land outside the village to guard those parcels.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7435 APR 06, 2016
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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The spatial concentration and growth of the global population in poor and middle-income countries during the twenty-first century presents important opportunities as well as major challenges.
... See More + Large-scale urbanization has the potential to generate substantial benefits for economic development, social progress, and efficient use of natural resources. The objective of this publication is to review the efforts of selected national governments around the world to plan and manage urbanization in a way that is more sustainable, productive, and inclusive than in the past. A new generation of national urban policies (NUPs) is emerging that is more aware of the gravity of the issues at stake, more ambitious in scope, and more integrated in approach than earlier urban policies. A national urban policy (NUP) should aim at defining a vision, guiding principles, and set of linked actions by national governments to realize the positive possibilities and to tackle the problems arising from the concentrated growth of population and economic activity. An NUP covers the overall intentions that governments have, and what they actually do, within their towns, cities, and metropolitan regions to make them function better - economically, socially, and ecologically. This will help to accommodate future growth more efficiently and equitably so that the welfare of citizens is improved and they are less vulnerable to hazards. The structure of this publication is as follows: section one gives introduction. Section two outlines why there has been a revival of interest in urban policy. Section three considers the long history of government efforts to plan and manage cities, including the different approaches that have emerged. The fourth section reviews the experience of different countries to identify the diversity of contemporary practice. The discussion tends to focus on what is distinctive about each country. The conclusion distils broad lessons for the design and implementation of NUPs.
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This report describes the progress of urbanization and structural transformation in South Asia, the market and policy failures that have shaped the region’s towns and cities, and the decisive actions needed to better leverage urbanization for South Asian prosperity and livability.
... See More + Part one (chapters one–two) sets the context by analyzing key urbanization developments and related trends of structural transformation and economic growth. Part two (chapters three-six) discusses and diagnoses the main policy problems, identifies areas for policy reform, and provides examples of best practices from both within and outside the region to help inform the decisions of policy makers and practitioners. Chapter one focuses on recent urbanization related outcomes and trends at the regional level. It provides a broad comparison of the region’s current state with other world regions and with historical trends in developed countries. Chapter two then provides a spatially detailed analysis of trends and outcomes within the region and at the subnational level. The chapters of part two identify four fundamental areas for policy action: governance and finance; connectivity and planning; land and housing; and resilience to natural disaster and the effects of climate change. The four areas are interlinked. Governance and finance (chapter three) are fundamental to the supply of urban infrastructure and basic services and thus also undergird the three other policy areas. Indeed, improvements in the way South Asia’s cities are governed and financed may be a precondition for achieving meaningful progress in these other areas and therefore in prosperity and livability. Of course, the ways in which cities are planned and connected (chapter four) also influence the supply of affordable housing (chapter five). Likewise, urban planning policies, and their enforcement, help determine a city’s resilience to natural disaster and the effects of climate change (chapter six).
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Policy makers in developing countries, including India, are increasingly sensitive to the links between spatial transformation and economic development.
... See More + However, the empirical knowledge available on those links is most often insufficient to guide policy decisions. There is no shortage of case studies on urban agglomerations of different sorts, or of benchmarking exercises for states and districts, but more systematic evidence is scarce. To help address this gap, this paper combines insights from poverty analysis and urban economics, and develops a methodology to assess spatial performance with a high degree of granularity. This methodology is applied to India, where individual household survey records are mapped to “places” (both rural and urban) below the district level. The analysis disentangles the contributions household characteristics and locations make to labor earnings, proxied by nominal household expenditure per capita. The paper shows that one-third of the variation in predicted labor earnings is explained by the locations where households reside and by the interaction between these locations and household characteristics such as education. In parallel, this methodology provides a workable metric to describe spatial productivity patterns across India. The paper shows that there is a gradation of spatial performance across places, rather than a clear rural-urban divide. It also finds that distance matters: places with higher productivity are close to each other, but some spread their prosperity over much broader areas than others. Using the spatial distribution of this metric across India, the paper further classifies places at below-district level into four tiers: top locations, their catchment areas, average locations, and bottom locations. The analysis finds that some small cities are among the top locations, while some large cities are not. It also finds that top locations and their catchment areas include many high-performing rural places, and are not necessarily more unequal than average locations. Preliminary analysis reveals that these top locations and their catchment areas display characteristics that are generally believed to drive agglomeration economies and contribute to faster productivity growth.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7473 NOV 05, 2015
Over the last century, the urban spatial structure of cities has transformed dramatically from the traditional monocentric configuration to varying forms of decentralized organization.
... See More + This paper reviews the theory and empirical evidence to understand the urban morphology of jobs and land use within a city. This survey highlights four broad insights: (i) The evolution of monocentric to polycentric centers has been accompanied by structural changes in the city. (ii) The internal geography of a city is an outcome of the trade-off between the pull from agglomeration economies and the push from congestion. (iii) The presence of externalities implies that the equilibrium spatial organization achieved by profit-maximizing firms may not necessarily be optimal. This justifies the role of public policy in addressing the associated market failures. (iv) The productive edge and competitiveness of a city can be enhanced by introducing policies that increase the overall connectivity to take advantage of economic opportunities across the metropolitan area. The survey also puts together a wide range of policy instruments that are useful in closing the gap between equilibrium urban spatial structure and the optimal outcome.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7453 OCT 22, 2015
The present report is a diagnostic Economic and Sector Work (ESW) on the urban landscape in Ukraine. Its objective is to link population dynamics with economic dynamics, and to present emerging spatial characteristics and trends.
... See More + Ukraine has experienced a dramatic population decline over the past two decades, which impacts the urban system. This ESW seeks to elicit a policy dialogue on opportunities to enhance efficiency through dedicated urban planning and fiscal instruments. The intended primary audience is the Government of Ukraine, including city mayors and city managers; international partners; and other stakeholders engaged in the area of urban development. The Ukraine Urbanization Review (UUR) was initiated before the onset of the current conflict in Eastern Ukraine and prior to the referenda held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on 16 March 2014. The report uses historical data sets ranging between 1989 and 2013 as well as historical maps. Consequently, events related to the current conflict are not a part of the present analysis, although they are recognized in the concluding chapter of this report. This stems from the lack of recent, reliable data from the conflict areas as well as the continuously evolving and changing characteristics of the conflict. Despite this limitation, the UUR remains relevant and opportune in its findings on trends, challenges, and opportunities for the urban system in Ukraine. The UUR is organized into three main chapters and a concluding chapter. Chapter one outlines recent demographic changes, presents the urban system and its economic characteristics, and develops city typologies based on their economic, spatial and demographic patterns. Chapter two offers an analysis of sub-national finance arrangements and examines tiers of government and the city typologies developed in chapter one for discrepancies that could be explored to enhance efficiency in spending. Chapter three discusses current urban and spatial planning practices and outlines shortcomings in view of changing demographics. The concluding chapter touches on the impact of the current conflict on the urban space and system.
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South Asia’s urban population is poised to grow by almost 250 million people by 2030. South Asia made good strides in achieving greater prosperity, with the increase in productivity linked to the growing number of people living in the region’s towns and cities.
... See More + Average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the region grew by almost 56 percent during 2000-2012, from $2,560 to $4,000, for average annual growth of more than 3.8 percent. Urbanization thus presents South Asian countries with an opportunity to transform their economies and join the ranks of richer countries in both prosperity and livability. In the long term, successful urbanization is accompanied by the convergence of living standards between urban and rural areas as economic and social benefits spill beyond urban boundaries. But these positive trends can be undermined by the pressures of urban population growth on infrastructure, basic services, land, housing, and the environment. Estimates suggest that at least 130 million of South Asia’s urban residents live in slums and are disproportionately deprived of basic infrastructure and access to basic services.
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South Asia’s urban population is poised to grow by almost 250 million people by 2030. South Asia made good strides in achieving greater prosperity, with the increase in productivity linked to the growing number of people living in the region’s towns and cities.
... See More + Average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the region grew by almost 56 percent during 2000-2012, from $2,560 to $4,000, for average annual growth of more than 3.8 percent. Urbanization thus presents South Asian countries with an opportunity to transform their economies and join the ranks of richer countries in both prosperity and livability. In the long term, successful urbanization is accompanied by the convergence of living standards between urban and rural areas as economic and social benefits spill beyond urban boundaries. But these positive trends can be undermined by the pressures of urban population growth on infrastructure, basic services, land, housing, and the environment. Estimates suggest that at least 130 million of South Asia’s urban residents live in slums and are disproportionately deprived of basic infrastructure and access to basic services.
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According to the latest census of 2011, the urbanization level in India has increased from 27.8 percent in 2001 to 31.2 percent in 2011, and for the first time, the absolute increase in urban population exceeded the increase in rural population.
... See More + India has different administrative arrangements for rural and urban areas, which are based on the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution of India respectively. Since the census towns (CTs) continue to be governed by rural administrative arrangements this situation raises an additional set of questions, in addition to the nature of economic transformation, related to the trade-offs-between rural and urban status. The report shall try and find answers to the following questions: (a) how does their governance affect the settlements economically and spatially?; (b) what underpins the economic dynamics of these settlements?; and (c) what are the drivers of change in land use and what relationships, if any, are there between agglomeration of settlements and economic and social and governance processes? The report is organized into two main parts. The first part provides a reading of the existing literature on small towns along the three main axis of research: governance, employment, and spatial change. It also provides a detailed rationale for the choice of sites and expands on the methodology chosen. The second part constitutes of four sections: (i) the first considers the CT as a liminal notion, enabling to unpack ones reading of urbanization; (ii) the second is concerned with the shift towards non-farm employment, the reality (or not) of sectoral differentiation in CTs, and the analysis of the new types of jobs existing in the towns; (iii) the third is concerned with the existing debates and practices around the idea that some CTs should become statutory towns; and (iv) the fourth looks at the various urban services and attempts to assess which variations (rural and urban; state) explain differences in services.
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As part of a national experiment, in 2008 Chengdu prefecture implemented ambitious property rights reforms, including complete registration of all land together with measures to ease transferability and eliminate labor market restrictions.
... See More + This study uses a discontinuity design with spatial fixed effects to compare 529 villages just inside and outside the prefecture’s border. The results suggest that the reforms increased tenure security, aligned land use closer to economic incentives, mainly through market transfers, and led to an increase in enterprise start-ups. These impacts, most of which are more pronounced for villages with lower travel time to Chengdu city, point toward high potential gains from factor market reform.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7389 AUG 11, 2015
The development objective of the Hebei Clean District Heating Project for China is to improve the efficiency and environmental performance of heating systems in project areas of selected municipalities of Hebei province.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) construct roads and services in a timely manner to eliminate the adverse effects of the local community and compensate timely, the professional sector will responsible for making the affected road back to the original state; (2) making reasonable arrangements for the construction of each section and trying to control the construction period; (3) resettlement issues raised by affected people involve a variety of fees and management fees, these fees should be exempted and reasonable expenses will incurred in unforeseen expenses of this project; (4) construct temporary noise walls and take other measures to mitigate the impact on the surrounding residents; and (5) allowing shops, businesses to mark the enterprise, and store operations information in the enclosure wall.
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Developing countries have urbanized rapidly since 1950. To explain urbanization, standard models emphasize rural-urban migration, focusing on rural push factors (agricultural modernization and rural poverty) and urban pull factors (industrialization and urban-biased policies).
... See More + Using new historical data on urban birth and death rates for seven countries from Industrial Europe (1800–1910) and thirty-five developing countries (1960–2010), this paper argues that a non-negligible part of developing countries’ rapid urban growth and urbanization may also be linked to demographic factors, such as rapid internal urban population growth, or an urban push. High urban natural increase in today’s developing countries follows from lower urban mortality, relative to Industrial Europe, where higher urban deaths offset urban births. This compounds the effects of migration and displays strong associations with urban congestion, providing additional insight into the phenomenon of urbanization without growth.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7333 JUN 23, 2015
The objective of the Capacity Building for Urban Development Project for India is to assist the recipient in improving the systems and skills of select urban local government bodies with respect to urban management and urban poverty reduction, as well as to support the recipient’s implementation of various urban policy and institutional reforms.
... See More + The following changes are proposed: (i) change in the PDO; (ii) deletion of component two (Implemented by MoHUPA) and transfer of component two funds to component one (implemented by MoUD); (iii) change in PDO level indicators; (iv) deletion of intermediate indicators related to component two and addition of new intermediate level indicators; (v) addition of description of activities to be undertaken to support national urban programs under component one; and (vi) extension of the Credit closing date by two years to June 30, 2018.
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