WFP is promoting investments in water supply, sanitation and wastewater management, and environmental improvement in Asian cities.
Investing in Urban Water - If cities are the engines of a country’s economic growth, then water is the oil that keeps those engines running. Common among many Asian cities, though, is the fact that water shortages and pollution are stunting growth. Growing cities in Asia need more water supply and improved sanitation to sustain the urban economy, livelihoods, and more...

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing additional funds to improve the basic services and infrastructure in small and medium-sized towns of Bangladesh.
As many as 3.8 million people are expected to benefit from the Second Urban Governance and Infrastructure Improvement (Sector) Project which will expand access to and delivery of water, sanitation, solid waste management and other urban services in an initial 35 targeted towns, including slum areas. More towns will b more...

Diana Mitlin, in October 2008 issue of IIED Journal Environment and Urbanization. This paper reviews the use of co-production — with state and citizens working together — as a grassroots strategy to secure political influence and access resources and services. To date, the literature on social movements has concentrated on more explicitly political strategies used by such movements to contest for power and influence. Co-production, when considered, is viewed as a strategy used by citizens an more...

Jockin Arputham - October 2008 issue of IIED Journal, Environment and development. Jockin Arputham founded the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India and is president of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI). This paper describes Jockin's life and work and the many different methods he has used to fight eviction and get government support for people-centred development over the last 40 years. This includes the long fight to protect Janata colony in Mumbai from eviction, working with Bangla more...

By David Satterthwaite, IIED - Journal on Environment and Urbanization. INTRODUCTION - 'The diverse papers in this issue share one concern – the means by which low-income urban dwellers can get their needs addressed.
But for most authors, the focus is not on the role of governments or aid agencies and development banks or international NGOs but on the role of the urban poor groups themselves. The main reason for this is that conventional approaches to poverty reduction – state-managed, prof more...

The Human Settlements Group works to reduce poverty and improve health and housing conditions in the urban centres of Latin America, Asia and Africa. It seeks to combine this with promoting good governance and more ecologically sustainable patterns of urban development and of rural-urban linkages. This is achieved by engaging in policy research, most of which is undertaken in partnership with NGOs and academic institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The work also includes evaluation, tec more...

'In a bold effort to privatize Rio de Janeiro's urban transport sector, the state government showed that political decisiveness, transparency, and ingenuity in developing incentives are crucial to make loss-making operations attractive to the private sector. It also learned that not having a credible staff redundancy program might seriously undermine the benefits expected from concessions.'

In 1991, the Republic of Brazil asked the World Bank’s assistance in the decentralization program of its urban rail systems run by the Companhia Brasileira de Trens Urbanos (Brazilian Urban Trains Company-CBTU). The systems were to be transferred (decentralized) from the Federal Government to the local (State and Municipal) authorities. The local authorities agreed to receive the systems as long as they were rehabilitated and modernized but also requested that the Bank acted as “honest broke more...

'Take one of the most unplanned urban centres in the world, wedge it between four flood-prone rivers in the most densely packed nation in Asia, then squeeze it between the Himalaya mountain range and a body of water that not only generates violent cyclones and the occasional tsunami, but also creeps further inland every year, washing away farmland, tainting drinking water, submerging fertile deltas, and displacing villagers as it approaches – and there you have it: Dhaka, the capital of Bangla more...

The LAC urban rail program began in the early 1990s in response to a request from the Brazilian government to help decentralize the urban train system operating in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Salvador and Fortaleza as the federal government transferred their operations to the states and municipalities.

'The government and the Bank team, led by Rebelo, saw an opportunity to radically revamp urban rail transport in Brazil. They knew that better metropolitan transportatio more...