80748   WBI Urban: FY 10 Retrospective Review Introduction Urbanization is the defining phenomenon of the 21st century. For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities with 90% of growth taking place in the developing world. Poverty is urbanizing. Across all developing regions, except ECA, urban poverty is growing. 70-75% of urban residents in Africa and South Asia are poor. In Latin America, more than half of the poor live in urban areas. Already over 1 billion, slum populations are expanding further. While urbanization presents many challenges, it provides tremendous economic opportunities. Majority of wealth is created in cities as they account for around 70 percent of global GDP. The old paradigm views urbanization as being too rapid and that primary cities are too large. However, a consensus is emerging towards a new paradigm: urbanization is not just inevitable but essential to economic growth, prosperity, and poverty reduction. In response to the challenges and opportunities brought about by this century’s unprecedented pace and scale of urbanization, WBI Urban provides city managers and practitioners with knowledge and skills to effectively handle this phenomenon. In FY10, building on past experience and successes but taking into account WBI’s new paradigm, the team has continued to make available innovative solutions for effective and efficient city management to create economically vibrant, inclusive, and safe and resilient cities. WBI Urban views itself as a critical player in the fulfillment of the World Bank Group’s new Urban Strategy, launched last November 2009, through activities that are aligned with WBI’s new direction as a global facilitator of capacity building and connector of knowledge, learning, and innovation. As a global connector, it has facilitated practitioner exchanges using various connectivity platforms complemented by a robust structured learning program covering various topics in urban management, including city management, slum upgrading, disaster risk management, and urban water utility reform. As a local enabler, it has undertaken in-depth country engagement to support the capacity building infrastructure for urban management in key countries, namely China, India, South Africa, and Vietnam. Practitioner Exchange FY 10 saw the launch of WBI Urban’s premier interactive platform aimed at connecting cities from developing and developed countries together with the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders. The "Innovative Cities Global Dialogues" features a continuously expanding network of policymakers and practitioners backed by a knowledge infrastructure that will contain a wealth of useful practices and lessons for cities around the world. The platform was launched in a June 22-23, 2010 symposium in Washington DC with the theme “Cities as Engines of Economic Growth and Stimulants of Sub-national Investment Climate.” This dynamic dialogue featured successful cities in both the developing and developed world with active participation by the private sector. Within the ambit of the Innovative Cities platform, the team has been supporting knowledge sharing activities among geographic and theme-specific practitioner networks. A key network is the inter-regional India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Human Settlements Network, one of the thematic groups in the trilateral South-South mechanism established by the three countries. Further on the area of slum upgrading, the team launched the Inclusive Cities interactive community of practitioners collaboration website, a peer learning and knowledge platform for slum upgrading and affordable housing. WBI Urban has also developed a Crime and Violence Prevention Knowledge Exchange Platform between Latin America and Africa, launched through a knowledge sharing dialogue on Youth Crime and Violence Prevention on May 21, 2010 which linked practitioners in Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, and South Africa. This platform aims to strengthen capacities of key stakeholders through interactive engagement with thought leaders and experts. In Africa, a key priority of the World Bank, WBI Urban has been helping Anglophone and Francophone local action government forums by providing a venue where policymakers and key officials can exchange ideas and best practices through monthly thematic seminars covering the various topics of city management. The team has also actively participated in global and regional high-level events, including the Africities Summit (December 2009) and World Urban Forum V (March 2010) to showcase its products, as well as further pursue its programs in the international stage. For WUF V, WBI Urban organized a training session entitled “Working to Improve the Competitiveness of Cities in the Global & Regional Market.” The team will be participating in the ongoing World Expo 2010 in Shanghai by co-organizing a thematic forum on Economic Transformation and Urban Rural Relations from September 9 to 12, 2010 in nearby Shaoxing municipality featuring a roundtable among local leaders from 12 small cities on issues of urbanization and economic development.     http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/about/topics/urban     Demand for learning and capacity BBLs organized by WBI Urban in FY10 development is not limited to client countries January Insight on City I.P. Gautam 12 Management: Municipal and cities but is likewise a need within the Perspective from Commissioner, Bank. In view of this, WBI Urban, in Ahmedabad Ahmedabad collaboration with the Urban Anchor (FEU), February Selling the Rohit Aggarwala organized a series of internal learning sessions 24 Brooklyn Bridge: Director, Mayor's Private Financing of Office of Long- in FY 10. This was kicked off during the SDN Public Term Planning Week 2010 (January) as the team presented Infrastructure: and Sustainability, how knowledge and technology can be The Case of New City of New York leveraged to build capacities of local York City governments by showcasing its partnership March Wuxi's Urban Hongzhi Liu, 2 Development Deputy Mayor, (Monterrey Tech) in delivery of courses and its Challenges: Wuxi City support to communities of practitioners (e.g. Environmental Municipal Development Partnership for Protection, Tourism Eastern and Southern Africa). This was and Cultural Heritage followed by four BBLs for each of the Preservation succeeding months where city officials and May Why Don’t Cities Tim Campbell well-regarded urban practitioners presented 11 Learn? Chairman, successful strategies and exchanged ideas on Urban Age the various elements of city management, Institute such as infrastructure development, municipal financing, including public-private partnerships, environmental protection, and cultural heritage preservation. Related Links  Innovative Cities Global Dialogue Series launch (June 22-23,2010): http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/stories/cities-seen-engines-growth-incubators-innovation  Inclusive Cities interactive collaboration site: http://inclusivecities.ning.com/  WBI’s engagement at WUF V:http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2010/04/14/world-urban-forum- 2010-global-search-sustainable-urbanization & http://go.worldbank.org/F0EIVZCB00  Anglophone Local Government Action Forum (ALGAF): http://www.mdpafrica.org.zw/Algaf.htm  Francophone Local Government Action Forum (FAGLAF): http://www.faglaf.info Structured Learning In FY10, WBI Urban rolled out new courses and continued delivery of existing structured learning modules. While continuing to collaborate with institutional partners in the regions for customization and delivery, the team has increasingly shifted its attention towards the creation of a catalogue of e-learning courses for self-paced learning and to scale up dissemination and accessibility of knowledge. Our learning products are tailored to the needs of various audiences, particularly policymakers and technical staff and other concerned practitioners. To improve the leadership skills of mayors and city officials, WBI Urban is currently developing a learning program entitled “Cities as Engines of Economic Growth.” This program is designed to provide practical guidance to     http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/about/topics/urban   mayors on measures to promote sustained economic growth and productivity. In addition, the team is developing a leadership program with WBI Governance and Lee Kwan Yew School to better implement urban development strategies through effective leadership and governance. In terms of the various technical elements of city management, in FY 10, WBI Urban initiated the delivery of two new courses – Land Use Planning (June 2010) and “Street Addressing and the Management of Cities” (November-December 2009 and April- June 2010). The latter has been translated into different languages for greater accessibility and will be available in English, French, and Spanish beginning FY 11. Delivery will be undertaken through WBI’s regional partners (Tecnológico de Monterrey or Monterrey Tech for the Spanish version and University of Johannesburg for English). Also in collaboration with Monterrey Tech, WBI Urban continued rolling out the Crime and Violence Prevention course (last cycle held from March to June 2010). The program is currently available in Spanish to cater especially to the Latin American region but is now being developed in English and updated and appropriately contextualized for audiences in the Caribbean and Africa. WBI Urban puts emphasis on inclusive pro-poor urban development. Towards this end, a core learning program on Upgrading Informal Settlements is being developed, covering the basic conceptual and operational aspects of how to design and manage a slum upgrading intervention, while reviewing key issues related to the policy and programmatic approaches for scaling up and anticipating future urban growth. This builds on previous materials developed by the World Bank and Cities Alliance, such as a multimedia sourcebook on Approaches to Urban Slums which has been made available online and has been adapted in Spanish. And because of the relevance of the climate change agenda in the urban context with cities accounting for majority of greenhouse gas emissions and the urban poor’s particular vulnerability to the impact of climate change, WBI Urban team has begun collaborating with the WBI Climate Change Practice and FEU to develop learning products on cities and climate change and urban poverty and climate change. To ensure that the poor as well as the general population have access to urban services, especially water, WBI Urban has developed a course which aims to enable participants, especially CEOs, to review and experience the water supply and sanitation utility reform process by understanding the political economy of the sector, understanding consumers, and creating and selling a financial and institutional strategy for sustaining utility performance. The course was piloted as a face-to-face course in February 2010 in Uganda involving senior managers from water utilities throughout the African region.     http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/about/topics/urban   In addition, given the relevance of disaster risk adaption and mitigation, WBI Urban has continued the delivery of its 9 Disaster Risk Management (DRM) e-learning courses (Comprehensive DRM framework, Financial strategies for managing the economic impacts of natural disasters, Safe cities, Community based DRM, Damage and reconstruction needs assessment, Earthquake risk reduction, Climate and disaster risk management, and Risk sensitive land use planning, and Gender aspects of disaster risk reduction) and has finalized a new course on Risk Analysis. The latest DRM program was piloted in February 2010. Related Links  Street Addressing & Management of Cities course: http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2010/03/16/e- learning-course-street-addressing-and-management-cities-launch-april-20  Urban Land Use Planning course http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2010/06/14/wbi-launches-new- e-learning-course-sustainable-urban-land-use-planning  Crime & Violence Prevention course: http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2010/03/16/spanish-e- learning-course-urban-crime-and-violence-prevention-now-open-local-governm  Introduction to Upgrading Informal Settlements course: http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2009/10/16/course-upgrading-informal-urban-settlements- development  Approaches to Urban Slums online sourcebook: http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2009/11/10/free-online-toolkit-approaches-urban-slums-offered- wbi  Designing and Implementing Successful Water Utility Reform: http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/news/2010/03/12/transforming-water-utilities-pilot-program-uganda  WBI Disaster Risk Management Program: http://www.wbidrm.org Country and Regional Engagement: Convening and Coalescing for Results WBI Urban’s programs feature in-depth engagement to support the overall capacity building architecture for urban management in China, India, South Africa, and Vietnam. In China, WBI Urban has been closely working with practitioner networks and training institutions to share knowledge on urban and regional development and provide guidance to officials and planners to inform the implementation of China’s new Urban-Rural Planning Law and development of China’s successor Socio-Economic Five-Year Plan. This includes collaboration with the China National School of Administration on distance learning programs, the Urban Planning Society of China for the Annual Planning Conference covering over 2,000 urban practitioners and China’s National Development and Reform Commission Training Center for the “Reshaping Economic Geography” workshop.     http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/about/topics/urban   In India, in partnership with the Bank’s South Asia Sustainable Development Unit and Cities Alliance, WBI has developed a joint program to support the government’s national urban policy reforms. The main objective is to help all tiers of government in India to manage the urban space and prepare for the massive shift to urbanization, which will take place over the coming decades. WBI support has two dimensions at the national level: assisting high-level policy makers to advance policy reforms by facilitating knowledge exchange platforms built on South-South cooperation; and supporting the emergence of a national institutional architecture for capacity development. In South Africa, WBI has been helping to strengthen the government’s National Upgrading Support Programme (NUSP) by assisting the National Department of Human Settlements in the establishment, organization, and functioning of a coordination unit in charge of implementing the NUSP. In Vietnam, WBI Urban has been providing support to the Academy of Management for Cities to develop a national capacity building program on urban management for mayors and vice- mayors. To launch this program, a pilot conference on competitiveness for 35 Vietnamese cities was held from December 14-18, 2009 which included lecture sessions from international experts and a study tour to Incheon, South Korea. Aside from its current portfolio, WBI Urban has been actively seeking to expand its reach to cover other regions and countries. The team is currently engaging with the Austrian government to establish a Center of Excellence within the Joint Vienna Institute to train city mayors and host knowledge exchange events to cover selected Eastern Europe countries. Related Links  “Reshaping Economic Geography” Workshop in China (please enter “REG” for course key): http://vle.worldbank.org/moodle/course/view.php?id=436  “Sustainable Urban Development and Management” Distance Learning Program: http://go.worldbank.org/LJ9Y6QJIW0 (in Chinese)  India Urban Portal: http://www.indiaurbanportal.in/aboutus/knowledge-partners.htm     http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/about/topics/urban