Urbanization is transforming the developing world. However, understanding the pace, scale, and form of urbanization has been limited by a lack of consistent data.
... Voir la suite East Asia's Changing Urban Landscape aims to address this problem by using satellite imagery and other data to measure urban expansion across the East Asia and Pacific region between 2000 and 2010. Illustrated with maps and charts, it presents trends in urban expansion and population growth in more than 850 urban areas (by country, urban area, income group, and city size categories). It discusses findings related to increasing urban population densities across the region and quantifies the administrative fragmentation of urban areas that cross local boundaries. The book discusses implications of the research and outlines potential policy options for governments that can help maximize the benefits of urban growth. These policy options include strategically acquiring land to prepare for future urban expansion; creating national urbanization policies that address the growth of the entire system of cities at once in order to support economically efficient urbanization; investing in small and medium urban areas; ensuring spatial access to the poor in order to make urban growth more inclusive; maximizing the benefits to the environment of existing urban density through location, coordination, and design of density; and creating mechanisms to support interjurisdictional cooperation across metropolitan areas. Leaders and policy makers at the national, provincial, and city levels who want to understand how trends in their cities compare with others in East Asia, as well as researchers and students interested in the transformative phenomenon of urbanization in the developing world, will find this book an invaluable resource.
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This book provides an overview of the World Bank's Eco2 Cities Initiative. The objective of the program is to help cities in developing countries achieve a greater degree of ecological and economic sustainability.
... Voir la suite The book is divided into three parts. Part one describes the Eco2 Cities Initiative framework. It describes the approach, beginning with the background and rationale. Key challenges are described, and lessons are drawn from cities that have managed to turn these challenges into opportunities. A set of four key principles is introduced. These principles are the foundation upon which the initiative is built. They are: (1) a city-based approach enabling local governments to lead a development process that takes into account their specific circumstances, including their local ecology; (2) an expanded platform for collaborative design and decision making that accomplishes sustained synergy by coordinating and aligning the actions of key stakeholders; (3) a one-system approach that enables cities to realize the benefits of integration by planning, designing, and managing the whole urban system; and (4) an investment framework that values sustainability and resiliency by incorporating and accounting for life-cycle analysis, the value of all capital assets, and a broader scope for risk assessment in decision making. Part two presents a city-based decision support system that introduces core methods and tools to help cities as they work toward applying some of the core elements and stepping stones. Part two looks into methods for collaborative design and decision making and methods to create an effective long-term framework able to help align policies and the actions of stakeholders. Part three consists of the field reference guide. The guide contains background literature designed to support cities in developing more in-depth insight and fluency with the issues at two levels. It provides a city-by-city and sector-by-sector lens on urban infrastructure. The next section comprises a series of sector notes, each of which explores sector-specific issues in urban development.
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Urbanization is transforming the developing world. However, understanding the pace, scale, and form of urbanization has been limited by a lack of consistent data.
... Voir la suite East Asia's Changing Urban Landscape aims to address this problem by using satellite imagery and other data to measure urban expansion across the East Asia and Pacific region between 2000 and 2010. Illustrated with maps and charts, it presents trends in urban expansion and population growth in more than 850 urban areas (by country, urban area, income group, and city size categories). It discusses findings related to increasing urban population densities across the region and quantifies the administrative fragmentation of urban areas that cross local boundaries. The book discusses implications of the research and outlines potential policy options for governments that can help maximize the benefits of urban growth. These policy options include strategically acquiring land to prepare for future urban expansion; creating national urbanization policies that address the growth of the entire system of cities at once in order to support economically efficient urbanization; investing in small and medium urban areas; ensuring spatial access to the poor in order to make urban growth more inclusive; maximizing the benefits to the environment of existing urban density through location, coordination, and design of density; and creating mechanisms to support interjurisdictional cooperation across metropolitan areas. Leaders and policy makers at the national, provincial, and city levels who want to understand how trends in their cities compare with others in East Asia, as well as researchers and students interested in the transformative phenomenon of urbanization in the developing world, will find this book an invaluable resource.
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In 2012 Papua New Guinea undertook a national Service Delivery Assessment of rural water, rural sanitation, urban water and urban sanitation services to identify coverage and targets, how well services are being delivered and the financing shortfalls in these subsectors.
... Voir la suite Immediately following this assessment, stakeholders, through a national policy task force, have developed a draft of the countrys first National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Policy. During the course of the assessment and policy development, peri-urban and informal settlements have been consistently identified as areas which are underserviced and overlooked for water and sanitation services. The need to provide affordable and appropriate services in settlements, as well as improve health and living conditions, was highlighted. Amongst stakeholders, it was agreed that baseline information on WASH conditions in settlements was needed in order to develop strategies and to respond appropriately to needs of settlements in the future. Previous settlement research has focused on urbanization, housing ownership, land issues, employment, and anthropology, but WASH has not been researched specifically or in depth. Therefore in 2014, the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank (WSP), together with key stakeholders, conducted research in informal settlements in the capital Port Moresby and a representative provincial town (Wewak) to understand the conditions, aspirations, barriers and opportunities to improve water, sanitation and hygiene for informal settlers.
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This issue of the East Asia and Pacific economic update is based on data available through September 29, inclusive. This report also includes a special section, focusing on two crucial medium-term issues facing developing East Asia and Pacific: education and skills development, and international migration; and an overview of the economic prospects and policy priorities for the Pacific Island Countries.
... Voir la suite Overall, the global economy is showing signs of recovery, but at an uneven pace; global growth is expected to rise modestly to 2.6 percent in 2014, and an average 3.3 percent in from 2015 to 2017. The gradual strengthening of activity in high-income economies will boost demand for exports from developing East Asia and Pacific, helping the region sustain its growth performance. In China growth will gradually moderate to 7.4 percent in 2014 and 7.1 percent in 2016, reflecting intensified policy efforts to address financial vulnerabilities and structural constraints, and place the economy on a more sustainable growth path. In the rest of the region, growth will gradually pick up, as exports firm and the impact of domestic adjustment in the large ASEAN countries eases. Investment in the large ASEAN economies weakened, while private consumption remained resilient. Fiscal policy in many countries has aimed at rebuilding fiscal space but these efforts need to be sustained. Credit growth has slowed reflecting tighter policies and inflation generally remains low. Significant uncertainties remain about the strength and sustainability of the recovery in high-income economies, as well as about the timing of policy actions by central banks in these countries. In this uncertain global environment, there is still a window of opportunity to enact critical, and in some cases overdue,reforms; the short-term priority in several countries is to address the vulnerabilities and inefficiencies that have been created by an extended period of loose financial conditions and fiscal stimulus. In China the authorities need to strike a balance between containing the growing risks from rising leverage and meeting the indicative growth targets. Over the longer term, the focus in most countries must be on implementing the structural reforms needed to enhance their export competitiveness.
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