According to World Bank data, 80% of global GDP is derived from urban centers. It is therefore clear that currently, cities play a key role in development.
A few years ago, when we visited Ségou, the regional capital and administrative center of the Cercle de Ségou, composed of 30 communes and located 240 kilometers from Bamako, we were able to witness a perfect illustration of the paradox of Malian cities, discussed at the 2018 Bamako Forum—although they are expanding rapidly, the economic growth potential offered by an urban area is not being realized in many Malian cities. This paradox is attributable to inadequate urban planning, which hampers the ability of the commune to be functional, economically inclusive, safe, and resilient.
Malawi, a small country in Africa, has a population of over 18 million. According to World Bank estimates, Malawi had 52.2% of the total population between 15 and 64 years as of the beginning of 2017. However, Malawi has a high level of unemployment among the productive population which is largely composed of young people.
Planning is a theme in cities as ancient as Rome, Cairo, and Athens to as modern as New York and Singapore. It is used as an instrument to manage collective living. Planning remains key in shaping the urban contract of how and to what end people are willing to inhabit the same space.
Madagascar is witnessing rapid urbanization. From an overall population of 24.8 million (2016), the country has close to 7 million urbanites, compared to 2.8 million in 1993. Cities generate about 3/4 of the national GDP, with the capital city, Antananarivo, contributing more than 50%.
Urbanization in Rwanda has contributed to poverty reduction in Rwanda, but its potential could be realized more fully with better connectivity in terms of roads and transport, according to our findings in a new report, Reshaping Urbanization in Rwanda: Economic and Spatial Trends and Proposals.
This reduction in Multi-Dimensional Poverty (MDP) was fairly consistent across the country, though graphically it is clear that areas around the capital, Kigali, and lying closer to or on Rwanda’s borders with other countries have experienced the strongest amount of improvement (Figure 1), with some areas bordering Uganda and most areas bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) along Lake Kivu showing the most visible signs of improvement.
“I feel proud of myself, very proud,” said Rokhaya Niang as she worked. She and her team had had only 100 days to streamline and accelerate the administrative processing of land subdivision applications at the local Ministry of Urbanization office in Rufisque, a city 25 km east of the center of Dakar. The area has been developing quickly since it was chosen as the location of the new national government center, and their office had been swamped under a backlog of allotment and construction requests.
Stéphanie Quoioh is very definite about it: she owes her steady rise in the entrepreneurial world to the Center for Investment Promotion in Côte d’Ivoire (CEPICI), which took her under its wing. A year ago, this young entrepreneur created her startup business, Archive Expert, in less than 24 hours, thanks to CEPICI, which enormously facilitated the task.
In a rapidly urbanizing world, our incautious thirst for plastics and non-degradable products continues to adversely affect local environments and air quality, and contributes to climate change. The need to rethink how to collect and dispose of solid waste is urgent. Whilst many countries and cities have put forth encouraging efforts to recycle and reduce waste, the levels of consumption and the production of waste continue to increase.
In 2016, World Bank Ethiopia launched a Blog4Dev contest inviting students to share their ideas for how Ethiopia can reach middle-income country status without leaving anyone behind. This is the second of three winning entries.
How can Ethiopia reach middle-income country status without leaving anyone behind?
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Six years ago, a revolution started in Tunisia with an unemployed young Tunisian in a secondary city desperate to make his voice heard. This revolution reshaped the country’s development agenda and triggered a decentralization process to give more say to local governments in policymaking. Since then, the World Bank’s work on local governance in Tunisia has expanded from equipping municipalities with basic services into tackling the diverse challenges of decentralization: institutional reform, participatory processes, transparency and accountability, capacity building, and performance assessment.