Bridging the Urban Infrastructure Project Preparation Gap in Asia

Abstract

The speed of Asia’s urbanization is without historical precedent. According to UN estimates 1.7 billion urban dwellers will be added to the urban population in the next 40 years. Faced with the forces of a globalizing economy and with the stress imposed upon urban infrastructure by migration and informal development, traditional approaches to urban planning and development are seen as inadequate. Existing urban development strategies and/or urban master plans in cities generally cannot be translated into medium-term structured infrastructure investment programs (constrained by realistic financing limitations), with prioritized projects. Governments, particularly of medium-sized cities, often have difficulties to match plans with financing. This article provides an introductory overview of an innovative regional development program which was created in response to these challenges. The Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) was created in 2007 as a multi-agency regional partnership program to assist medium-sized cities (with functional urban population ranging between 250,000 to 5 million) in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB’s) Developing Member Countries to bridge the gap between their development plans and implementation of their strategic infrastructure investments. The initiative is an international partnership program based in Manila, Philippines co-managed by the ADB and German Technical Co-operation (GTZ).2 The article describes CDIAs rationale including information about its governance and operational structure, as well as initial operational experience in cities by focusing on expected developmental impacts. The article ends by presenting a reflection and probable scenario of CDIA beyond 2012.