EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
at national and local level to include users in the evaluation and control of public services and municipalities through consultation, open (online) monitoring systems, or surveys, mostly in Europe. In Latin America, the ‘Bogotá Como Vamos’ project is another example. However, in many countries, it is not easy for users to access the information to participate effectively. Local governments are best placed to collect and publish this data, both for services that they provide directly and those provided by external stakeholders. This information is essential in the local and national policymaking, particularly for control and monitoring and to curb corruption. An important dimension of accountability is dialogue between local governments and workers and trade unions. This is a tradition in most of Europe. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, there is a tradition of neighbourhood organization and mobilization to demand and defend local services. One of the most innovative examples of citizen participation is the participatory budgeting process launched in Porto Alegre in the early 90s, now active in over 1,000 cities.99 An outstanding example is the city of Chengdu, China, where over 50,000 projects were implemented in 2,300 communities in recent years, resulting in great improvements in day-to-day life for millions of people. Participatory budgeting also introduced local democratic changes through resident participation in deliberations. (For more examples, see Box 5).
Strategic planning
Cabannes (2013); Cabannes and Ming (2013). 99
United Nations (2012); IFRC (2010). 100
101
IPCC (2012).
The governance of basic services is inextricably linked to spatial and long-term strategic planning. Many cities need to plan their future to reverse the deterioration in living standards, reduce the number of slums and accommodate the 1.4 billion new urban
residents projected over the next twenty years. This planning includes infrastructure for basic services, which cannot be improvised; repayment takes years, even decades. Planning plays a key role in enabling cities to benefit from economies of agglomeration. Therefore, infrastructure plans and priorities for basic services should be informed by a clear understanding of the spatial distribution of current and future economic and social activity. A spatial perspective sheds light on the need to coordinate across sectors, with due regard to social, environmental and economic contexts. The urbanization process also requires that each city and its rural hinterland be treated as an integrated economic and social unit. Prosperity and density go together. Concentration triggers prosperity in both urban and rural areas. The rural versus urban debate should be replaced by an understanding of their interdependence. The economic and social integration of rural and urban areas is the only route to growth and inclusive development.
Climate change prevention
and
disaster
A high proportion of cities globally have experienced extreme weather events (including storms, floods and heat waves) that have caused disasters,100 with cities in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and North America most at risk. The cost of these disasters has been growing rapidly, and climate change is likely to increase their frequency and intensity.101 The impact of these extreme weather events varies, and is influenced by the quality of housing, infrastructure and services, as well as by whether local governments have managed expansion in ways that avoid the occupation of high-risk sites. In cities where a substantial proportion of the population lives in informal settlements lacking basic infrastructure