Mobilizing local financial resource a prerequisite for achieving the Sdgs

Africa’s urban transition has to deal with two challenges. The first challenge for the funding of African urban investment is how to meet the existing deficit left by several decades of under-investment in the urban areas. Decades of under-investment in urban areas, have had negative consequences on both urban and national economies. The second challenge is anticipating through investment so as to cope with urban growth. Anticipating urbanization, is planning the population investments which help to manage in real time the population process especially as the annual urban population growth will remain high over the decades ahead.
The issue of mobilizing their own fiscal and non-fiscal resources is one of the fundamental questions that African intermediate cities must answer if they are to contribute to the implementation of the United Nations' Agenda for Action and the African Union's Agenda 2063. The Addis Ababa Agenda for Action calls for cities, and particularly intermediate cities, to be strengthened in their capacity to mobilize their own resources.
The event will examine strategies through which city governments in Africa can widen their access to financial resources for financing transition actions. An overview of key trends and trend-drivers in city revenues across Africa - particularly own source revenues and borrowing – will be provided to set the scene. Thereafter, an interactive plenary discussion on the ways in which city governments can meet the challenge of financing rapidly expanding urban infrastructure and service-delivery needs. The panel will comprise a combination of senior city officials who have led concrete initiatives through which different types of African city have significantly improved their financial and revenue performance, and financial institutions who can provide relevant perspectives and lessons from other contexts.
To well manage this transition, Africa’s cities need to support vibrant economies and deliver services equitably to urban dwellers. None of this is possible unless cities have the financial resources they need to deliver the infrastructure, services and administrative capacities required for this.
The event seeks to explore concrete and practical ways through which the transition can be fund.