Cities Alliance 2002 Annual Report

Three years after its creation, the Cities Alliance is already making development impacts at both the global and local levels. Principal among these is the adoption by world leaders of an international development target which, for the first time, focuses on tackling poverty where it is growing most rapidly — in cities.The Alliance’s Cities Without Slums initiative has been endorsed as a Millennium Development Goal –“by 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers”. This goal is already being adopted as a challenging vision by civic leaders worldwide, who are responding with specific actions and concrete targets for improving the living conditions of their most vulnerable and marginalised urban residents.

The Alliance is helping its members define a new strategic course for urban development co-operation, a course increasingly led by civic leaders who are tackling head-on the negative effects of growing inequalities and social exclusion. By focusing on the city as the unit of analysis, rather than on sectors, and on solutions promoted by local authorities and the urban poor themselves, city development strategies (CDS) supported by the Alliance provide a framework for citywide poverty reduction.And by engaging potential investment partners from the outset, the Alliance is encouraging the development of new investment instruments to expand the level of resources reaching local authorities and the urban poor.

This report highlights Alliance impacts at both the local and the global level. Examples from all regions demonstrate Alliance partners in action during Fiscal Year 2002 (FY02), as well as the achievements and impacts of Alliance activities initiated in FY01. It is clear that Alliance partners have already begun the process of drawing lessons from these experiences and are adapting their approaches based upon these lessons.