Bernama 10 Nov 09;
SINGAPORE, Nov 10 (Bernama) -- The World Bank and Singapore today launched a new global urban strategy that will guide bank advisory services and financing in the sector over the next decade.
The launch was at the inaugural World Bank-Singapore Infrastructure Finance Summit jointly organised by the World Bank Group, Singapore's Finance Ministry and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in association with the Financial Times.
The summit highlighted the importance of urbanisation as a defining phenomenon of this century.
In the next two decades, cities are projected to expand by another two billion people while 90 per cent of urban population growth is expected to occur in the developing world, according to the World Bank.
In a joint statement with the Singapore government, the bank said developing countries needed assistance in facing this historically unprecedented pace of urbanisation, including anticipatory policies and financing for urban services.
"Urbanisation is a vital phase of development, and if managed well, it can be a key driver of long-term economic growth in a country," said World Bank's group president Robert B. Zoellick.
He said climate change, jobs, poverty, education, health, and infrastructure were all development challenges closely intertwined with cities.
"That's why it is so important for the global community to help developing countries address the urbanisation challenge," he added.
The Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and the World Bank will be signing memoranda of understanding with Mongolia, Vietnam and China, to provide the city-state's expertise to assist these governments in developing a regulatory and financing framework to prepare public-private partnership projects for private sector investment.
The cooperation will focus on development of commercially viable infrastructure projects in water and environmental management, power, expressways and roads.
-- BERNAMA
