Cities are a driving force of the 21st century. Through bringing large numbers of people into close proximity, they spark economic growth, foster innovation, and generate prosperity. But they face the pressing challenges of creating a livable environment for their residents, enabling economic activity that benefits all citizens, and fostering urban development that is environmentally sustainable, equitable, and resilient to disruptive forces. Particularly urgent is the need to finance this development: To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, an estimated $3 trillion to $4 trillion is needed annually. In an increasingly urban world, cities play a pivotal role in closing this financial gap.

The publication includes three sections on: principles of municipal finance; designing financial products; and cross-cutting issues. The first section highlights: tools for raising local revenues; challenges local governments face such as insufficient and unreliable transfers from central government, poor tax collection and weak fiscal management; mechanisms on how to improve outdated governance systems, enhance revenues and build better local financial asset management systems; and fiscal decentralization as an important part of sustainable and autonomous municipal finance.

Edited by Marco Kamiya (UN-Habitat) and Le Yin-Zhang (University College London)

External leading contributors: Lars Andersson, Dominic Burbidge, Greg Clark, Doug Carr, Nic Cheeseman, Skye d’Almeida, Lourdes German, Pavel Kochanov, Leonardo Letelier, Tim Moonen, Armando Morales, Miquel Morell, Daniel Platz, Dmitry Pozhidaev, Yasuo Konishi, Devashree Saha, Yoel Siegel, Lawrence Walters, Rami AbdelKaf, Michael Lindfeld, Siraj Sait, Huascar Eguino, John Probyn, Joshua Gallo

融资城市住房提出了住房融资系统的第一次全球性的评估，将宏观经济政策的总体框架内住房和城市发展的挑战。该报告描述和分析了住房融资状况和发展趋势，在世界所有地区，包括正式的住房金融机构，小额贷款和社会资金，突出其相关贫民窟的升级。在住房金融领域近期政策变化是在国际和国家层面进行讨论。该报告还审查可以采取加强住房融资系统，特别是关于实现改善贫民窟居民生活的千年宣言目标的政策方向。

State budgets are vital tools for translating human rights obligations into practical reality. This booklet outlines how States can meet these obligations by allocating the maximum available resources for the realisation of all human rights, and, in this context, the human rights to water and sanitation.Specifically, this booklet outlines how the human rights to water and sanitation are integrated into the four stages of a State’s budget cycle: formulation, enactment, execution and oversight.

The publication is a toolkit specifically prepared to help local authorities raise internal and external resources to finance implementation of priority projects and programmes. It provides useful steps, skills and resources to aid the process of financing a City Development Strategy.

Small water utilities face unique challenges in delivering water and sanitation services to their customers. With a limited revenue base and few opportunities to benefit from economies of scale, they often suffer from severe skill shortages and a long legacy of under investment in infrastructure and capacity enhancement. To overcome these challenges, the small utilities need to maximize their operating efficiencies and ensure optimum utilization of their assets.

The guidelines outline the main principles underlying the democratic, constitutional/legal and administrative aspects of local governance and decentralization. At the same time they must be applied to specific conditions of State form (federal, regionalized or unitary), with different State traditions (for example, Napoleonic, Germanic or Anglo-Saxon, as well as traditions found in Asia, or in the Arab world).

For that reason they do not provide a uniform and rigid blueprint applicable to all Member States of the United Nations. They may be subject to national adaptations. Their main objective, however, is to support and guide legislative reform where necessary and appropriate.

The report sets the Thai economy as a background for examining the housing finance system. It looks at the real estate market and housing market; the evolution of housing development and housing market. It reviews the provision of low income housing in Thailand. It examines the housing finance mechanisms in Thailand. It describes the structure, patterns, trends, characteristics and evolution of housing finance. It reviews the main players of the housing finance system and driving forces for the change.

It examines the strategies and instruments for mobilising domestic resources and the sources and volume of housing finance. It looks at factors constraining the development of housing finance mechanism and policies and strategies to overcome the bottlenecks for housing finance. It also describes the major low income housing finance programs and initiatives. Finally it looks at the alternatives for developing housing mechanisms in Thailand.

This publication is the abridged and Arabic language edition of Financing Urban Shelter: Global Report on Human Settlements 2005.

Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies. The report describes and analyses housing finance conditions and trends in all regions of the world, including formal housing finance mechanisms, microfinance and community funding, highlighting their relevance to the upgrading of slums. Recent policy developments in the area of shelter finance are discussed at the international and national levels. The report also examines policy directions that could be taken to strengthen shelter finance systems, particularly with respect to realizing the Millennium Declaration target of improving the lives of slum dwellers.