Le présent rapport examine les défis fondamentaux à relever dans le financement des administrations publiques locales, les principales sources de recettes des collectivités locales et l’expérience acquise dans la fourniture de services durables. Il étudie également les systèmes et pratiques innovantes de gestion financière appliqués en Afrique. Cette analyse est complétée par une étude de cas consacrée à la ville de Gaborone (Botswana). Enfin, nous proposons certaines pistes pour l’amélioration des finances locales sur le continent africain.

In the past fifty years, there has been an unprecedented increase in urban population which directly translates into a mushrooming of slums worldwide. In 2001, 924 million people or 31.6% of the world’s urban population lived in the slums, with the majority being from the developing regions. Indeed, it has been documented that African cities have experienced the fastest population growth rates in the World history. However, they have been unable to cope with the increasing demand for essential services like housing, health and education. As a consequence, a rapidly increasing number of urban dwellers in Africa live in poverty and reside in overcrowded slums which lack the essentials to sustain even a modest living.

It is in this regard, that housing cooperatives have become an essential means in dealing with the challenges of over-urbanization in Kenya. Several initiatives by the Government, UN-HABITAT, the public and the private sector have been underway in the establishment of housing cooperatives particularly for the low-income earners. There has also been a mushrooming of micro financing institutions to enable the formation and sustainability of new housing co-operatives.

These co-operative societies also play a significant role towards a country’s economic growth. The UN estimated that in 1994 the livelihood of nearly 3 billion people or half of the world’s population was made secure by cooperative enterprises. Indeed, in Kenya, Cooperatives employment creation amounts to 240,000 people and contributes to 45% of the Gross Domestic Product.

This report evaluates the role of infrastructure in promoting economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa. It is devoted to the study of the complementary physical infrastructure - telecommunications, power, transport (roads, railways, ports and airports), and water supply.

Microfinance has ushered in a new understanding of the needs of the poor and the potential for financial services to enable the poor to escape from poverty. Current literature argues over the way how microfinance has enabled users to climb above the poverty line.

This report explores how microfinance could boost current efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The relationships between specific Goal and microfinance are explored, together with the potential for mutual benefits between both. Why this potential has not been a higher priority for the microfinance sector is also considered.

This report argues that substantial synergies are yet to be realized between microfinance and Goals, based on careful, well- targeted approaches that are not only pro-poor, but also focus on the unique situation of the chronic poor.

The report arises out of special session on the global financial crisis organised by UN-HABITAT in 2008. The report discusses the current housing finance crisis and its impacts on the housing sector, affordable housing and the global economy.

It examines the underlying factors and evolution of the global financial crisis and its preceding sub-prime crisis and its spreading, and the major players in the crisis, particularly the role of government, government-sponsored enterprises and specialised housing finance institutions and innovative funding instruments.

It reexamines the effectiveness, efficiency and fairness of the current global financial governance system. It discusses lessons and options under the crisis and implications of extended government intervention in the housing finance market. It also looks at the impats of the global financial crisis.

The subprime crisis refers to the collapse of subprime mortgage markets in the United States due to the sharp rise in foreclosures beginning in 2006, which led to the failure, merger, and government bailout of leading American financial institutions and enterprises.

This report examines the causes and impacts of subprime crisis. The report examines the elements causing the crisis, particularly the over-spending behaviors of both governments and individuals and deregulation and lack of monitoring.

The over-spending beyond the income/revenue capacity leads to the imbalance between income/revenue and spending and eventually causes the sub-prime crisis and further the global financial and economic crisis.The report then examines the impacts of the crisis.

This report examines how the public-private partnership (PPP) model can be applied to help promote sustainable housing and urban development for countries around the world. The report has two main parts.

First, it identifies key opportunities and challenges faced by PPPs in general, and provides PPP best practices and guiding principles adopted by governments at various levels of economic development. Second, it describes global patterns in the most prominent urban PPP sectors followed by case studies that have been adopted and implemented by various governments around the globe.

The case studies evaluate the performance of the partnership by analyzing and cross-referencing each against the key ideas and best practices presented in preceding chapters of this report.

This report surveys research and policy in the field of gender and economic development, with particular emphasis on economic literature and practice. The begins with a history of gender and economic development thought, and includes a statistical overview of women and men in developing economies, covering data on employment, Millennium Development Goals, and composite indices of gender equality. 

The report is mainly based on an analytical framework for applying gender and economic development concepts to policy by linking production relations in the household to macroeconomy. The household model, it emphasizes how gender structures the conditions of provisioning and the consequences for women's empowerment and human capabilities. It contrasts standard economic approaches to macroeconomy with one that reflects how meso-level institutions like markets or the public sector are themselves "bearers of gender", explicitly incorporating the production of human capabilities in the domestic sector.

It applies this framework to a survey of current gender and economic development issues, including globalization, liberalization and women's empowerment, the gendered terrain of central bank policy, the relationship between gender equality and economic growth, and the macroeconomics of economic development and care.

This report examines the economic role of cities. It illustrates the important contributions of cities to national economic development and poverty reduction. It looks at the agglomeration economies, city clusters, city regions and mega city regions.

The Community Land Trust (CLT) is an increasingly important strategy for addressing affordability of land and housing for low- to moderate-income residents of communities throughout the United States. CLTs are generally non-governmental, nonprofit organizations which acquire land and hold it in trust for the benefit of the local community. They provide opportunities for residents below a certain income threshold to lease the land and buy or rent affordable housing, create community gardens, and/or practice sustainable agriculture and forestry.

In the past 40 years, the nationwide network of CLTs has grown to over 200 organizations. The CLT model holds great promise for meeting affordable housing and land needs in communities around the world. This report explores the CLT concept and history, explains how it works, and offers a series of successful CLT case studies in urban and rural areas.