The Madagascar Urbanization Review aims to: - Contribute to the 2019 National Policy for Urban Development (Politique National de Developpement Urbain), the main policy document outlining the priorities for cities in Madagascar. - Serve as a diagnostic tool to identify the key barriers to...

A competitive city is a city that successfully facilitates its firms and industries to create jobs, raise productivity, and increase the incomes of citizens over time. Worldwide, improving the competitiveness of cities is a pathway to eliminating extreme poverty and to promoting shared...

Tanzania's growth and poverty reduction aspirations hinge on shifting from a reliance on agriculture toward greater productivity. Cities' key role in generating a more competitive economy is already apparent: in 2012, just four Tanzanian cities produced more than half of the country's gross...

African cities are growing at an extraordinary rate. Unfortunately, many cities are growing so fast that national, provincial, and city governments cannot manage how they develop or assure the provision of the services people need. This has many negative consequences for national and city...

Central America is undergoing an important transition, with urban populations increasingat accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges as well as opportunities to boost sustained,inclusive and resilient growth. Today, 59 percent of Central America's population lives in urban areas, but it...

This policy note aims to advance our understanding of urban forced displacement, induced by conflict, by looking at the issue from the perspective of receiving towns and cities. It explores why we need a different approach to addressing urban forced displacement; how to "think differently" about...

The objective of this report is to inform the government's policies and strategies on urbanization as a driver of economic development, job creation, and poverty reduction. Note 1 examines Rwanda's urbanization process since 2002 by analyzing satellite images and other sources. This note...

The objective of this report is to inform the government's policies and strategies on urbanization as a driver of economic development, job creation, and poverty reduction. Note two examines internal migration in Rwanda, which is a recent phenomenon and remains fairly limited, with less than 10...

Rwanda has demonstrated a remarkable performance in economic growth and poverty reduction in the past decade and a half. With urbanization as an explicit developmental strategy, the government has indeed made significant efforts to prepare a solid foundation on which urban development can take...

This note analyzes whether and how the country's rising urbanization levels (measured primarily by population density) are associated with nonfarm job creation and poverty reduction. By focusing on Rwanda's 416 geographic sectors for the decade from 2002 and 2012, the analysis shows that,...