World Bank Blogs IBRD and IDA: Working for a World Free of Poverty. en The need to promote diversified urbanization Urbanization is not just about development of a single city within a country. In fact, a country’s cities can be treated as a portfolio of assets, each differentiated by characteristics that include size, location, and density of settlement (WDR 2009), each with its own role to play in the country’s economic development and poverty reduction. Small cities, for example, facilitate internal scale economies, such as hosting large firms to transform local agricultural products. Medium-sized cities facilitate localization economies by enabling linkages between firms operating in the same industry, and large cities create urbanization economies through a diverse economic base nurturing innovation.<br /> <br /> A recent report, <a href="" rel="nofollow">Cote d’Ivoire Urbanization Review: Diversified Urbanization</a>, uses the case of Cote d’Ivoire to propose a typology of cities to support the country’s economic transformation: global connectors, regional connectors and domestic connectors. Each of these types of cities require a differentiated approach to planning, connectivity, greening and financing of the infrastructure needs.<br /> <br /> Abidjan, San Pédro, and Yamoussoukro are Côte d’Ivoire’s natural global connectors. The Greater Abidjan area dominates with 20% of the population, 80% of formal employment, and 90% of formal enterprises. It is an advanced urban area facing similar challenges of other metropolitan areas around the world. The port of San Pédro, built from scratch under the first development plan, is the main export gateway for agricultural products, and was planned to be connected by rail to the mineral heart of the West (Man and its surroundings). Yamoussoukro has been the capital since the 1980s, although national public administration is still in Abidjan. The city has one of the most reputable polytechnic engineering schools in francophone Africa, offering the potential to build bridges to technology companies if information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure is scaled up to global standards.<br /> <br /> The regional connectors of Côte d’Ivoire are connected to the West African region through five corridors. The northern corridor connects Abidjan with Ouagadougou through a road and rail link that passes through Bouaké (the country’s second-largest city), Korhogo (the capital of the Northern region with nearly 200,000 inhabitants), and Ferkessédougou (a secondary city of 75,000 inhabitants). Eastward, Côte d’Ivoire is connected to Lagos, Nigeria, via a road running through Aboisso and Noe on the Ivorian side and through three capital cities in West Africa (Accra in Ghana, Lomé in Togo, and Cotonou in Benin). Another eastward connection to Ghana (via Kumassi and Tamale) runs through Adzope, Abengourou, and Bondoukou. Abidjan is connected to Nzerekore in Guinea via a road through Yamoussoukro, Daloa, and Man, each of which has more than 150,000 inhabitants and is in a region rich in agriculture, minerals, or tourism. Another westward connection to Monrovia in Liberia goes through Grand Lahou, Sassandra, San Pédro, and Tabou along the Gulf of Guinea. If we consider the threshold of 100,000 inhabitants, the following secondary cities along the three regional corridors are the main Regional Connectors: Adzope and Abengourou (East corridor), Bouaké and Korhogo (North corridor), and Daloa and Man (West corridor).<br /> <br /> Côte d’Ivoire’s small cities and market towns could be anchors, generating scale economies for agribusiness. While southwest regions strongly contribute to the production and export of cash crops, savanna areas can help scale up food and cereal production to supply urban centers domestically and regionally. In the long term, with the movement of the cocoa belt from eastern and central regions to the south (with an eye on the port of San Pédro), climate change and international economic conditions might once more shift the heart of these cash-crop production areas. Given increasing regional disparities in Côte d’Ivoire, good connections between the agricultural hinterlands of secondary cities with strategic regional capital cities may help smallholders to modernize into agribusiness chains.<br /> <br /> Well-managed urbanization can accelerate Côte d’Ivoire’s ascendance to a middle income country. With an urban population share of 50% in 2014, Cote d’Ivoire’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is at $1,380 (figure 1). Georgia, Guatemala and Indonesia, three countries located in three different continents and with an urban population share close to that of Côte d’Ivoire, have GNI per capita of $3,570, $3,340 and $3,580 respectively. Such a large gap in GNI per capita means that the underlining economic drivers of urbanization are not being fully harnessed in Côte d’Ivoire. Better managing urbanization can nurture activities that generate higher returns in economic growth and job creation through the expansion of the manufacturing sector (figure 2).<br /> &nbsp; <table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="1" style="width: 100%;"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="rtecenter"> <span style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><strong>Figure 1</strong><br /> The Ivorian economy is underperforming urbanization...</span></td> <td class="rtecenter"> <strong>Figure 2: </strong><br /> … although manufacturing is better correlated with urbanization</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="rtecenter"> <img alt="" height="146" src="" title="" width="250" /></td> <td class="rtecenter"> <img alt="" height="146" src="" title="" width="250" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td> <div class="rtecenter"> <span style="font-size: 9px">Source: WDI; World Bank staff calculations</span></div> <div class="rtecenter"> <span style="font-size: 9px">Note: CIV: Côte d’Ivoire; GEO: Georgia; GTM: Guatemala; IDN: Indonesia</span></div> </td> <td> <div class="rtecenter"> <span style="font-size: 9px">Source: WDI; World Bank staff calculations</span></div> <div class="rtecenter"> <span style="font-size: 9px">Note: CIV: Côte d’Ivoire; SSA: Sub-Saharan Africa; Other: All other countries excluding SSA countries</span></div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <br /> To achieve diversified urbanization, Ivorian policy makers need to act urgently along four dimensions:&nbsp; <ul> <li> Planning—charting a course for cities by setting the terms of urbanization, especially policies for using urban land, enabling housing markets, and expanding basic infrastructure and public services.</li> <li> Connecting—making a city’s markets accessible (labor, goods, and services) to other cities and to other neighborhoods in the city, as well as to export markets.</li> <li> Greening—enhancing livability of cities by reducing pollution and emissions and conserving scarce environmental and financial resources.</li> <li> Financing—finding sources for large capital outlays needed to provide infrastructure and services as cities grow and urbanization picks up speed.</li> </ul> This framework reflects the principles identified by stakeholders from national and subnational government and the private sector, which helped to formulate a shared vision of urbanization in Côte d’Ivoire.&nbsp; These stakeholders believe that successful urbanization should lead to “cities that are planned, structured, competitive, attractive, inclusive, and organized around development poles.”<br /> &nbsp; Fri, 23 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0400 Souleymane Coulibaly Thriving Cities Will Drive Eurasia's Growth <p>Cities have always been the driving forces of world civilizations. What Niniveh was to the Assyrian civilization, Babylon was to the Babylonian civilization. &nbsp;When Peter the Great, third in the Romanov Dynasty, became Russia’s ruler in 1696, Moscow’s influence began to expand. Peter strengthened the rule of the tsar and westernized Russia, at the same time, making it a European powerhouse and greatly expanding its borders. By 1918, the Russian empire spanned a vast territory from Western Europe to China.</p> <p>As Peter the Great and his successors strove to consolidate their reign over this empire, major social, economic, cultural, and political changes were happening in the urban centers. Moscow led these changes, followed by St. Petersburg, which was built as a gateway to filter and channel western civilization through the empire. By fostering diversification through connectivity, specialization, and scale economies, these cities started the structural transformation of the Russian empire away from depending on commodities and limited markets in a way that more effectively served local demand.</p> <p><IMG alt="" align=middle src="" width=450 height=300></p> <p>The Soviet era altered this dynamic.<!--break--></p> <p>Two decades after the Soviet Union’s breakup, <A href="">Eurasian countries are facing new challenges</A>:</p> <p><B>Return of market as the main driver of the society</B><B>:</B> The failure of the Soviet economic model opened the former Soviet Union to market-oriented reforms that stimulated growth and integrated the region into the global economy. Within the region, production and intraregional trade have significant potential to expand.</p> <p><B>Rise of the European Union (EU)</B><B>:</B> Western Europe has risen in prominence, purchasing power, and ease of access. Further, the EU has adopted an explicit policy to deepen its economic ties with Eastern European countries through the European Neighborhood policy.</p> <p><B>Rise of Asia:<I> </I></B>China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea have been the most dynamic growth stories of the past 50 years. They will offer new trade opportunities as they continue to integrate with the world. India joined them two decades ago and is also reaping the growth benefits of reforms and new investments.</p> <p>In this <A href="">new context</A>, thriving cities are key drivers of growth. Around the world, leading cities play a key role in production and export by delivering a range of services. That, in turn, helps sustain economic activities, and drive urbanization dynamics in the country. Leading cities tend to be well connected domestically and externally, and offer the most diversified production. Leading <A href=",,contentMDK:23369141~noSURL:Y~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html">Eurasian cities </A>in the former Soviet countries are no exception, and could play a much greater role in driving the integration of the region into world markets.</p> <P>But for this to happen, policy makers in all Eurasian countries need to &nbsp;plan cities more effectively&nbsp;to contain congestion and maximize agglomeration economies; improve city connectivity both internally and with key global &nbsp;hubs; green their cities to make them more attractive to young and talented workers; and change how cities are financed to allow other Eurasian cities to complement Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev as the anchors of this region in world markets.</P> <P><EM><STRONG>Eurasia</STRONG> refers to&nbsp;<A href="">Armenia</A>, <A href="">Azerbaijan</A>, <A href="">Belarus</A>, <A href="">Georgia</A>, <A href="">Kazakhstan</A>, <A href="">Kyrgyz Republic</A>, <A href="">Moldova</A>, <A href="">Russian Federation (Russia)</A>, <A href="">Tajikistan</A>, <A href="">Turkmenistan</A>, <A href="">Ukraine</A>, and <A href="">Uzbekistan</A>.</EM></P> Mon, 11 Mar 2013 09:34:00 -0400 Souleymane Coulibaly It’s Arithmetic – even in Armenia! <p>At a time when all decision-makers around the world can think about is the state of their country’s economy, debt, spending and fiscal stability, one phrase attempts to sum it all up: it’s arithmetic.<br><br>In <a href="">Armenia</a>, it is all about arithmetic too.<br><br>Despite the volatility of Armenia’s economy in the twenty years since the country gained independence, effective government reforms led to double-digit growth rates from 2001 to 2007. That ended with the global financial crisis in 2008.<br><!--break--><br>The following year, Armenia’s GDP shrank by 14 percent. In weathering that storm, Armenia incurred a high fiscal deficit and heavy levels of public debt. The country now needs fiscal consolidation as a matter of priority, but that must not come at the cost of sustained economic growth.<br><br>Simply put, the temptation to reduce public expenditure should be resisted. Armenia already spends less on health, education, public wages and infrastructure than similar income-level countries like <a href="">Georgia</a> and <a href=",,menuPK:304478~pagePK:141159~piPK:141110~theSitePK:304473,00.html">FYR Macedonia</a>. Further cuts could hurt growth, weaken the country’s human and physical capital, and undermine its fiscal sustainability. At the same time, though, the government should pursue a sensible program of reform to make its current public expenditure more efficient.<br><br>The most fruitful reforms lie in the tax system. Tax collection rates are low, and need to increase. Greater effort should be made to tackle the informal economy, where people or businesses work without reporting part or all of their income, while corruption in tax collection must be reduced. Additional reforms should address the excise sector, mining, and excessive tax privileges. If properly done, revenues could increase by between 2.3 and 5.8 percent of GDP.<br><br>That’s good arithmetic, right?<br><br><i>Check out the latest Armenia Public Expenditure Review</i> <i><a href="">here</a>.</i></p> Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:59:29 -0400 Souleymane Coulibaly