In 25 years, two-thirds of the world's population will live in towns and cities. This poses many challenges: Faced with the ecological, economic and social effects of modernization and migration in cities, the main question is how can they be governed in future. The adverse consequences of urban growth are felt most strongly by poor people who often move to unplanned settlements and slums in search of a better livelihood.

Extreme poverty can therefore only be halved as envisaged in the Millenium Development Goals (MDG 1) if poverty is also reduced in the cities. MDG 7 seeks a significant improvement in the conditions of life of at least 100 million slumdwellers and improvements in health, education and the environment. To achieve these goals localized poverty reduction strategies need to be developed in cooperation with municipal authorities.

GTZ measures address different levels, combining direct development with policy advice and empowerment of the poor:

• Multisectoral programmes with a broad range of advisory services
• Capacity building for improved self-organization and participation of the poor population
• Strengthening institutional capacities for pro-poor services
• Advice in good urban governance, for increased transparency, accountability and a more equitable distribution of public funds
• Linkage of advice at regional and national level for directing pro-poor development processes
• Sectoral programme approaches for cost-effective access of poor city-dwellers to municipal services.

Project examples

• Mozambique
  Waste management in the Maputo metropolitan area
  en-urban-development-mdg-project-mozambique.pdf, 0.01 MB (English)

• Egypt
  Participation-oriented development programme in densely populated urban areas
  Programme description