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Annual Report 2002 : Operational Priorities and Performance

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Urban development, municipal services, and housing

Most of the world’s urban growth is occurring in Asia. The region’s urban population grew from about 320 million people in 1965, to over 1 billion people in 2002 and is forecast to reach 2.2 billion people by 2020. Urban centers are also increasing in size and number. A review of the world’s 25 largest cities shows that 13 are located in Asia, including 11 megacities, each with a population in excess of 10 million. In addition, hundreds of millions of people live in thousands of small, medium, and large towns and cities throughout the region.

Urban areas are important to national economies. They are the focal points for trade, commerce, industry, and government administration. Cities and towns are centers of excellence for education, health care, culture, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, social services, and governance. In addition, cities generate opportunities for jobs, employment, and livelihood.

Most Asian towns face significant problems, particularly high incidence of urban poverty; inadequate and dilapidated water supplies, sanitation, and drainage infrastructure; poor standards of public health and hygiene; degraded urban environment; slum housing; traffic congestion; ineffective land management; and inadequate development control. These problems have a disproportionate adverse impact on the lives of the urban poor, compounding their misery. ADB’s vision for the urban sector is to promote safe, liveable, well-managed urban centers, free of poverty, that fulfill the promise of development. This vision is in line with the MDGs.

In 2002, ADB joined the Cities Alliance (see http://www.adb.org/Documents/TARs/REG/r73_02.pdf), an international coalition of towns and cities, and their development partners in working with urban centers to strengthen their ability to prepare city development strategies and initiatives to create cities-without-slums.

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