This webinar assesses the overall rapidly growing financing needs of cities in developing countries and demonstrates that external finance, and in particular international aid, has stagnated at relatively low levels, and moreover has been highly concentrated among a few donor agencies. The webinar reviews the urban strategies of selected major donor agencies and finds that they generally call for increased attention to urban areas and broadly match the key problems with appropriate responses.

External Assistance for Urban Finance Development

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New technologies have reduced the development cost of products, services and business models. Cloud computing, open software and hardware, social networks and global payment platforms have made it easier to start business with fewer physical resources and personnel. This trend is allowing aspiring entrepreneurs to take advantage of cities’ agglomeration effects: entrepreneurs “want to live where the action is,” where other young people, social activities and peers and entrepreneurs are. They look for conventional startup support, such as mentor networks or role models, but also for meet-ups, social activities and other potential for innovative “collisions” – a combination of opportunities best provided by cities. Fostering tech innovation ecosystems will provide skills for today’s new job landscape and innovators to create new companies and industries, while also addressing local problems from developed and developing countries. Cities, as technology ecosystems and engines of innovation, will be at the center of these new potential transformations. Gianluca Galletto and David Sierra explain how their organizations, the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Ruta N in Medellin, respectively, support entrepreneurship and data-driven innovation within urban innovation ecosystems.

Generating new employment and entrepreneurship through investing in innovation

Cities can re-validate and rejuvenate urban services that reflect both the needs of citizens and those of the city hall by asking citizens to contribute to the design of services, products, business models and environments. Various instruments such as crowdsourcing campaigns, offline meetings and interactive policy workshops can be used to open up the planning process to citizens. Beyond the contribution to the city’s overall innovation policy, such strategies increase ‘innovation literacy’ among civil servants allowing the city hall to adopt a more agile approach to implement innovation by using service design and rapid prototyping methods. This enables administration to better address complex urban problems by engaging users and citizens in planning process. Examples from Amsterdam (Chief Technology Office) and Mexico City (Laboratorio de Ciudad) show how cities can foster civic innovation, entrepreneurship and re-thinking of city spaces through implementing specific strategies, thematic programs and flagship projects.

This webinar was created in collaboration with GTIDR and GSURR.

Flagship Initiatives to Foster Civic Innovation

Living Labs are open and citizen driven innovation ecosystems and structures, used as Instruments for urban and regional innovation. Living Labs use co-creation and a real-life experimental approach to establish a dialog between technology and society leading to investments in new technologies focused on solving citizen’s problems. Implementation of multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholders collaborative infrastructures, tools and methodologies is not always easy. This webinar will explore the “what” and the “how to” of living labs, showcasing 2 Living Labs in 2 different countries: Brazil and Poland. 

The purpose of Habitat Living Lab (Vitoria, Brazil) is the improvement of wellbeing and conditions of low-income populations. To achieve its purpose, Habitat LL is organized as a network of projects that combines academia, Government, business and society. Necessarily projects are geared toward the search for innovative solutions that allow advances in any of the areas related to well living. In addition, innovative solutions are sought with the involvement of "users" in a co-creation process. In addition to the Habitat Living Lab, the LabTAR will be presented as an example of an academic lab that manages the Living Lab projects all over Brazil.

Citizen Driven innovation: Living labs in action

Innovation is largely an urban phenomenon. Some cities fare better than others and have grown to become global staples in innovation. 

Others have found their innovative niche and are silent champions. Recently, we have witnessed the growth of tech startup ecosystems, which is impacting innovation in cities. Some cities have started taking advantage of these new entrepreneurs to bring innovation to urban problems and to increase the competitiveness of their local industry. This new phenomena also helps revitalizing urban areas and creating new jobs. 

Victor Mulas, ICT Innovation Specialist with the World Bank Group will discuss current success stories and what policy interventions regional and local governments can undertake to unleash its innovative potential leveraging the tech startup ecosystem. He will draw upon illustrious examples from his own work from all parts of the World.

Innovation Within Cities

The percentage of the world’s population that lives in cities is rising, approaching 70 percent by 2050. Rapid urbanization – particularly among the growing middle class in many low-income and emerging economies – is changing the traditional dynamics of energy systems and supply globally. Green growth strategies can help economies and societies become more resilient as they work to meet demand for food production, transport, housing, energy, and water. For example, lighting and cooling of buildings already make up half of global energy use, and by 2030 building-related GHG emissions are set to double, with emerging markets contributing the majority of emissions. Energy efficiency is widely recognized as one of the most effective ways to combat climate change while meeting rising energy demand. Information and communication technology (ICT) is an important driver for clean-tech and green growth. It enables the collection and processing of immense volumes of data that can be used for improved urban systems and new business models. It also allows developing countries to adapt successfully tested international solutions to their local needs, which can help them leapfrog and develop domestic clean technology markets. 

The Negawatt Challenge taps into local and global talent to identify hardware and software solutions that can reduce urban energy use, improve quality of service delivery in energy sectors, generate new or improved data, and offer cost-efficient energy management tools for city residents and policymakers. In its first stage, focusing on resource efficiency and open data, the Negawatt has been piloted in four cities globally, including Accra, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and Rio de Janeiro. It aims to use an open innovation competition methodology to surface technology and business innovations that catalyze behavioral change and have the potential to transform cities into more sustainable and efficient places.

External Assistance for Urban Finance Development

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