Book Review: Municipal Infrastructure Financing: Innovative Practices from Developing Countries (Edited by Munawwar Alam)

摘要

Rapid urbanisation creates a need to expand urban services and that expansion is not possible without adequate finances. However, fiscal decentralization has not kept pace with administrative and functional decentralisation so that municipal bodies lack the funds required to operate existing facilities and extend services into new areas. Municipal Infrastructure Financing addresses this issue. It draws on a desk-based secondary study of relevant literature and municipal data, supplemented by primary research in four case study municipalities: Dar es Salaam and Kampala in East Africa, and Karachi and Dhaka in South Asia. The first two chapters provide a general overview of the book and of the state of municipal finance in Commonwealth developing countries. Chapters 3 – 6 set out the findings of the four case studies, Chapter 7 examines a number of innovative approaches to municipal financing and Chapter 8 draws conclusions from what has gone before.