Financing Cities : Fiscal Responsibility and Urban Infrastructure in Brazil, China, India, Poland and South Africa

This book, Financing cities, emphasized
case studies on different topics to look at the interactions
of a range of variables and factors and to see how they fit
together. Rather than require each case to follow the same
format, the authors have structured their papers around the
issues that matter most from their perspective in addressing
the topic in hand. The first part of this book presents case
studies describing the framework established at the national
level to promote urban infrastructure finance while ensuring
fiscal discipline and reviewing recent experience as well as
future challenges. The subjects covered include the impact
of political and fiscal decentralization, limitations on
borrowing, managing moral hazard, the role of the financial
sector, the achieving of the right balance between stringent
controls and encouragement of local governments taking
responsibility for fiscal discipline coupled with market
discipline. The cases featured include three of the
world's largest decentralized nations; together the
five countries featured in the conference account for nearly
a third of the world's urban population. Part I
includes case studies for each of the five countries
featured in the conference: Brazil (Chapter 1), China
(Chapter 2), India (Chapter 3), Poland (Chapter 4) and South
Africa (Chapter 5). Part II then shifts from the frameworks
for fiscal discipline to urban infrastructure investments
and the strategies used to mobilize investment funding.
Chapters 6 and 7 examine the financing strategies for urban
infrastructure in Shanghai and Brazil respectively. The next
two chapters focus on specialized intermediaries offering
urban infrastructure finance in cities. One is a fully
private venture in South Africa (Chapter 9) while the other,
in Tamil Nadu, India (Chapter 8), is a spin-off of a
government fund with minority private ownership. The final
two chapters examine experiences with two other mechanisms
for mobilizing funding for infrastructure investments from
the private sector, land leasing and sales (Chapter 10) and
private participation in infrastructure operations (Chapter 11).