About Cities Alliance

WHAT IS THE CITIES ALLIANCE?

The Cities Alliance is a global coalition of cities and their development partners committed to scaling up successful approaches to poverty reduction.

The Alliance:

Brings cities together in a direct dialogue with bilateral and multilateral agencies and financial institutions
Promotes, through its members, the developmental role of local governments and helps cities of all sizes obtain more coherent international support
Promotes the positive impacts of urbanisation and helps local authorities plan and prepare for future growth
Helps cities develop sustainable financing strategies and attract long-term capital investments for infrastructure and other services

CITIES ALLIANCE MEMBERS

Local authorities: United Cities and Local Governments and Metropolis
Governments: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States of America
Non-governmental organisations: Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and Habitat for Humanity International
Multi-lateral organisations: European Union, UNEP, UN-HABITAT and the World Bank

WHAT DOES THE CITIES ALLIANCE DO?

The Cities Alliance provides matching grants in support of:

City development strategies (CDS) which link the process by which local stakeholders define their vision for their city and its economic growth, environmental and poverty reduction objectives, with clear priorities for actions and investments
Citywide and nationwide slum upgrading in accordance with the Alliance’s Cities Without Slums Action Plan (MDG Target 11), including promoting secure tenure, access to shelter finance and policies to help cities prevent the growth of new slums
Sustainable financing strategies for cities to attract the long-term capital investments needed for infrastructure, including improving accountability for service delivery and demonstrating stable revenue streams to more effectively leverage domestic capital

The Cities Alliance is also a learning alliance, working with networks of cities, organisations of the urban poor, universities and other partners to capture and disseminate the collective knowledge of city stakeholders on ways to reduce urban poverty and improve the quality and impact of urban development cooperation.

The Alliance’s overall strategic objectives are to build political commitment and a shared vision for scaling up slum upgrading and city development strategies, to distil and share knowledge on sound practices and experiences, and to catalyse citywide and nationwide impacts. Particular emphasis is placed on supporting longer-term, in-country programmes for cities and local government to support systemic change.

HISTORY OF THE CITIES ALLIANCE

The Cities Alliance was created in 1999 when 10 donor governments joined the World Bank, UN-HABITAT and the major international associations of local authorities to form a new partnership aimed at focusing on two key issues: the growth of slums and the management of cities where slum growth was taking place.

The first act of the newly created Cities Alliance was to produce the Cities Without Slums Action Plan, which created a proposed target of improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020—the first time such a measurable target had been set in the international development arena. South African President Nelson Mandela agreed to serve as patron of the Action Plan, which was subsequently incorporated into the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000 as Target 11 of the Millennium Development Goals. (Read more about the Cities Without Slums Action Plan.)