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What is the
Cities Alliance?
The Cities Alliance is
a coalition of cities and their development partners
committed to urban poverty reduction. The Alliance
aims to improve the efficiency and impact of urban
development cooperation in two key areas: scaling up
slum upgrading and promoting participatory and
inclusive city development strategies. 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 distill and share knowledge on sound practices
and experiences, and to catalyze citywide and
nationwide impacts. The Cities Alliance manages a
small grant facility ("Core Funds") to encourage
innovations and reach its strategic objectives. The
Alliance also manages "Non-Core Funds," such as the
Cities Without Slums Facility for Africa.
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What is the Cities Without Slums Facility for
Africa?
The Cities Without
Slums Facility was created specifically for
Sub-Saharan Africa to help address the underlying
conditions for scaling up the attack on urban
poverty in the region. The Facility will make
available support to cities that wish to develop
citywide approaches to slum upgrading and strategic
development plans for poverty reduction, working
with organizations of the urban poor, civil society,
and the private sector. The Facility can also assist
Cities Alliance members to support the efforts of
SSA partners (national and local authorities, civil
society) to design and implement programs of action,
in accordance with Cities Without Slums Action
Plan.
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What is the Cities Without Slums Action Plan?
The Cities Without
Slums Action Plan sets the target of improving the
lives of 100 million urban slum dwellers by 2020. At
the Millennium Summit September 2000, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted it as Millennium
Development Target #11. The impacts of this goal
will be measured by two primary indicators: access
to improved sanitation and to security of tenure.
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How can funds from the Cities Without Slums Facility
for Africa be used?
The main purpose of the Facility is to help
cities access longer-term support from the Cities
Alliance and its members. The Facility
will support cities committed to citywide upgrading
and to secure tenure, and that are prepared to set
specific local impact targets in support of the
Cities Without Slums action plan. The Facility
will also support the efforts of organizations of
urban poor and organizations of local authorities to
build their capacities to be full partners in this
development process.
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What are the key methods of intervention?
- Strengthening in-country capacity by restructuring policy, regulatory, operating frameworks and legal/technical constraints to upgrading at scale;
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Encouraging local commitment and resolve, including political understanding and buy-in;
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Helping committed cities and countries design scale delivery through citywide and national upgrading programmes;
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Strengthening partner capacity to focus attention on the task, with emphasis on the resources, knowledge and tools to help government, communities and civil society do the job well and at scale
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Supporting the preparation of comprehensive city development strategies to address urban poverty and upgrading;
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Supporting regional knowledge and learning that captures and shares the varied approaches and local practices used to get the job done better and with the full involvement of the affected communities; organizing networks of practice; fielding specialists to help countries and cities move to scale.
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Who is eligible to receive funds from the Cities Without Slums Facility for
Africa?
Funds may go to Local Governments and/or Associations of Local Government, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) that represent slum dwellers, local governments, private businesses, and/or local and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). All applications must be co-sponsored by at least one member of the Alliance and meet the threshold eligibility criteria outlined below.
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How much is available through the Cities Without Slums Facility?
The standard Cities Alliance grant criteria will apply. However, the initial period of the Facility's operation has been designed to support preparatory assistance to cities and slum communities. It is therefore expected that the bulk of these funds will be directed towards grants below $75,000
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What are the threshold eligibility requirements?
Proposals submitted for funding will be evaluated based upon the degree they meet the criteria:
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Targeting the Objective:
The activity must promote pro-poor policies, aimed at citywide poverty reduction and should actively promote the role of women in urban development strategies. Activities should support scaling up slum upgrading and/or city development strategies.
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Government Commitment and Approval:
The activity must have local authority and community commitment and approval, to be documented by attachments to the application form. Cities must demonstrate that they have adopted a citywide approach to slum upgrading.
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Linkage to Investment Follow-up: Investment partners must be clearly identified and involved from the beginning in the design of the activity so as to assure investment follow-up for implementation.
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Partnerships: Proposals for the Cities Without Slums Facility should adopt a participatory process with local stakeholders. Proposals should articulate appropriate strategies and actions to ensure participation of, and ownership by, resident communities. Cities will need to be able to demonstrate the nature and extent of participation by relevant stakeholders.
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Co-financing:
All proposals should include co-financing, combining seed funding from the Cities Alliance with a target of at least 20% financing of the total project budget, from the cities themselves and other sources. Co-financing can be in the form of in-kind contributions. For all proposals requesting over US$250,000 from Core Funds, the co-financing target is graduated based on the amount of funds requested from the Cities Alliance, ranging from a minimum 25% target for the low range requested (US$250,001) up to 50% target for the maximum allowable request (US$500,000). To calculate the co-financing target, simply divide the requested amount by 10,000. For example, where US$310,000 is requested from the Cities Alliance, the co-financing requirement from non-Cities Alliance sources would be 31% of the total budget.
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Coherence of Effort: Activities should promote multi-donor coordination. Activities should strengthen partnerships and cultivate greater understanding among the community and local authorities.
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Scaling-up:
The focus is on designing city development strategies and citywide and nationwide upgrading rather than on pilot projects..
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Institutionalization and replication: Activities should contribute to the creation of mechanisms that help communities, cities and their national associations institutionalize support for scaling up slum upgrading efforts and formulating city development strategies, so as to facilitate replication in other cities. The Cities Alliance favours proposals that maximize the use of local expertise.
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Positive Impact on Environment:
Activities supported by the Cities Without Slums Facility are expected to achieve significant environmental improvements. These should be clearly stated in each proposal. Any activity in which negative environmental impacts could be anticipated must include an Environmental Impact Assessment and a Mitigation Plan as prior conditions for consideration.
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Duration: Special attention will be given to those activities that promise deliverables within well-defined time frames, and preferably within 24 months.
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What is the timing for application submission?
While applications for Cities Alliance support can be submitted at any time, proposals are evaluated on a quarterly basis. Proponents will be notified immediately following the acceptance or rejection of their proposal.
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What is the screening and evaluation process?
Proposals submitted for funding are screened by the Cities Alliance Secretariat to ensure that they are complete and meet the eligibility criteria outlined above. If required, the Secretariat may consult with the applicant to elicit additional information. Proposals that meet the threshold eligibility requirements will be subject to a more intensive, independent technical assessment process. This may include one or more specialists reviewing technical design.
Proposals that meet the threshold eligibility requirements and are consistent with other approval criteria will then be reviewed by the Consultative Group to ensure they are not in conflict with the programmes or activities of Cities Alliance partners. All approved proposals will be posted on the Members Page of the Cities Alliance website.
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How to submit
an application?
The attached
application form has been designed to provide the
Cities Alliance with a description of the proposed
activity and how it conforms to the Alliance vision
and Cities Without Slums Facility selection
criteria. Proponents should indicate the Facility to
which they are applying. Proponents are encouraged
to contact the Secretariat during the preparation of
their proposals to help ensure coherence of effort
with Alliance partners in this process. Completed
applications forms can be submitted as follows:
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By e-mail as a
WORD file to the following address:
info@citiesalliance.org
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By mail as a hard
copy accompanied by the WORD file on diskette to
the following address:
Cities Alliance
1818 H St., NW,
Mailstop MC 8-804
Washington, DC 20433 (USA)
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How to
reach the Cities Alliance?
e-mail:
info@citiesalliance.org
tel.: (+1-202) 473-9233
fax: (+1-202) 522-3224
www.citiesalliance.org
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