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National Urban Strategy for Mexico Watch Video Connection Speed: High Speed Low Speed    Event Title : National Urban Strategy for Mexico Date : 6/13/2002 Duration : 66 minutes Language  : English Country/Region : World Keyword :  Urban Development     Presenter : Marianne Fay Anna Wellenstein | Related Material | Recommendations |Related B-SPAN Videos |  DESCRIPTION  In Mexico, the vast majority of economic growth has taken place in cities. Today, eighty-five percent of the country’s GDP is produced in urban areas and, consequently, the primary source of pollution in the country. Additionally, these cities are home to seventy-five percent of the country’s total population and more than half of the nation’s poor. As this growth has accelerated, the need for greater attention to urban issues has intensified. World Bank Senior Economist Marianne Fay and World Bank Urban Specialist Anna Wellenstein provide an overview of the national urban strategy for Mexico which addresses key issues for the development and competitiveness of the nation’s cities and how the World Bank can contribute to the understanding of urban dimensions of sustainable growth and development. The researchers note a primary source of problems is a dysfunctional nexus between land management, housing markets, and urban transport. Additionally, most poverty initiatives in the country are focused on rural areas, thereby ignoring the problems in Mexico’s fast growing cities. As a result, there is a lack of instruments to manage growing urban poverty and address the increasingly unsatisfied demand and health consequences related to quality basic services and their delivery. To improve the situation, a key component of the national urban strategy is institutional and legislative reform to improve management. The decentralization framework has been revised to improve incentives and powers of municipalities to enhance upward and downward accountability. Moreover, land and housing reforms will promote liquidity in the housing market while improvements to the legal framework will encourage private participation in infrastructure development. A second key element of the strategy involves developing urban poverty programs that develop human and physical capital so the urban poor can strengthen their ability to generate incomes and improve financial and physical safety. A third component advocates joint programs for federal, state, and municipal governments to address service delivery and other issues in traditional population centers, emerging industrial centers, tourist areas, and southern capitals. Fay and Wellenstein note that for the strategy to succeed, there must be more and better defined analytics. Additionally, they state that the strategy cannot cover all issues, but should be viewed as an organizing framework for establishing a good base of common understanding and a blue print of how Mexico and the World Bank can address urban development and the development of the nation as a whole.  RELATED MATERIALS   Slide presentation (PDF format) The World Bank Urban Development Department RELATED B-SPAN EVENTS Urban Development (55)