South Africa’s efforts to improve the performance of its large cities by making them more inclusive, productive and sustainable received a $9 million boost as the World Bank Group and the Embassy of Switzerland signed a Trust Fund agreement for the cause.
Executed by the World Bank, this Trust Fund will help provide technical assistance, evidence based analysis and strengthen the capacity of the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities through the Cities Support Program (CSP), a South African government urban initiative, coordinated by the National Treasury. “The objective of the Cities Support Program is to support the spatial transformation of our cities. Our partnership with the World Bank Group and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs allows us to tap into the Bank’s global experience, best practice and technical skills across a range of sectors in order to create more sustainable urban built environments,” says Malijeng Nqaleni, deputy director general for Intergovernmental Relations at the National Treasury. The CSP seeks to improve targeted areas such as business-enabling environment; public financial management; infrastructure finance; land management and urban regeneration; and integrated urban transport planning over a five year period. Project activities to be undertaken through the Trust Fund are demand driven and have been formulated closely between the World Bank Group, SECO and the South African National Treasury based on ongoing consultations with the cities.
