Resilience Toolbox

City Scan  

Rapid urbanization is transforming the planet and the way we live. For the first time in history, more people live in cities than in rural areas, and 90 percent of this urban expansion is taking place in developing countries. Urbanization, if managed well, can help reduce poverty and increase prosperity, as cities can accelerate growth, attract investment, spur innovation and enhance productivity. Poorly managed urbanization, however, can exacerbate existing challenges – including insecure livelihoods, inadequate provision of infrastructure and services, poor urban and systems planning, inadequate oversight of land use and building standards – and leave cities more vulnerable to natural hazards.

In this context, the World Bank Group’s (WBG) City Resilience Program (CRP) is an effort to engage city governments in a long-term partnership to identify areas of need and opportunity and to define a robust response towards building resilience. A broad coalition of experts and working groups accompanies each city-level engagement from program design to implementation to ensure an integrated, risk-informed and spatially driven approach.

The CRP has developed an assessment tool and framework that provides a rapid assessment of the critical development challenges that cities face using publicly available data. The City Scan aims to serve as a conversation starter between the World Bank task team and client city to assess cities’ investment priorities and financing needs in six broad areas, namely: (i) population trends, (ii) city competitiveness and economic growth, (iii) access to infrastructure and public services, (iv) urban transport and mobility, (v) climate mitigation, and (vi) municipal finance and institutions. Each of these areas is informed by various sources of global flood risk information to integrate the needs and challenges of both the built and natural environments.

In addition, other supplementary information (i.e., pedestrian and public transport accessibility, building footprints, and historic and near-real time flood monitoring, among others), in collaboration with different spatial data and remote sensing service providers, are considered in this assessment to tailor fit the City Scan to cities’ specific investment needs. The City Scan is currently being piloted in 14 cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is anticipated to be scaled up to other regions in the next phase of engagement.

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Developed by
World Bank