Major cities in developing countries face infrastructure shortage and inadequate financial outlays to overcome it. One way to raise finances is by leveraging the increasing urban land values using different mechanisms. This article studies the experience of land-based financing in the metropolitan cities of Hyderabad and Mumbai in India. It assesses the performance of various mechanisms implemented by the principal urban local bodies and development authorities in these cities by examining their design, collections and utilisation of revenues from land-based financing mechanisms for infrastructure provision. It finds that although land-based financing contributes substantially to revenues of public bodies, there are issues regarding efficacy of design and legal validity that need to be addressed to make it sustainable. Further, the article finds that to a certain extent, some of the public organisations use revenues from land-based financing for capital expenditure.

Canadian cities have long called for access to more tax revenues. This paper argues that additional taxes are appropriate for major cities, describes the advantages and disadvantages of potential new taxes, and estimates the revenue from a city income tax, a city sales tax, and a city fuel tax for eight Canadian cities – Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, and Halifax. The authors find that the property tax is a good tax, but cities would benefit from a mix of taxes. In particular, user fees are an important source of revenue and can alter economic behaviour. Taxes on income, sales, vehicle registration, fuel, and hotel stays are also an effective way to diversify local taxes. Of the available options, a personal income tax and a municipal sales tax are likely to generate the largest revenues. Although setting up their own tax systems would grant cities the greatest fiscal autonomy, doing so would be costly. It would be more cost-effective for cities to piggyback new taxes onto provincial taxes, with the province collecting the revenue and remitting it to cities. To promote local accountability, however, it is essential that local governments set their own tax rates. In this way, taxes levied would be linked to services consumed.

Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world accounting for an estimated 71% of all new infections (UNAIDS 2010). HIV prevalence is greatest in urban informal areas, caused largely by the proliferation of a variety of risk environments that facilitate the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS. As a strategic response to the complex nature of the HIV/AIDs epidemic in urban areas, decentralised multisectoral HIV/AIDs responses at the local government level have been adopted. These are seen as a sustainable way of dealing with the spread of HIV/AIDs in a number of African cities, in line with internationally accepted recommendations. Now that a number of local governments in African cities have adopted HIV/AIDS multisectoral responses, the question can be asked to what degree is this is this response being implemented in these countries, and what challenges are faced by cities as they adopt this approach? This article reviews HIV/AIDS multisectoral responses in African cities, and discusses the challenges that face urban local governments as they implement these responses.

This publication examines the urbanization process in the Pacific, the condition of urban infrastructure and services across the region, and the urban governance and management systems in place to manage urban development. The report points to ways in which Pacific governments, and other urban stakeholders can improve urban governance, management, and development within the Pacific.

Decentralisation is now taking place in the public administrations of most countries of the world. A critical determinant of the effective performance of local governments is finance – their ability to both mobilise financial resources and to use those resources effectively and efficiently.

This book explores the variety of methods used to ensure that fiscal decentralisation takes place alongside administrative decentralisation. It considers the range of revenue sources available, the design systems of intergovernmental transfers between central and local government, and the kinds of rules and procedures necessary to ensure that local governments use their financial resources appropriately.

The experiences described in this book will help local government managers, and national policymakers charged with local government finance issues, to ensure that they follow good practice in their own programmes of local government reform.