The New Role of International Development Organizations and ODA for Urban Environmental Infrastructure in Asia

Abstract

Asian countries are contending with the reduction by half of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, set by MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) and WSSD. The poor financial capacity of governments and the decline of funding from international development organizations and ODA show their limitations for financing a rapid increase in urban environmental infrastructure. An effective solution is to diversify financing sources for investment in urban environmental improvement (UEI) through the development of Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The new role of international development organizations and ODA is to support institutional arrangements and policy making at the macro level with sector administrative and financial reform, and to enhance local government capacity at the implementation level by promoting local capital markets, providing information on international experiences, conducting seminars and training courses, and implementing pilot projects. UNDP, World Bank and ADB are the major multilateral institutions that support PPP activities in this field.

UEI is a central concern of Japan's ODA. It is important to change the aid policy from traditional “project base” to support self-development. Output-oriented aid requires donor agencies to aim at the final goals of targeted countries, draw the optimum steps to achieve that aim, and provide timely know-how and technology to improve the final outcome of ODA.