Book Review: Municipal Infrastructure Financing: Innovative Practices from Developing Countries (Edited by Munawwar Alam)

Main Article Content

Kevin Tayler

Abstract

Rapid urbanisation creates a need to expand urban services and that expansion is not possible without adequate finances. However, fiscal decentralization has not kept pace with administrative and functional decentralisation so that municipal bodies lack the funds required to operate existing facilities and extend services into new areas. Municipal Infrastructure Financing addresses this issue. It draws on a desk-based secondary study of relevant literature and municipal data, supplemented by primary research in four case study municipalities: Dar es Salaam and Kampala in East Africa, and Karachi and Dhaka in South Asia. The first two chapters provide a general overview of the book and of the state of municipal finance in Commonwealth developing countries. Chapters 3 – 6 set out the findings of the four case studies, Chapter 7 examines a number of innovative approaches to municipal financing and Chapter 8 draws conclusions from what has gone before.

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How to Cite
Tayler, K. (1). Book Review: Municipal Infrastructure Financing: Innovative Practices from Developing Countries (Edited by Munawwar Alam). Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, (8-9). https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.v0i8/9.2424
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News and Reviews
Author Biography

Kevin Tayler, Cardiff University

Professor Tayler has been involved in consultancy work in low-income countries for 25 years. Many assignments in the 1980s required him to work as a member of a multi-disciplinary team to produce overall planning proposals and specific infrastructure- related action plans. While with GHK International,he specialised in services upgrading for low-income areas. He was Project Manager for a World Bank-funded urban upgrading and historic building conservation project in Lahore, Pakistan in the early 1990s. Following this, he was project director of the DFID-funded Faisalabad Area Upgrading Project, also in Pakistan, which incorporated a strong community-participation approach. More recently, he has contributed inputs relating to the operation and maintenance of urban services in Andhra Pradesh, India and the decentralisation of responsibilities for water supply and sanitation services in Pakistan. He has also worked with both consulting firms and university departments on research projects funded through the DFID research budget. Recent assignments include an investigation of sanitation policies, with field work in Ghana and Nepal, a review of DFID’s water sector research policy, and inputs to materials on business planning for small town water supplies.