Pakistan is currently navigating an unfavorable urban trajectory. Poor urban management is preventing it from realizing the full promise of urbanization in the form of improved prosperity and livability. City growth is poorly planned, housing and service delivery lag badly, and city residents are, increasingly, exposed to environmental hazards. These conditions arise from a weak, ineffective, and unsuitable urban management and financing system that has regressed rather than strengthened over time. For Pakistan to harness the potential of its urbanization to lead it out of poverty, boost national productivity, and act as an engine of growth, the institutional and fiscal architecture of urban management and local government requires fundamental reform. The current system must be empowered by a more coherent, accountable, and capacitated structure that gives municipal institutions functional responsibility for the built environment and key infrastructure sectors (water, sewerage, solid waste, roads, and drainage, among others), within geographical jurisdictions aligned with the actual population and spatial boundaries of Pakistan’s evolving urban system. And these institutions must be anchored to a fiscal and financial system that can generate and effectively spend the resources necessary for sustainable urban development, while also encouraging private sector involvement in municipal service provision. To achieve this, concerted and sustained action is needed toward decentralization reforms at both federal and provincial levels.
Authors
- Citation
- “ World Bank . 2024 . Realizing the Potential of Pakistan’s Secondary Cities . © Washington, DC: World Bank . http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41756 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO . ”
- Collection(s)
- Other Urban Study
- Identifier externaldocumentum
- 34336190
- Identifier internaldocumentum
- 34336190
- Published in
- United States of America
- Region country
- Pakistan
- Report
- 190955
- Rights
- CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO
- Rights Holder
- World Bank
- Rights URI
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/igo
- UNIT
- Urban SAR 1 (SSAU1)
- URI
- https://hdl.handle.net/10986/41756
- date disclosure
- 2024-06-21
- region administrative
- South Asia
- theme
- Urban Infrastructure and Service Delivery,Municipal Institution Building,Gender,Human Development and Gender,Data Development and Capacity Building,Rural Development,Public Sector Management,Urban Planning,Urban and Rural Development,Geospatial Services,Data production, accessibility and use,Public Administration,Urban Development,Municipal Finance
Files
Table of Contents
- Tables 8
- Boxes 8
- Figures 9
- Acknowledgements 10
- Abbreviations 11
- executive summary 14
- Background 14
- Recommendations 17
- 1. INTRODUCTION 24
- 2. Defining and Identifying Pakistan’s Secondary Cities 32
- 3. Urbanization, Spatial Expansion, and the Urban System 40
- Drivers of Demographic Growth: Natural Increase and Migration 40
- Spatial Expansion and Emergent Metropolitan Regions: “The Urbanization of Everybody” 44
- The Significance of Secondary Cities in National and Provincial Urban Systems 47
- 4. Municipal Infrastructure and Services in the Secondary Cities 52
- Infrastructure and Service Delivery 52
- Water supply 52
- Sanitation and drainage 53
- Solid waste management 54
- Roads and street lighting 54
- Transit and urban mobility 55
- Parks and natural assets 56
- Key Infrastructure and Service Delivery Deficits 56
- 5. Climate Resilience 60
- The Institutional and Organizational Setup for Urban Resilience 60
- Existing Policies and Plans Addressing Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction 61
- Climate change 61
- Disaster risk reduction 61
- Planning instruments to address urban risks 62
- Urban Climate Risks in the Secondary Cities 63
- Fluvial flooding 63
- Pluvial flooding 64
- Drought 65
- Heatwaves 66
- Environmental hazards 66
- 6. Institutional and Organizational Arrangements 70
- Development Planning 71
- Municipal Infrastructure and Services and Local Regulation 71
- Building authorization and control 74
- Water, wastewater, and solid waste management 74
- Roads 75
- Public transportation 75
- Public spaces 75
- Business and economic environment 76
- Urban environment and climate change resilience 76
- Disaster management 76
- Inclusiveness 76
- Administration of Own Source Revenue 76
- 7. Municipal Finance 80
- Overall Financial Performance 84
- Revenues 86
- Overall revenues 87
- Locally administered own source revenue 88
- UIPT and TTIP 89
- Fiscal transfers 91
- Expenditures 92
- 8. Conclusions and Recommendations 96
- Current Tendencies 96
- Opportunities for Secondary Cities 97
- Recommendations 99
- General recommendations for Pakistan 99
- Institutional coherence, accountability, and capacity 99
- Fiscal and financial arrangements 100
- Targeted intervention for secondary cities 101
- Pillar 1: Strengthening urban institutions 101
- Pillar 2: Enhancing municipal finance 102
- Pillar 3: Strengthening urban, spatial, and connectivity planning 102
- Pillar 4: Investing in climate-smart municipal infrastructure and services 103
- Pillar 5: Mainstreaming climate resilience and disaster risk mitigation 103
- References 104
- Table 3.1 Urban and Rural Population Trends by Province 41
- Table 3.2 Urban Demographic Indicators by Province, 2017 42
- Table 4.1 Investment Gaps of Sample Cities for Infrastructure and Municipal Services Improvement 57
- Table 5.1 Key Resilience Instruments in the Secondary Cities 62
- Table 5.2 Risk Profiles of the Sample Cities 67
- Table 7.1 Aggregate Revenue Data (in million Pakistani rupees) 82
- Table 7.2 Aggregate Expenditure Data (in million Pakistani rupees) 83
- Box 1.1 Data Sources, Methods, and Considerations for Phase 1 26
- Box 1.2 Data Sources, Methods, and Considerations for Phase 27
- Box 2.1 Did the 2017 Population Census Undercount Secondary Cities? 35
- Box 3.1 Extensive and Intensive Growth: Pancakes to Pyramids 45
- Box 3.2 The Case of Faisalabad 46
- Box 6.1 The Pros and Cons of Pakistan’s Local Government System from 2001 to 2008 72
- Box 7.1 UIPT Revenue Generation Potential 90
- Figure ES.1 UIPT as a Percentage of GDP in Middle and Low-Income Countries 17
- Figure 1.1 Urbanization Levels in South Asia 24
- Figure B2.1.1. Settlements in the Vicinity of Farooqabad (Source UCDB 2015) 35
- Figure B2.1.3. UCDB Mistakes (Source UCDB 2015) 36
- Figure B2.1.4. UCDB Mistakes (Source UCDB 2015) 36
- Figure 3.1 Delineated City Areas within Square Study Areas 46
- Figure B3.1.1. Urban Growth of Faisalabad 47
- Figure 5.1. Fluvial Flooding 64
- Figure 5.2. Pluvial Flooding 65
- Figure 6.1. Institutional Arrangements in KP 70
- Figure 7.1. Per Capita Surplus/Deficit: MA+SSDE+DA (Pakistani rupees) 84
- Figure 7.2. Per Capita Surplus/Deficit: MA (Pakistani rupees) 85
- Figure 7.3. Per Capita Surplus/Deficit: SSDE (Pakistani rupees) 85
- Figure 7.4. Per Capita Surplus/Deficit: DA (Pakistani rupees) 86
- Figure 7.5. Per Capita Total Revenue: All Institutions (Pakistani rupees) 87
- Figure 7.6. Per Capita Revenue: MA (Pakistani rupees) 87
- Figure 7.8. Per Capita Own Source Revenue (Pakistani rupees) 88
- Figure 7.9. Per Capita Tax on Transfer of Immovable Property (Pakistani rupees) 89
- Figure 7.10. Per Capita Urban Immovable Property Tax (Pakistani rupees) 89
- Figure 7.11. Per Capita Fiscal Transfers (Pakistani rupees) 92
- Figure 7.12. Per Capita Expenditure: SSDE+MA+DA (Pakistani rupees) 92
- Figure 7.13. Per Capita Expenditure: MA (Pakistani rupees) 93
- Figure 7.14. Per Capita Expenditures, 2020/21: MA (Pakistani rupees) 93
