Challenge of greening poor cities

Mayors from developing nations have aired their frustrations with global financing institutions such as the World Bank in the fight against climate change.

Johannesburg executive mayor Parks Tau said: "If you were to plot on a map the number of African cities that have accessed funding . it is very insignificant against what the developed world has done."

Speaking to The Times on the sidelines of the C40 Cities Mayors' Summit, held in Sandton this week, Tau said securing funding has "been extremely difficult because of the requirements and the hurdles that we need to jump".

Minister in the Presidency for National Planning Trevor Manuel said sourcing funding from big institutions took longer and the cost of borrowing was too high for municipalities in the developing world.

He said domestic development institutions were better placed to finance green projects for cities.

Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson said green funding was secured from the federal and British Columbia governments.

"We have had donors come over that were willing to take some risks, although we do a lot of work to mitigate risks," he said.

Measuring the socio-economic effects and sustainability of projects was essential, Robertson said.

The summit, which ended yesterday, looked at the role that municipalities, national governments, the private sector and global funding institutions could play to build resilient and "livable" cities.

The delegates from more than 60 cities included the former mayor of New York and C40 chairman Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro Edwardo Paes and the executive secretary of the UN Framework on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres.