Contemporary Approaches to Municipal Management: Partnerships for Better Municipal Management

Abstract

Municipal managers in Asian cities today are faced with the formidable challenge of finding effective and innovative ways of dealing with rapid urbanization, growing demand for improved public services, and declining financial support from central governments. Moreover, in developing countries in Asia, the infrastructure requirements of the urban sector are so large that the multilateral development banks and other donors can at best contribute only a small fraction of the total. However, there is a solution to this apparent dilemma. Because economic activity and wealth in these countries will be largely generated by the expanding cities, the resources needed for municipal infrastructure development will be available. Tapping these resources, however, will require significant improvement in the management of the cities. Volume IV contains the experiences of municipal leaders from a number of Asian cities and representatives of development agencies in improving governance and delivery of municipal services, particularly through partnerships with the private sector and non-government organizations. The Forum was also a venue for presentation and discussion of the experiences to date of ADB’s Benchmarking Project, a pilot project aimed at testing the techniques of benchmarking and continuous improvement to enhance the delivery of municipal services in selected Asian cities.