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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:World Bank financing for urban development: issues and options for South Africa
Authors:Bond, PatrickISNI
Swilling, MarkISNI
Year:1992
Periodical:Urban Forum
Volume:3
Issue:2
Pages:1-38
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:World Bank
urban renewal
External link:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03036750
Abstract:The role of the World Bank in a future nonracial and democratic South Africa needs to be assessed from two points of view. Firstly, whether borrowed foreign currency is the best kind of money to use to finance the dismantling of the apartheid city and the building of new postapartheid urban systems. Secondly, whether the World Bank's understanding of the urban system is empirically and conceptually appropriate and adequate. These and a number of related urban development issues are discussed in this paper. The authors examine the basis for foreign funding of 'basic needs' goods, the implications, in terms of the costs, and the shift in control, of such funding, the broader environment in which the World Bank operates, and how it has been changing, the World Bank's record in urban projects (using Zimbabwe as a case study), the World Bank's orientation on issues such as housing, land and transport, with regard to South Africa, and alternative funding sources that will be available once a democratic system is established at the national level. They argue that foreign currency is probably not the best way to pay for South Africa's urban service infrastructure investments. Moreover, on the basis of the World Bank's intellectual output measured against its record in Zimbabwe, the Bank's analysis is empirically and conceptually inappropriate for the South African context. Notes, ref.
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