The Mexico City Declaration for Habitat III, “Localizing finance for inclusive change”, calls for local governments to be empowered to finance urban development and recognizes that cities are “reliable partners” for investment.
The Declaration was the official outcome document of the Habitat 3 Thematic Meeting on Financing Urban Development in Mexico on 9-11 March and will be considered as an official input to the Zero Draft of the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at the Habitat 3 Conference in Quito in October.
The Thematic Meeting, organized by the Government of the City of Mexico and the United Nations, bought together all stakeholders in the New Urban Agenda, including local and regional governments. The Global Taskforce was strongly represented at the event, with participation by locally elected leaders, UCLG, Metropolis, the UCLG Committee on Local Finance and Development, the UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights, FMDV and ICLEI.
Bottom-up national development
The Mexico City Declaration argues that “financing sustainable urbanization implies empowering local, metropolitan and regional governments” and warns against a “one-size-fits-all approach”. It calls for recognition of the success of many local governments in implementing alternative solutions to finance local investments and reiterates the need for fiscal and financial decentralization.
The Declaration blames the impoverishment of some cities on a failure to invest savings locally or to provide credit for local development due to lack of confidence. One of the “drivers for action” it recommends is to ensure access to banking, capital markets and innovative financial intermediation for local governments, as “local governments are as reliable as national governments.”
The importance of local public procurement is highlighted. The Declaration calls for national legislation to allow local governments to buy goods and services in a way that prioritizes local economic development, the creation of qualified jobs and environmentally-friendly practices.
Financing, inclusion and culture
The Declaration takes a “right to the city” approach and calls for the redistribution of resources according to need. On land-based financing, it calls for a strong monitoring of land speculation and for well-located social housing provision to prevent gentrification and spatial segregation.
The Declaration also links the issue of financing to local culture, calling for “strong policies and institutions for local economic development and cultural initiatives towards more inclusive, innovative and creative cities.”
Local and regional governments as world actors
The Declaration closes by recognizing local and regional governments as “world actors”. It calls for support for city-to-city cooperation and local government networks to facilitate exchanges of knowledge and good practices, and calls for the creation of a global observatory on local finance to raise awareness on the investment capacity of local governments and incentivize progress in fiscal decentralization.
The Declaration goes on to say that “financing the New Urban Agenda requires that local governments take a seat at the global table, with a different type of partnership with the United Nations and the international community, not only sharing information but participating actively in strategy and decision making”.
Full Mexico City Declaration: “Localizing finance for inclusive change”
