Urban planners, elected officials, representatives of nonprofit organizations, and others came together in the historic metropolis of Cairo in late 2024 to confront the relentless pressures that global cities are facing, at the World Urban Forum 12 convened by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). The theme of the summit was “It all starts at home.”

Growing populations, a continuing housing crisis, and climate change–triggered disasters including floods, droughts, and fires—as well as vast destruction associated with military conflict—have brought new intensity to efforts to support burgeoning urban areas across the globe, particularly in the developing world.

At the closing ceremony, UN-Habitat Executive Director Anaclaudia Rossbach, noting that two-thirds of the world’s population resides in urban areas, highlighted the pivotal role of local governments in shaping cities and human settlements. Rossbach, previously the director of the Latin America and the Caribbean program at the Lincoln Institute, said the conference set new records of engagement, with 24,000 participants from 182 countries.

“The World Urban Forum is a uniquely relevant event for those concerned about the quality and promise of human settlements large and small,” said Enrique R. Silva, chief program officer at the Lincoln Institute. “It’s an event that tackles the complex nature of urban issues by embracing a diversity of voices, techniques, and tools. For the Lincoln Institute, the World Urban Forum is a key space in which we can demonstrate how land and land policy can provide effective solutions to address housing, climate, and public health concerns, among other global, national, and local policy priorities.”

At the summit’s Dialogue 4: Localizing Finance and Financing Localization, Silva lauded local government efforts to boost own-source revenues, especially revenues that can be generated through the property tax or land value capture. “A local government’s capacity to leverage and manage own-source revenue not only strengthens its local finances, but also demonstrates to national and multilateral funders that it has the ability to plan, finance, and deliver projects,” he said. “This capacity can help local governments access larger sources of funding for much-needed projects.”

Representatives from the Lincoln Institute delegation participated in panels and training sessions focused on financing local development, climate mitigation and resilience, land value capture, and affordable housing. They also took part in an open house presented by the Center for Geospatial Solutions and a special Urban Library event featuring municipal leaders and the Lincoln Institute book Mayor’s Desk: 20 Conversations with Local Leaders Solving Global Problems. That event included the governor of Cairo, Ibrahim Saber Khalil, who will be the next local leader interviewed in the ongoing Mayor’s Desk series. Other municipal leaders who participated in the panel, Mayors and Innovators: Replicable Strategies for Local Political and Technological Change, included Manuel de Araujo, mayor of Quelimane, Mozambique; Kostas Bakoyannis, former mayor of Athens; and Marvin Rees, former mayor of Bristol, England.

The issue of climate change remains prominent in any consideration of global cities and their future, said Amy Cotter, director of urban sustainability at the Lincoln Institute.

“In this unparalleled global conversation about all things urban, the context of a changing climate is ever present,” she said. “City leaders are very aware of their dual roles—both agent and victim of climate change impacts—and eager for levers of change that they can control. I was impressed with their level of engagement in our sessions on land-based climate finance and on preparing for a potential climate-induced population influx, and their commitment to putting ideas and approaches into practice back home.”

At the Urban Planning & City Solutions for Climate Mobility panel, Cotter acknowledged “the increasing difficulty of people to remain in precarious places” and offered ways that communities anticipating a potential influx of climate change–induced relocation can plan and prepare for that future, drawing from the recent working paper “Insights for Receiving Communities in Planning Equitable and Positive Outcomes Under Climate Migration.”

The Lincoln Institute continued to expand the knowledge base and create new resources on the topic of land-based climate finance. Economist Cynthia Goytia, lead author of the recently published working paper “Examining Opportunities and Challenges for Implementing Land-Based Financing Instruments for Funding Climate Action: A Study of Land Markets and Flood Risk Pricing in Different Contexts,” explored the ways cities can recoup the costs of resilience through value capture, at the session Financing Strategies and Smart Solutions for Cities Worldwide.

Luis Quintanilla, program analyst at the Lincoln Institute, led a training workshop on value capture and participated in Financing Urban Infrastructure: Innovative Options to Attract Investors. In collaboration with the Cities Forward initiative, the session Overcoming the Project Implementation Gap to Address Urban Sustainability and Resilience revealed the opportunity and benefit of land value capture for climate action.

Housing inadequacy—affecting an estimated 2.8 billion people worldwide—was the weighty topic at Meeting the Moment: Innovations in Housing Supply to Address Inequality in Cities, where Darla Munroe, director of Research and Cross-Cutting Initiatives at the Lincoln Institute, discussed the affordability of manufactured homes, as well as zoning reform efforts in the US aimed at increasing housing supply.

The Lincoln Institute has been engaged in UN-Habitat’s World Urban Forum summits for nearly 20 years.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Lead image: Anthony Flint of the Lincoln Institute, center, meets with Cairo Governor Ibrahim Saber Khalil, left, at the World Urban Forum. Khalil will be the next local leader profiled in the ongoing Mayor’s Desk series. Credit: Lincoln Institute.

A lack of access to decent housing can perpetuate inequality that persists across generations. And in that sense, countries all across Latin America and the Caribbean are facing housing crises—but each experiences those challenges in unique ways. In rapidly urbanizing cities, for example, where land and construction costs are high, demand for affordable housing outstrips supply. In other places, it can be difficult or too expensive for homebuyers to obtain a mortgage.   

Those related challenges, playing out in distinct contexts, demand unique, thoughtful policy solutions. And now, a new report that “harmonizes” disparate housing data from a dozen Latin American countries puts the region’s housing landscape in clearer perspective for policymakers.    

The 2024 LAC Housing Yearbook, a collaboration between the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and CAF—Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, catalogs more than 250 housing and financial indicators across 12 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay) to allow comparisons across the region. The report is now available in Spanish, with English and Portuguese translations coming soon.   

“By collecting and standardizing this broad set of information, the project aims to address knowledge gaps, enable cross-country comparisons, and support the formulation of efficient and targeted policies that reduce housing deficits, improve accessibility, and promote sustainable development,” says Pablo López, senior executive housing coordinator at CAF.   

“The data reveal stark realities,” continues López, whose team presented the inaugural report to the General Assembly of the Ministers and High Authorities of Housing and Urban Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (MINURVI) in December. “Housing deficits are significant, mortgage penetration remains low, and affordability is continually eroded by costs rising at higher rates than incomes.”   

The types of indicators tracked across the 12 countries include inflation and mortgage rates, formal and informal labor market participation rates, construction costs per square meter, and both quantitative and qualitative measures of a country’s housing deficit—the former referring to the number of additional homes needed to meet demand, the latter tabulating the number of families living in substandard housing. In addition to an almanac of statistical information, the report includes a regional overview and in-depth profiles of each country’s housing market.   

 “It’s quite an ambitious project, because of the wide range of data categories it attempts to consolidate,” says Luis Quintanilla, senior policy analyst at the Lincoln Institute. The hope is to update the yearbook annually, which will allow for year-over-year comparisons, and to expand the list of countries over time. “We think it’s a very valuable resource,” he adds. “We hope it will be helpful for housing ministers and urban development secretaries, as well as practitioners, developers, banking and financial institutions, and other researchers.”   

Gathering some of the data presented a “formidable challenge,” López says, scattered as it was across various public and private databases, and required meticulous cross-referencing, if it was available at all. For example, information on microfinancing—small, non-mortgage loans that families can use to make incremental improvements to their homes—was inconsistent and fragmented. And reliable figures on informal housing production and credit access for informal workers were difficult or impossible to find.   

The process also revealed some information gaps that researchers or public agencies could address in the future, as well as some inefficiencies in housing subsidies. “Counterintuitively, some countries’ housing support mechanisms lack social targeting, [so they’re] benefiting higher-income groups, undermining their intended social equity objectives,” López explains.   

The countries studied aren’t just experiencing the housing crisis in different ways, they’re also taking different steps to address it. “While countries share fundamental housing challenges, their approaches vary significantly,” López says. “The research revealed pockets of innovation and progress across the region—each nation demonstrated unique strengths that offer insights into potential solutions.”   

Chile, for example, has developed a sophisticated mortgage market “complemented by innovative rental subsidy programs that address housing affordability from multiple angles,” López says. Panama can boast relatively low mortgage rates and a credit market that reaches almost a quarter (23.1 percent) of GDP, “a notable achievement in a region often characterized by limited financial inclusion,” he adds. “Meanwhile, Ecuador and Peru are pushing boundaries through pioneering green financing instruments, including innovative green bonds and mortgages that signal a forward-thinking approach to sustainable housing development.”   

Still, the data make clear that no country has comprehensively solved its housing challenges, López says. “Instead, the region demonstrates a mosaic of targeted innovations, each addressing specific dimensions of a complex housing landscape.”   

Quintanilla hopes this new collection of reliable, comparable data will help policymakers reach out and learn from each other. “If some particular country finds a similar context, but different outcomes, we hope that highlighting some of those discrepancies may be the spark for an exchange of ideas and transferable lessons,” he says.   

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image credit: CAF—Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.

A recent study from the Lancet found that by the start of the next century, more than half of all births will occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks to higher fertility rates and longer life expectancies, the continent’s population is on track to nearly double to 2.4 billion by 2050, then nearly double again, to 4.2 billion by 2100.

Within Africa, intermediary cities (noncapital cities, typically with a population of 1 million or fewer) are the fastest growing urban places. Between 2022 and 2030, intermediary cities are expected to account for nearly 50 percent of Africa’s overall urban population growth, and this growth will occur largely in cities that currently have fewer than 1 million people. For example, Zinder, the third-largest city in Niger, is expected to more than double its population between 2020 and 2035, growing from about a half-million to over 1 million residents.

The implications of this tremendous growth for people, communities, economies, and the environment are extraordinary, made even more complex by the impacts of climate change and climate migration.

A recent collaboration between the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Challenge Works investigated ways to support effective land use planning, infrastructure investments, land-based financing, and disaster resilience in rapidly growing intermediary cities in Africa. We used a mixed-methods approach that synthesizes literature reviews, interviews with urban policy experts and city officials, and specialist workshops.

We explored:

• the main goals of intermediary cities in Africa when it comes to managing growth;
• the barriers preventing such cities from using data-driven planning, mapping, and land-based financing tools; and
• how a challenge prize could accelerate the creation and scaling of such tools.

Below, we summarize some of the things we learned, and how we plan to take the idea of a challenge prize forward.

Growth is not inherently bad—but can have unintended consequences if not managed.

Often, with population growth comes economic opportunity and improved quality of life. More and better jobs, more economic mobility, and better access to health care, education, and sanitation are among the benefits of population growth.

However, we wanted to dig into questions of land use and infrastructure development knowing that:

• climate vulnerability risks are highest in rapidly growing cities;
• climate change will disproportionately impact people in rapidly urbanizing countries, particularly groups that are already vulnerable;
• the cost of retrofitting infrastructure in informal settlements is three times more expensive than new infrastructure development; and
• with two-thirds of African cities yet to be built, a small window of opportunity exists to make the necessary investments to support future growth patterns based on sustainable and equitable development principles.

Land use planning in intermediary cities is critical to creating more sustainable futures.

In speaking with city leaders and experts within government, NGOs, and industry working in this space, we learned that land use planning has different inputs, outputs, and outcomes. When these are integrated, a virtuous cycle can occur:

• cities can use evidence and insights to inform plans and policies;
• evidence-based, implementable plans that are created with input from diverse stakeholders are more likely to be enforced and lead to better outcomes; and
• this increases the level of trust and evidence available to inform new plans and policies.

The enabling ecosystem—which includes elements like institutional capacity to develop and implement plans, political dynamics, human capacity and skills, funding, cultural norms, and more—also plays an important role in creating and implementing land use plans (or conversely, limiting or obstructing progress).

We also learned that the loop can become ineffective for a number of reasons, which are generally attributed to two primary gaps: first, when effective, evidence-based land use plans are not created, due to organizational barriers (things like internal government silos or lack of planning capacity), political and economic barriers (things like political cycles and competition for resources), and technical barriers (such as lack of quality, up-to-date data); and second, when completed land use plans are not implemented, again due to organizational barriers (like complex land tenure), political and economic barriers (limited authority or resource to implement plans), and technical barriers (lack of local buy-in or weak enforcement powers).

Innovation has the potential to both address pain points within those gaps and strengthen the enabling ecosystem.

For example, we’ve identified city-specific use cases to create context-sensitive solutions that use data analytics to better plan for future mobility needs and transport infrastructure, or to better predict climate risk vulnerabilities and therefore inform land use regulations; apply crowdsourced data and citizen-sensing techniques to create and implement inclusive, equitable land use plans; or examine and collate property registration and valuations to bolster municipal finances and the use of land-based financial tools.

At the ecosystem level, creating new tools or adapting tools to the local context can help organizations leapfrog over traditional planning systems and catalyze new practices, and bring together government agencies or organizations that would not normally collaborate.

Tech solutions can help—but need to be paired with institutional enablers.

While our investigations confirmed the exciting potential for data-driven, digital technologies to help city leaders reduce risk and make more informed decisions, we also learned that new data collection and analysis tools are only as good as the planning and implementation processes they inform. Data-driven tools need to be developed in ways that are people-centered, inclusive, and fair, and are ineffective if they aren’t supported by an enabling ecosystem to implement and update effective plans.

Solutions that pair technical innovation with institutional innovation will enable intermediary cities in Africa to pioneer methods to manage growth in ways that are contextually appropriate and don’t yet exist.

A challenge prize can help spark and scale up solutions.

We propose to run an open innovation challenge in partnership with rapidly growing African intermediary cities. Such a challenge would invite innovators to create, test, and scale solutions to manage rapid growth. The challenge structure is based on partnering with cities to create an open call to innovators, oriented around a specific city use case, which will then work closely with city stakeholders to create custom, locally relevant solutions.

The challenge will include these fundamental features:

• Centering the challenge around opportunities cities want to address. Innovators will respond to challenge statements that reflect the goals cities want to achieve. This is different from, and complementary to, innovation funding approaches that focus on specific technologies or methods.
• Prioritizing scalable and replicable solutions. Our research revealed a number of promising innovations that are already being piloted and implemented in real-world settings. Despite this, scaling solutions remains a barrier. For instance, innovators who have the right data analytics solution may not have access to the permissions needed to test it in the real world, or the relationships to introduce it in places that need innovation. Local governments may not be prepared to adopt and maintain services. The challenge will be designed to address scaling barriers through seed funding, capacity-building, new business models, and access to customers, investors, and networks.
• Providing appropriate incentives and support for innovators to experiment and take risks. The outcome-based, stage-gated funding model of an innovation challenge means that innovators can experiment, while cities can benefit from crowding in a variety of ideas and expertise. Having access to both financial and nonfinancial support enables innovators to develop solutions in ways they might not be able to otherwise.
• Shaping and accelerating innovation in land use planning. By supporting multiple innovators working across multiple use cases and settings, the challenge can accelerate progress in the field of land use planning, as well as steer innovation in a direction more attuned to the needs of rapidly growing cities in low- and middle-income countries.

The time is now.

Africa is both the cradle of civilization and the world’s youngest continent, with half the population under the age of 19. The continent is also facing critical risks related to climate change and associated implications to disaster resilience, food and water security, energy supplies, and more. To ensure that future city growth in Africa is inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and resilient to changing conditions, we urgently need to take action now to accelerate and scale new models to manage growth. Our next steps are to assemble the partners to implement the next stage of the challenge. If you are interested in contributing, get in touch!

With sincere thanks to Stefan Chavez-Norgaard, Teodora Chis, Astrid Haas, Peter Oborn, and the many policy experts, development practitioners, city officials, tech innovators, and others who provided their insights and experiences to shape this program.

Lead image: City market street in Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa. Credit: peeterv via iStock/Getty Images Plus.

En el marco de la reciente convocatoria de investigación sobre políticas de suelo y desarrollo urbano en América Latina, el Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo se complace en anunciar los proyectos seleccionados para recibir apoyo financiero. Estas propuestas se destacan por su potencial de generar nuevos conocimientos sobre cómo las políticas de suelo pueden contribuir a la superación de desafíos sistémicos para el desarrollo sostenible en la región, tales como la asequibilidad de la vivienda, la equidad socioespacial, el mejoramiento integral de barrios informales, la autonomía fiscal de los municipios y la adaptación al cambio climático.

Adicionalmente, los proyectos seleccionados resaltan por su alta capacidad de incidir en debates de política pública vigentes en América Latina en temáticas de interés para el Instituto, incluyendo lecciones en la implementación de instrumentos de financiación en base al valor del suelo, políticas para reducir déficits cualitativos y cuantitativos de vivienda, y condiciones propicias para la incorporación de soluciones basadas en la naturaleza para la acción climática.

A continuación, se mencionan los proyectos y equipos de trabajo que reciben una comisión del Instituto Lincoln y que resultarán en informes científicos a presentarse en abril de 2025:

• María Mercedes Di Virgilio, Felipe Gonzalez, María Vitoria Boix, Nicolás Ferme y María Victoria Marco, todos integrantes del Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento (CIPPEC), realizarán una medición de niveles de vivienda vacante y recomendaciones de políticas públicas en las ciudades de Buenos Aires, Córdoba y Rosario, en Argentina.
• Ernesto Lopez-Morales, Luis Inostroza, Lien Rodríguez, Nicolás Herrera y Vicente Mosso investigarán aumentos de valor de suelo generados por proyectos de infraestructura azul-verde y la provisión de servicios ecosistémicos en la región de Patagonia, Chile.
• Aurora Echavarria y Paavo Monkkonen generarán una base de datos de tasas del impuesto predial aplicadas en más de 200 municipios de México, para evaluarlas contra niveles de progresividad y de cumplimiento en pagos, así como su relación con costos fiscales por exenciones y frecuencia de estimaciones de la base gravable.
• Ciro Biderman y Luis Antonio Fantozzi Alvarez evaluarán variaciones en cobros de derechos de edificabilidad y sus impactos en valores de suelo y edificios en São Paulo, Brasil.
• Pedro Abramo, Adriana Hurtado, Juan Cabrera, Denisse Brikman, María Mercedes Di Virgilio y Julia Queiroz realizarán un estudio comparativo de procesos de densificación en áreas de origen informal en cinco países—Bolivia, Perú, Colombia, Argentina y Brasil—con el objetivo de identificar modelos de política pública para gestionar los procesos actuales de crecimiento vertical informal.
• Daniel Kozak, Demián Rotbart, Hayley Henderson, Mariana Giusti, Rodolfo Aradas y Esteban Otto Thomasz analizarán el costo-beneficio de un sistema urbano de drenaje sostenible, incluyendo su potencial como solución basada en la naturaleza y mecanismo de recuperación de plusvalías, en el municipio de General San Martín, Argentina.
• Oscar Eduardo Pérez Moreno, Catalina Hinestroza Gallego, Jean Carlo Figueroa Santamaría y Susana Aguilar Cuartas analizarán los marcos jurídicos e institucionales de instrumentos de recuperación de plusvalías para la financiación de acciones de resiliencia climática, con enfoque en el proyecto “Paisajes de Agua” del municipio Rionegro, Colombia.
• Ivo Gasic, Néstor Garza y Clemente Larraín realizarán una estimación de la tasa de variación general del precio del suelo de Santiago de Chile, con el objetivo de ser utilizada en investigaciones sobre estimaciones de plusvalías que genera la inversión pública en esta ciudad.
• Fernando Mello Franco, Alexandre Fontenelle-Weber, Giselle Mendonça Abreu, Joyce Reis Ferreira da Silva, Rafael Chasles y Bárbara Frutuoso explorarán la función socioambiental de azoteas en São Paulo, Brasil, generando una tipología en base a morfologías y usos.
• Beatriz Toribio, Gastón Gertner, y Guadalupe Dorna, compararán los efectos de obras para control de inundaciones en valores de propiedades en zonas de alto riesgo en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Para conocer más acerca de esta y otras iniciativas de investigación del Instituto Lincoln en la región, visite nuestra página principal de oportunidades para investigaciones (en inglés) y nuestro repositorio de recursos relacionados con políticas de suelo en América Latina.

Luis Felipe Quintanilla es analista de políticas para el Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo.

Lead image: Casas en Buenos Aires, Argentina. Credit: Gustavo Enrique Cortez via iStock/Getty Images Plus.