Cities Alliance 2004 Annual Report

The Cities Alliance was established to improve the efficiency and scale
up the impacts of urban development cooperation and urban investment.
From the outset, Alliance members recognised that this meant
changing how international development agencies work with cities,
including creating a new coherence of effort to reduce urban poverty.
By supporting cities in their development of citywide strategies
that link their economic growth and poverty reduction objectives, the
Alliance is helping to overcome the limitations of sectoral approaches
to development.

The Alliance has made considerable progress on several fronts.
This is reflected in the endorsement of the Alliance’s Cities Without
Slums action plan by the world’s heads of state in the United Nations
Millennium Declaration, subsequently incorporated in the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Equally important has been the response
of a growing number of cities and countries that are adopting
comprehensive slum upgrading programmes, setting development
targets, undertaking reforms to prevent the growth of new slums, and
leveraging public and private resources to improve the lives of slum
dwellers.