Cities Alliance
Guidelines for Submission of Proposals
-- DRAFT 18 October 2007 --
The Cities Alliance is a global coalition of cities and their development partners committed to improving the living conditions of the urban poor through action in two key areas:
- City-wide and nation-wide slum upgrading, to improve the living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, prioritising slum prevention and slum upgrading in accordance with the CitiesWithout Slums action plan (Millennium Development Goal – Target 11).
- City development strategies, which link the process by which local stakeholders define their vision for their city, analyse its economic prospects and establish priorities for action and investments.
Since its launch in 1999, the Cities Alliance has rapidly established itself as the most important global network focused on the developmental role of cities, and on slums.
This application form and guidelines apply to country-specific city development strategies(CDS) and slum upgrading(SU) activities, at local, provincial and national levels. Applicants should review this entire guide before starting the funding application.
The maximum grant amount from the CitiesAllianceCore Funds is US$500,000.[1]
Funding applications of more than US$250,000 require additional approval processes.[2]
Eligibility – A project proposed for CA funding must be in a country that is included on the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s List of Aid Recipients, which can be found on the OECD Website – The current list of eligible countries, as of the date of these guidelines, is provided in A nnex 2.
What the Cities Alliance is looking for
(Targeting the objective)
The Cities Alliance seeks to support cities and countries that want to change – cities and countries that wish to break out of short-term development models and focus on the long-term systemic changes required for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. Cities Alliance grants are intended to catalyse the transformationrequired to empower cities and to meet the challenges of scale – so that, over time, urban development replaces decay and decline, the numbers of slum dwellers is reduced as their circumstances improve, and cities’ economic growth, prosperity and systemic investment in institutions leads to gradual disappearance of slums.
The Alliance supports citywide and nationwide slum upgrading of low-income settlements, with priority given to those cities and countries where existing initiatives and partnerships have already been created, particularly where organisations representing the urban poor are actively involved.[3] Key elements of the Alliance’s approach are to:
Support opportunities for citywide and nationwide slum upgrading.
Help cities and countries strengthen their policy and regulatory framework.
Establish consensus with local stakeholders, create alliances, and mobilise resources to implement programmes.
Promote activities that raise awareness, disseminate information, and create a global base of knowledge on best practices in scaling up slum upgrading.
The Alliance provides support for city development strategies (CDS)aimed at improving urban performance through increased competitiveness, resilience and resource conservation.[4] Priority is given to those cities already engaged in realising an inclusive vision for city development. Key methods of intervention are:
Supporting city-based consensus-building processes to establish a development vision, an implementation strategy and an action plan for policy and institutional reforms and investments.
Assessing the city’s economic growth potential linked to employment and to regional and national development objectives.
Assessing the environmental and human resource base, as well as the social and governance structure in the city.
Assisting local authorities in outlining financing and investment strategies, taking into account city-based resources and revenues, as well as private sector investors and partners.
Building capacity and monitoring mechanisms to capture and share the lessons and knowledge acquired in formulating and implementing city development strategies.
The Cities Alliance supports efforts by cities to access domestic sources of finance for implementing their CDS and slum upgrading programmes. This support could help cities and national governments look at systemic interventions to improve their fiscal relations and also at financial intermediaries for small and medium cities.
Application Form
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Title of Proposal
Create a short but descriptive title that captures the overall scope of the project.
2. Proposal Submitted By
A proposal is typically submitted by a mayor or other leader of the CDS or slum upgrading programme, such as a metropolitan or district governor, or the head of a national local authority association. In the case of national level actions, the proposal is usually submitted by a ministry or urban development agency or authority.
3. Cities Alliance Member(s) Sponsoring the Application
The funding application MUST be sponsored by at least one member of the Cities Alliance. However, applications are usually expected to have multiple sponsors, because a primary objective of the Cities Alliance is to improve the coherence of urban development cooperation. Alliance members active in the city/country should be contacted for possible co-sponsorship prior to submitting the application. Please see Annex3 for a list of Cities Alliance members as of the date of these guidelines.
By agreeing to be a sponsor of the proposed project, the Cities Alliance Member(s) confirm agreement to the following sponsor terms of reference:
The sponsor has ensured that the proposed project is not in conflict with the country-level programmesor activities of donors.
The sponsor has reviewed and cleared the application that has been submitted.
The sponsor will extend active support to the project, the forms and details of which should be documented in the application.
Thesponsor will follow progress of the activities.
The sponsor will inform the Cities Alliance Secretariat if they become aware of any factor that might significantly impede or improve project implementation.
Thesponsor will ensure the timely payment of its co-financing contribution, if any.
The sponsor will collaborate with other Cities Alliance members in support of the project’s activities.
The sponsor will support monitoring activities of the partner city and participate in Cities Alliance project evaluations.
The application must include a contact person (name, title, organisation, telephone and e-mail) for each sponsor. The Cities Alliance Secretariat may contact the sponsor upon receipt of a funding application to confirm their agreement to the above sponsor terms of reference.
4. Recipient Organisation
The recipient organisation is normally the organisation that submits the funding application, receives the funding tranches, and is responsible for grant execution.
The recipient could also be a local (or national) partner of the organisation submitting the application, such as a local/national development agency, local authority association, an NGO,or a parastatal organisation.
In exceptional cases, the Cities Alliancemay consider requests to have two recipient organisations. If so, this should be explained in the implementation arrangements(section 20)of the funding application.
As part of the proposal review process, the Cities Alliance Secretariat will assess the capacity of the proposed recipient organisation to administer the funding. The review will consider, among other factors, the organisation’slegal status; the organisation’s financial statements; and, the track record (if any) in administering grant funds. Based on this review, the Cities Alliance might request that the project include activities that help improve the capacity of the implementing organisation to administer the funding. Actions to build recipient capacity to implement the grant can be included as part of project activities.
The terms of reference for the recipient organisation include:
Overall responsibility for the proper use of the Cities Alliance funds.
Enter into a grant agreement with the World Bank, on behalf of the Cities Alliance, which will stipulate the terms and conditions for receiving the funds. The funds are disbursed in instalments, based on progress achieved in implementing project activities.
Comply with all provisions in the grant agreement.
Open a project bank account to receive the grant funds.
Be responsible for using the funds only for the activities specified in the grant agreement.
Monitor and provide timely reporting to the Cities Alliance on progress in implementing the project, and financial reporting on the uses of the funds. Progress reporting is usually required at least twice per year and financial reporting on a quarterly basis.
If other partners are involved in helping implement project activities, the recipient organisation will monitor implementation of these project activities, and consolidate the reporting from these partners and submit a single report to the Cities Alliance.
Participate in knowledge sharing activities so that other cities/countries might benefit from the project experiences.
Only in those instances where the city or its local partners clearly have insufficient capacity to manage and administer Cities Alliance funds, should a member of the Cities Alliance, or a third party, be requested to act as agent of the cityand manage the implementation. Other instances where client execution may not be opportune could include those countries where there are legislative or administrative barriers to such an arrangement, or where unintended but significant financial penalties may be incurred (for example, through attracting taxes from which a multilateral institution may be exempt).
In exceptional cases where a Cities Alliance member or third party implements a grant on behalf of a city or country, the member/third party agrees to:
Provide the required detailed financial reporting to both the Cities Alliance Secretariat and the city/country.
Submit joint progress reports from the city/country and the partner to the Secretariat.
Engage the city/country in work programming, development of consultant TORs, and consultant selection. The engagement of local or regional consultants should be pursued when possible.
The Cities Alliance will also consider requests for international organisations to implement small grants (up to US$75,000) to provide assistance to a local partner to develop a proposal for a CDS or slum upgrading programme. These activities should include tasks to help build the capacity of the local partner to implement the resulting project.
5. Other Implementing Partners
If the Recipient Organisation will be supported by any partner organisations in the implementation of the activity, those partners should be listed here. Their role may include, for example:
Supporting monitoring (main responsibility should be with partner city) and overseeing project activities, such as by serving on a steering committee.
Reviewing consultant terms of reference.
Executing project co-financing.
Co-executing project activities.
In some cases, these other implementing partners might receive a portion of the Cities Alliance grant funds from the recipient organisation to directly execute a component of the project. If so, this should be explained in the implementation arrangements(section 20)of the funding application.
6. Type of activity
Identify whether the activityis primarily a:
City Development Strategy – supporting strategic city development planning activities and enabling local economic growth and poverty reduction.
or
Slum Upgrading – supporting development and implementation of programmes of action that create an enabling environment for the upgrading of slums and informal settlements, and for preventing the growth of new slums.
In some cases, both CDS and slum upgrading are integral elements of the proposed activity. This could include, for example, a CDS focusingon strategic planning around slum improvements and preparing for continued population growth (slum prevention). It could also include a project focusing on a cross-cutting activity, such as improving municipal finance, which will have direct benefits for implementation of both CDSs and slum upgrading programmes.
7. Geographic Scope
Provide the name of the city or cities targeted by the activity for which funds are being requested.
If the activity is country-wide in scope (e.g. aimed at national slum upgrading policy reform), indicate the name of the country.
If the activity involves more than one country (e.g. a partnership between two countries), focuses on a particular geographic region (e.g. South Asia) or is global in scope, please specify.
8. Duration
Priority is given to projects that promise deliverables within well-defined timeframes, and preferably within 24 months but usually no more than three years.Contact the Secretariat to discuss whether a phased approach might be appropriate for activities that are more than 24-36 months in duration.
Budget Summary
Write the total budget amount for the slum upgrading or CDS activity here:
9. Total Budget
10. Amount of total budget requested from Cities Alliance funding
11. Co-financing amount of total budget, including local partners
Cities Alliance grants are made in USdollars. However, these funds may be converted by the recipient into local currency (or other international currency) for disbursement for project activities. The project may also be budgeted in local currency, with US dollar equivalent values provided. For more information, see the financing plan section of the Guidelines.
The maximum amount that can be requested from Cities Alliance Core Funds is US$500,000.
The larger the grant funding request, the more steps are required to process a funding application. The main grant thresholds are:
Up to $75,000
$75,001 to $250,000
$250,001 to $500,000
Co-financing: All proposals shouldinclude co-financing from the recipient organisation, implementing partners, and other sources. The amount of co-financing should be proportional to the size of the Cities Alliance grant requested, and range from 20 percent to 50 percent of the total project budget. For more information on co-financing, please see the summary financing plan (section 22) of the application guidelines.
Description of the Proposed Activity
Applicants for Cities Alliance funding should develop thisproposal in close consultation with Cities Alliance sponsors, implementing partners, other city and national stakeholders, and with the investors that will provide the capital needed to implement the CDS plans and slum upgrading programmes.
The Cities Alliance seeks to support CDS and Slum Upgrading activities that:
have strong local ownership and include a broad-based partnership of local stakeholders, supported by Cities Alliance members. The activity will usually be part of a broader programme of action to foster local economic growth and reduce poverty.
demonstrate innovative approaches for addressing pressing urban issues and unblocking the contributions of cities to national development.
maximise a coherence of effortamong stakeholders and partners, promoting cross-sectoral, inter-divisional and multi-donor coordination.
contribute to developing local mechanisms to help city managers and national associations of local authorities institutionalise support for the formulation of city development strategies and citywide and nationwide upgrading programmes, so as to ensure sustainability and facilitate replication in other cities.
include knowledge sharing components, so that the progress and results of the project can be communicated to stakeholders and other interested parties. The knowledge sharing activities can also be part of the project plans to help institutionalise support for CDS and slum upgrading programmes.
aim to achieve significant environmental improvements. The proposal should contain details of how these environmental improvements will be achieved, including the setting of specific goals and targets. It should also demonstrate how these improvements would be institutionalised, and the positive impacts maintained.[5]
12. Background –issues to be addressed and scope of activity
In this section, explain why this project is being proposed. Address questions such as:
What is the context for the project at both the local and national level?
Why is it important?
What are the major constraints to be addressed?
What is the scope of the activity?
Include here any linkages this project might have with previous or on-going Cities Alliance projects in the city or country. For example, the slum upgrading programme might have resulted from a previous CDS. The Cities Alliance encourages linkages between scaling-up slum upgrading and CDSs.
Also include a description of linkages with other urban development programmes and activities of Cities Alliance members.
13. Objectives
Explain clearly and concisely what the project aims to achieve. The objective should focus on the outcomes intended to result directly from project activities, rather than longer-term, more indirect objectives.
The project being proposed must aim to reduce urban poverty and directly support scaling up slum upgrading and/or strategic city development.
14. Methodology and sequencing of activities
Describe the overall methodology for the activities – how and why the components/activities fit together to achieve the Objectives.
Summarise the project’s main components, activities, and their sequencing. A project application will typically be organised around two to five components or main activities.It may be useful to link each activity to a specific output(s) and related outcome(s).
15. Deliverables
Summarise the main deliverables that will result from the Cities Alliance funding for this project. Deliverablesinclude reports, publications, policy papers, stakeholder workshops, training events, toolkits, websites, etc.
16. Expected outcomes, and related monitoring indicators and plans
Beyond production of the deliverables listed in section 15, please detail the outcomes and impacts (results) expected to be achieved by the activity within the next 3 to 5 years.
For each proposed outcome, provide one or more indicators that will be used to monitor progress toward the outcome, as well as the entity responsible for monitoring. Monitoring and evaluation reports should facilitate learning and knowledge management by all stakeholders.
Project activities and funds may be committed to support measuring outcomes and monitoring progress.
17. Sources of investment to implement the CDS plans or the slum upgrading programme
Theresulting CDSs and slum upgrading programmes willneedcapitalfor implementation. The Cities Alliance requires that reasonable prospects for this investment follow-up be established before project activities begin, as the investment partner is a key project stakeholder.