From IDB Improving lives

What is ESC ?

The Emerging and Sustainable Cities Program (ESC) is the IDB’s non-reimbursable technical assistance program providing direct support to national and subnational governments in the development and execution of city Action Plans.

ESC employs a multidisciplinary approach to identify, organize and prioritize urban interventions to tackle the main roadblocks that prevent the sustainable growth of emerging cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. This transversal approach is based on three pillars: (i) environmental and climate change sustainability, (ii) urban sustainability, and (iii) fiscal sustainability and governance.

Urbanization in Latin America

Latin America and the Caribbean is the second-most urbanized region in the planet with 8 out of 10 people living in cities. Between 1950 and 2014, the region urbanized at an unprecedented rate, raising its urban population (as per cent of total) from 50 per cent to 80 per cent; a figure that is expected to climb to 86 per cent by 2050.

Over the past two decades, the region’s urban population and economic growth has been increasingly taking place in intermediate- sized cities, which are expanding exponentially.

For more on this story go to: https://www.iadb.org/en/topics/emerging-and-sustainable-cities/emerging-and-sustainable-cities-initiative%2C6656.html