Expanding municipal finance for cities in Africa is vital for fostering resilient, inclusive, and sustainable cities in Africa, say experts attending an Experts Group Meeting this week to review and validate the Financial Performance Assessment Report of Nairobi City in Naivasha, Kenya.

According to the experts deliberating the Review of Nairobi City’s Financial Performance Assessment Report, ensuring municipalities have the financial resources they need is key to tackling issues like rapid population growth, climate change, and economic disparities effectively, and driving local development. The meeting has been organized in collaboration with UN-Habitat, UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Nairobi City County and is geared towards validating and enriching the financial assessment report of the City of Nairobi.

The review is part of an ongoing project known, in UN parlance as the Development Account, which seeks to accompany six selected cities in cities in Africa – Addis Ababa, Dar Es Salam, Kigali, Lusaka, Nairobi, and Yaoundé – and assess their fiscal space limitations due increased to challenges of meeting development needs, including infrastructure and housing, healthcare and education in the post-Covid era.