Capital Locast - Episode 9

04/20/20 • 31 min

Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi – Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments – Africa. The future is already here – the scale and speed of African urbanization is striking. It is a phenomenon taking place so fast that conceptions of rural Africa are already outdated. How will Africa finance the jobs, mass public transportation, clean energy, drinking water, affordable housing, parks and public utilities for a beautiful urban future? And how will Africa do this in the face of the climate emergency? This is THE issue for African development right now – yet attention is not yet being paid to it and development finance is full of old-fashioned ideas of what Africa is all about. How can we make local government finance the channel for African development finance? Jean Pierre discusses these challenges with us.

Previous Episode

Capital Locast - Episode 8

Brock Carlton – Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Brock believes that “Cities and towns build nations; they just need the power.” Under Brock’s leadership the FCM has become a major factor in Canada’s development path - from strategic partnerships with central government to establishing a role for Canadian municipalities in overseas development. Brock joins us to share the story of how the FCM has evolved to play such a major role, how it unites the interests of large cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal with those small rural towns and how it has contributed to the unity of a country as diverse as Canada. Brock also details how Canada is pioneering the role of municipalities as international development actors.

Next Episode

Capital Locast - Episode 10

Emilia Saiz – Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments – World Secretariat. UCLG is the world’s leading local government body and its members represent over 200,000 local governments worldwide. Emilia is a leading global advocate for the role of cities in development and has been instrumental in raising the profile of UCLG, bringing cities and local governments to the table at events that were previously the domain of central governments, the private sector and civil society only. One example is the United Nations itself where UCLG puts Local Governments on the platform. UNCDF has joined with UCLG to create the coalition for a global financial ecosystem that works for cities and local governments. To close the first season of Capital LoCAST, we discuss the next steps for our coalition.