The brown agenda or urban environmental issues became an important part of the international policy agenda following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992). Urban environmental issues continue to remain a major challenge in the cities of developing countries. The World Bank strengthened its focus on urban environmental management with the adoption of this brown agenda as part of the Bank’s urban livability program.

Urban Environment and Infrastructure reviews the World Bank’s activities to improve urban environmental quality. It sets out the Bank’s expanded brown agenda and emphasizes the crucial importance of infrastructure and environmental interventions in order to improve livability in cities in developing countries. The World Bank has more than US$12 billion worth of active commitments aimed at improving urban environmental quality. While the Bank’s investments are directed at much needed basic environmental services especially for the urban poor, the challenge of improving urban environment or livability in large cities needs further attention. Increasing climate variability, its impacts, especially sea-level rise, and urban impacts of natural disasters are becoming more and more part of the daily challenges facing cities in the developing world, seventy percent of which are located on the coasts. The volume provides pragmatic recommendations on how to deal with the challenge of this expanded brown agenda.

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