The World Bank Will Help Strengthen Urban Management and Income Generation in 22 Districts of Peru | WPN World People News

The World Bank Board of Directors approved a US$ 50 million loan to finance the project “National Urban Cadaster and Municipal Support,” on January 10. The initiative will support the development of the urban cadaster and will provide technical assistance to 22 municipalities located in the provinces of Lima, Chiclayo, Lambayeque and Piura in the use of this tool to optimize urban management, disaster risk management and tax collection.

The project includes innovations such as the use of drone imagery, as well as more efficient, simplified methods for the collection, processing and updating of cadastral information, which will result in time and cost savings.

Currently, some 80 percent of the Peruvian population resides in urban areas, and that figure is increasing. Local capacities to generate income, as well as to finance and manage infrastructure and services, have not kept pace, however. In this context, the urban cadaster is a crucial tool to enable municipalities to identify the properties in their jurisdiction and their characteristics. This information can be used to help improve municipal management.

“Having a quality, updated urban cadaster will allow each locality to manage its territories and disaster risks, promote ordered urban growth, plan its development, become more resilient and have access to reliable information to guide decision-making and investment in infrastructure and services,” said Marianne Fay, World Bank Director for Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

The project will develop a national data platform to consolidate urban cadaster data and will strengthen local government capacities to create and update their cadasters, and to link the cadastral information to other databases. Identifying the uses, value, location and characteristics of urban assets will empower local governments to improve urban planning, service delivery and infrastructure, as well as to prevent and respond to disasters, at the same time it increases their capacity to generate their own resources. All of this will contribute to improving the living conditions of local residents.

The Vice-minister of Housing and Urban Planning, David Ramos, noted that the project will benefit some 4.8 million people and that the updating of the registry will enable municipalities to improve their management capacities, which will contribute to income generation through the collection of property and municipal taxes. “Besides updating the cadaster and optimizing urban management, the project will generate a series of administrative and oversight improvements and will increase tax collection in the municipalities. Additionally, it will help them better manage their territory, plan projects and adequately manage ordered city development,” he said.

The budget for this project totals US$ 80.9 million, of which US$ 30.9 million will be covered by the government budget and US$ 50 million will be financed by the World Bank.

Source: World Bank