Myanmar's Urbanization : Creating Opportunities for All
Urbanization in Myanmar is still in an early phase with slightly less than one-third of the population living in cities. This presents an enormous opportunity for the country. Cities are engines of growth and prosperity, which facilitate industries...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/807471559656318146/Creating-Opportunities-for-All-Full-Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31824 |
| Summary: | Urbanization in Myanmar is still in an
early phase with slightly less than one-third of the
population living in cities. This presents an enormous
opportunity for the country. Cities are engines of growth
and prosperity, which facilitate industries to grow jobs,
services and innovations. Cities are also fundamental to
lifting people out of poverty through increased employment
opportunities and incomes to citizens. No country has
reached middle income status without urbanizing. That being
said, the way that cities urbanize is important to growth,
poverty and livability. If adequate investments are not made
in basic infrastructure and services, urban planning, and in
ensuring a governance and financing structure that can
deliver for residents, cities instead can end up with major
problems of congestion, pollution, sprawl, and inequality
which can create or worsen social divisions, and potentially
contribute to crime and violence. The report, Myanmar’s
Urbanization: Creating Opportunities for All aims to
understand urbanization in Myanmar drawing on the growing
literature on the topic in Myanmar, especially for Yangon.
It uses an inclusive urbanization lens and proposes a set of
priority policy areas for urgent attention that will help to
ensure the benefits of urbanization are widely realized
given the projected growth of cities. An inclusion lens is
particularly important in Myanmar as the country
transitions from a complex history that has been
characterized by decades of economic and political
isolation, conflict, and underdevelopment. Inclusive
urbanization is reliant on three keydimensions; economic,
social and spatial. Economic inclusion refers to equitable
access to employment and income-generating activities in a
city, and resilience to shocks. Spatial inclusion refers to
equitable and affordable access to land, housing,
infrastructure and basic public services. Social inclusion
relates to individual and group rights, equity, security and
dignity. Such aspects of social inclusion and exclusion are
relevant to groups who are often marginalized inday-to-day
urban life. |
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