Towards a More Equal City

This fact sheet introduces the 'Towards a More Equal City' series by the World Resources Institute, which provides a roadmap for cities—particularly in the global south—to close the 'urban services divide' through seven cross-sectoral transformations to improve equity, prosperity, and sustainability.

• An 'urban services divide' exists where one in three city dwellers, totaling over 1.2 billion people, lack reliable, safe, or affordable access to essential services including electricity, decent housing, transport, and running water and sanitation. This gap negatively impacts health, productivity, and time, while hindering climate goals and economic development.
• Unsafe sanitation creates a global economic burden of US$223 billion per year in lost wages, productivity, and health costs. Conversely, investing US$1 in water and sanitation can yield benefits ranging from US$4 to US$34 through improved health, productivity, and time savings.
• The World Resources Institute proposes seven cross-sectoral transformations to create more equitable cities, categorized by three goals: reimagining service provision, including the excluded, and creating enabling conditions. These transformations include: - Partnering with alternative service providers (informal or community-run). - Improving local data through community engagement to address the lack of disaggregated data. - Prioritizing vulnerable populations in infrastructure design to minimize carbon lock-in. - Promoting transparency and integrated spatial planning in land management. - Creating diverse coalitions of public, private, and civil society organizations for governance. - Increasing and innovatively targeting investment and subsidies. - Recognizing and supporting informal urban employment to boost economic resilience.
• In Kampala, the implementation of pro-poor sanitation innovations involving small businesses, communities, and government partnerships led to changes in government practices that benefited other sectors.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Towards a More Equal City. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/uploads/WRR_Towards_a_More_Equal_City_Brochure.pdf

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Towards a More Equal City. n.d. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/uploads/WRR_Towards_a_More_Equal_City_Brochure.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Towards a More Equal City |url=https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/uploads/WRR_Towards_a_More_Equal_City_Brochure.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendtowards, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Towards a More Equal City}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/uploads/WRR_Towards_a_More_Equal_City_Brochure.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }