Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore to establish the Asia Training and Research Initiative for Urban Management (Atrium) to share knowledge on good practices as well as successes and failures in urban planning in the region.
According to ADB here on Tuesday, the initiative would also address the organisational, legal and financial challenges in urban planning and management in developing countries.
ADB would work with the government agency, International Enterprise Singapore, to cooperate on policy planning workshops, pilot projects and study visits to Singapore for urban sector policy makers from developing countries.
The Singapore government would provide one million dollar to support the joint co-operation programmes to be carried out under the new initiative. It estimates that 60 billion dollars per year is needed to meet the demand for urban infrastructure services between 2006 and 2010. This includes water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, urban roads and mass transit systems.
Over the next five years, ADB plans to invest about one billion-dollar in urban water supply and sanitation under water financing programme. The total investment by ADB for urban infrastructure from 2007 to 2008 has increased by 3.4 billion.
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