Your Excellencies,
We, the mayors of major African cities, write to you at a critical juncture. Our urban areas are engines of national economic growth, yet we are struggling to power them. We face an unprecedented infrastructure deficit and a climate crisis that threatens our collective prosperity. To meet these challenges, we require a new fiscal partnership.
Our cities are constrained by a fundamental mismatch between our responsibilities and our financial capacity. Heavy reliance on unpredictable central transfers hampers our ability to plan and invest in the long-term. We are often unable to access capital markets or leverage private investment due to restrictive legal frameworks.
We therefore urge a collaborative effort on three key fronts:
First, we call for predictable intergovernmental transfers to enable sound multi-year planning for essential infrastructure.
Second, we need the legal authority to diversify our own-source revenues, including through innovative municipal bonds and public-private partnerships.
Third, we must mainstream urban climate action into national budgets, ensuring direct funding for the resilient infrastructure our cities desperately need.
Let us work together to unlock the full potential of our urban economies. The future of Africa will be built in its cities.