City Resilience, Affordable Housing, Sustainable Tourism and Inclusive Economic Growth for Livable Cities

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A regional technical assistance (TA) is proposed to support India and Nepal for sustainable tourism development and affordable housing to contribute to the development of livable cities that are green, climate resilient, inclusive, smart and competitive. The TA will support policy advice, capacity building, and project preparation in several states/cities of India and Nepal by applying innovative and integrated solutions with a focus on the key subsectors of: (i) social and affordable housing; (ii) sustainable tourism development and the creative economy; and (iii) municipal and subnational financing. The TA will enable enhanced climate action and financing, disaster risk management, and increased private sector participation and investment across the subsectors. The TA will support robust climate mitigation and adaptation measures for developing transformational type 1 and 2 projects in the affordable and social housing and tourism subsectors. These projects will be aligned with the Paris Agreement and address India's climate change priorities. The TA will initially support India and Nepal but scope will be expanded to cover additional South Asia DMCs subject to DMCs' needs and funding availability.The TA aims to (i) strengthen the capacities of institutions, government officials, and stakeholders, in the housing, tourism, and related subsectors; (ii) support knowledge sharing and twinning arrangements to share best practices from the region; (iii) enhance stakeholder understanding of climate action and integrate climate resilience and disaster risk management in investments for housing, and tourism development, including introducing innovations that support low-carbon initiatives and nature-based solutions; (iv) identify and implement financial innovations and mechanisms to improve operational efficiency and financial sustainability, and access to housing finance for women and other vulnerable groups; and (v) promote planned urbanization, and private sector participation in the urban development, housing, and tourism subsectors where feasible. Key outputs envisaged from the TA include: (i) facilitating policy development and analytical studies to support investments in the areas of integrated urban planning, green, social and affordable housing, energy efficiency, sustainable tourism development, creative economy and subnational finance; (ii) development of sector assessments including pipeline development for all three subsectors; (iii) preparation of strategic master plans to support township development, housing programs, tourism circuits and corridor development; (iv) design and implementation of capacity development initiatives; and (v) conducting project identification and scoping activities to prepare investment projects.