Competitive and Livable City of Karachi Project

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The development objective of Competitive and Livable City of Karachi Project for Pakistan is to improve urban management, service delivery, and the business environment in Karachi. This project has four components. 1) The first component, Performance-based Grants to Local Councils and Capacity Building, aims to finance the provision of performance-based grants (PBGs) to Karachi local councils (LCs) upon achievement of specified institutional strengthening measures, to incentivize LCs to improve management capacity and enhance city competitiveness. It has the following subcomponents:(i) Performance-based Grants to Local Councils; and (ii) Technical Assistance and performance grants implementation and management. 2) The second component, Modernizing Urban Property Tax Administration and System, aims to support the implementation of reforms for urban immovable property tax (UIPT) in Karachi, including possible phased devolution of UIPT collection to LCs in the medium to long term. GoS has developed a roadmap for improvements in UIPT and phased devolution to LCs to improve efficiency, transparency and incentives for this tax. 3) The third component, Improvement of City Competitiveness and Business Environment, is oriented towards improving the business environment of Karachi, as opposed to other activities, owing to complementarities between the activities in this and other components of the project. It has the following subcomponents:(i) Streamlining and Integrating Business Regulations for City Competitiveness; and (ii) Establishment of PPP node at local government department (LGD). 4) The fourth component, Technical Assistance (TA) for Solid Waste Management, aims to provide TA to, and building capacity of, LGD and Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) to improve solid waste management (SWM) in Karachi and the performance of SSWMB, through the identification and resolution of critical challenges and the formulation of a long-term strategy for sector development and investment to address identified challenges.