This report identifies lessons learned from implementation of a community-driven urban development initiative in Indonesia, the Neighborhood Upgrading and Shelter Sector Project (NUSSP), and the extent to which it contributed to improvements in service delivery and governance in six beneficiary communities. The NUSSP subprojects examined were found to be well implemented, with high levels of community participation in project planning, implementation, and monitoring. However, participation by women and poor villagers was relatively low. The subprojects did not significantly affect the quality of institutional arrangements for local service delivery lying outside the scope of the project.

Climate risk threatens Indonesia’s socioeconomic development, and it is likely to exacerbate the plight of Indonesians living below and close to the poverty line. Urban areas are hot spots of such risk, disproportionately impacting the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of the poor and near poor who often live in slums and informal settlements. Growing urbanization and increasing climate risk make it imperative to strengthen the resilience of the urban poor through interventions that promote coping, incremental, and transformational strategies. This report identifies pro-poor climate resilience solutions and their concomitant enabling factors, building on national policies and programs and taking into account Indonesia’s priority sectors for climate-resilient development.

The global increase in the number of slums calls for policies which improve the conditions of the urban poor, sustainably. This volume provides an extensive overview of current housing policies in Asia, Africa and Latin America and presents the facts and trends of recent housing policies. The chapters provide ideas and tools for pro-poor interventions with respect to the provision of land for housing, building materials, labour, participation and finance. The book looks at the role of the various stakeholders involved in such interventions, including national and local governments, private sector organisations, NGOs and Community-based Organisations.

Civil society organizations, including nongovernment organizations (NGOs), are important stakeholders of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ADB Cooperation with Civil Society Annual Report 2010 presents an overview of the year's work in cooperating with civil society organizations, including NGOs, in country and regional programming work, project operations, as well as in policy and strategy development. Through ADB's NGO and Civil Society Center, ADB is strengthening its partnership with civil society to further increase its contribution to development effectiveness.

Slums, informal settlements, and dilapidated inner-city tenements are problems that many cities in Asia and the Pacific struggle with while their economies try to modernize and develop. Their existence puts at risk not only these economies but also poor people occupying vulnerable areas that climate change and natural disasters will only make worse. Slums are being addressed in countries in Asia and the Pacific but not yet at the rate required to create livable cities. ADB's Strategy 2020 aims for "livable cities" and will address the range of problems resulting from rapid urbanization and the limited capacity of basic service delivery associated with present and future urban growth. To accomplish the vision of livable cities, livelihood opportunities and shelter options of incremental land and housing development are important. ADB's developing member countries will look for viable lending opportunities to finance inclusive cities.

Legal empowerment is a powerful tool for reducing poverty. It gives people the knowledge, skills, and confidence to participate in development projects. It promotes inclusive growth, which reduces poverty by building people's capacity to improve their lives. Inclusive growth is a goal of Strategy 2020, which guides the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its mission to promote gender equality, empower women, and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The publication presents the findings of a project funded by ADB, carried out by The Asia Foundation, and conducted in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan. The project aimed to identify and test legal empowerment strategies that increase access to basic social services, productive resources, and opportunities by women and other disadvantaged groups and to incorporate legal empowerment initiatives into mainstream development projects.

In March 2012, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) held the Subregional Workshop on Gender and Urban Poverty in South Asia to share experiences and enhance lateral learning among ADB and its project partners on addressing gender and social inclusion issues in urban development projects in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Participants included senior government officials, nongovernment organizations, community-based organizations, researchers, ADB urban and gender specialists, and representatives of international development agencies.This report presents the synthesis of knowledge, experiences, good practices, and recommendations shared at the forum with the aim of assisting ADB and its partner agencies in the planning of urban development projects to facilitate gender- and socially inclusive outcomes and reduce poverty in South Asia.