Prefiguration studies for the program design of CITIIS 2.0 in India
Context
In 2017, 2 years after the official launch of the Smart City Mission by the Government of India, AFD supported a program entitled “Supporting Smart Cities Mission for a more inclusive and sustainable urban development in India” through a 100 M€ loan and a 6 M€ grant delegated from the European Union. This program was organized around 3 components:
- City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) challenge, a call for project aiming at selecting 12 projects of excellence and developing the capacity of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to implement integrated urban projects.
- Capacity-development activities at State level, including activities aiming at strengthening the capacity of ULBs and a selected State to develop and implement urban integrated projects.
- Promotion of an integrated urban management at the central level, including activities aiming at optimizing and strengthening the monitoring and evaluation system of the Smart City Mission.
The program is managed by a Program Management Unit (PMU), hosted at the National Institute of Urban Affairs – under the authority of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The Indian authorities have requested AFD and KfW to appraise a second phase of this program (CITIIS 2.0), to be implemented in 2022. Two major changes are envisaged as compared to CITIIS 1.0: (i) the climate impact of the overall program will be enhanced and (ii) the role of the States will be reinforced.
Objective
Taking into account the lessons learnt from CITIIS 1 and the two major changes envisaged, AFD and KfW proposed to launch two parallel studies to support the design of this new program:
- A study on CITIIS 2.0 Program implementation modalities and technical assistance program
- A study on urban governance for climate projects in India, focusing on developing a program de-sign, selection criterion and disbursement triggers
Our contribution
Espelia completed the two prefiguration studies for the program design of CITIIS 2.0.
The first study was focusing on the definition of CITIIS 2.0 implementation modalities and the definition of the technical assistance framework. In this perspective, Espelia completed the following tasks :
- Review of the program design of CITIIS 1: implementation modalities, institutional framework, functioning of the technical assistance program, E&S framework and E&S management system
- Provision of recommendations for the implementation modalities, E&S framework, institutional framework of CITIIS 2
- Design and animation of co-construction workshops involving all the stakeholders (urban local bodies, States, NIUA, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, international and domestic experts, AFD, KfW)
- Drafting of program manual and other program documents for CITIIS 2.0.
The second study was focused on urban governance for climate projects in India and allowed to elaborate a program design centered around specific climate selection criterion and disbursement triggers. The team completed the following tasks :
- Review of the existing initiatives in urban policy and urban management performance at both the Central and State levels in India
- Proposition of KPIs for project owners based on Smart Cities Mission objectives and in line with AFD climate accounting methodologies, to be used as triggers for disbursements, with climate as a transversal objective
- Provision of a project financing methodology for enhancing climate impacts of selected projects based on lessons learnt from CITIIS 1
- Provision of recommendations for improved climate impact and monitoring of the program
- Participation to the preparation and animation of co-construction workshops involving all the stakeholders (urban local bodies, States, NIUA, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, international and domestic experts, AFD, KfW).
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