Institutions and the Urban Environment in Developing Countries: Challenges, Trends, and Transitions.” Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

sector) The paper discusses challenges, trends, and transitions in the urban environment field and offers an approach to meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets in water supply and sanitation in urban areas. It updates the author’s 1994 publication Urban Environmental Challenges: New Directions for Technical Assistance to Cities in Developing Countries, published by the World Resources Institute. This paper begins by describing governance, decentralization, and privatization trends and drawing lessons from international development experiences in cities in developing countries. It argues that pervasive governance problems have led to environmental service deficits, particu-larly amongst the poor, who, at the same time, have demonstrated tremendous ingenu-ity in obtaining for themselves what their municipalities have not provided. The paper examines the global urban environmental agenda through a review of summit meetings and key initiatives of major international development agencies.This review of the glob-al agenda – from Rio to Johannesburg – leads to the judgment that the most importan