The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in Tanzania conducted a webinar to raise awareness of municipal revenue bonds as one of the untapped sources of finance urgently needed to solve development challenges of today.African cities and local authorities face significant challenges to address critical urban infrastructure and services due to lack of funding. Currently, the dependency on fiscal transfers from most central governments is approximately 70-90% of their budgets.

Around 250 participants from government, local authorities, academia, financial institutions, , development partners, UN system, and private sector heard fist hand new financing initiatives that the government is introducing to support national development plans.

The webinar brought together seasoned global and national experts as panelists, including Dr Mwamwaja, the Commissioner for Financial Sector Development in the Ministry of Finance and Planning who said, ‘’The Ministry is working with UNCDF to create enabling environment for cities and sub-nationals to access new source of development finance including municipal bonds critically needed to provide services in their communities.’’

“Although local authorities in many countries are sphere of Government and are responsible to deliver urban infrastructure and services, in many cases the funding models results in significant funding gap. Therefore, it is important to change policies that create an enabling environment to tap into alternative financing solutions” said Khomotso, Chief Officer Municipal Finance, Fiscal Policy and Local Economic Development at South African Local Government Association (SALGA).

Giving his observation during the webinar the CEO of Capital Markets and Securities Authority, Tanzania Mr. Nicodemus Mkama highlighted that “there is a capital market appetite for new innovations such as municipal revenue bonds. The infrastructure is there and there is a political buy in to develop this untapped finance for development.”

Tanzania’s increasing population and annual national budget deficits has incentivized UNCDF to promote municipal bonds to help diversify and expand the financial base of local government authorities (LGAs) to accelerate local development and to leave no one behind.

“As a UN agency with capital mandate, UNCDF is supporting the government of Tanzania to diversity the finance mix in the national budget to include municipal bonds. We therefore commend the ministries of finance and local governments for their reforms and innovations around this subject.” Peter Malika, Head of UNCDF Tanzania and UNCDF Chief Technical Advisor.

The webinar is part of a series to raise awareness on the use of financial instruments to fund development and achieve inclusive economic growth by fulfilling the commitments in the 2030 Agenda.