_Urbanization is an irreversible global trend involving a multitude of social, economic, environmental and spatial aspects. While urbanization is widely accepted as an indicator for economic development, its pace and impact on social and spatial conditions pose unprecedented challenges to both politicians and professionals.

_The experience of the past decades has shown that conventional concepts of urban planning and development based on control and investment in key infrastructure have not been adequate to cope with the rapid changes, financial constraints, high population growth, increasing urban poverty, informal land development and the adverse environmental impacts of urbanization.

_In recent years local and national govern- ments in collaboration with development agencies have made progress in developing flexible and action- oriented strategies. These strategies put emphasize on the inter- connectivity of sectors, without denying the importance of sectoral measures. Such strategies integrate a wide range of actors that usually work in isolation from or even compete with each other (e.g. the private sector, NGOs, CBOs and local governments).

_International development organizations such as the German GTZ (Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH), UNDP or the World Bank have been supporting these efforts in many countries. These new concepts are based on an approach that borrows from management and governance theories and take into account which resources are available for implementation.