India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world and urbanisation is both a challenge and an opportunity for India with huge implications for the rest of the world. One critical concern for India’s urbanising future is the provision of basic urban services for all its citizens.

This paper examines the case of Kochi, an Indian city located at the centre of a rapidly urbanizing coastal and estuarine region. In Kochi, a port city characterised by crisscrossing canals and rivers connected to a backwater system, waterways used to play a major role in the socio-economic and cultural development of the region.

This paper—produced in collaboration between Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), and funded by the Swedish Energy Agency as part of its support for the New Climate Economy project—proposes the use of municipal bonds to support the sc