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Managing
Sustainable Urban Development
In Latin America and the Caribbean:
The
Contribution of Knowledge Networks
“Initiating
Talks”
Dr.
Roberto Savio[1]
Dr. Federico Burone [2]
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A.
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Globalisation
and local governance
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1.
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After
intense application of structural reforms and new economic policies
that favour competitiveness and participation in global markets,
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have experienced a significant
economic growth. However,
despite this growth, the region has not accomplished a substantial
advance in reducing inequity resulting from the distribution of
resources and power among members of their societies.
Conversely, the dramatic transformation of sources and terms
of employment that were generated, has gone beyond the possibilities
of the State to intervene by out-weighing such effects through
public investment, and have favoured instead a growing social
marginalisation in the case of a large share of the population.
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2.
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This
increase of sectors marginalised from a set of benefits provided by
the open economic globalisation, is in turn restricted by the need to innovate the design and intervention modalities
of government institutions. Thus,
in this quest for a new institutional scenario that supports an
all-embracing governance and a fair and sustainable development
model, the attempts and changes stemming from an intervention sphere
that works closer to people, have been playing a more significant
role, namely, at the local-level management.
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B.
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Local
governance in LAC: opportunities
for advancement in environmental policies
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3.
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One
of the consequences of the advent of economic globalisation, is the
transformation of LAC cities into powerful hubs of economic activity
leading to an increasing demand for services, infrastructure and
policies to detect and intervene in cases of social and
environmental voids or vulnerability detected in the assimilated
development model. The
mushrooming of poverty belts around cities is also present in this
concentration process. The
population, marginalised from the urban and rural productive cycles,
joins this condition of poverty and settles in the outskirts of
cities, tapping the survival opportunities the latter offer.
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4.
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In
a scenario where tension meets intervention demands to promote
sustainable development in the urban areas of LAC, most management
policies and traditional institutional responsibility relations seem
insufficient. A
remarkable fact is the difficulty to implement effective policies to
control environmental degradation at the municipal level.
This difficulty in responding to a growing demand for
intervention from the local sector, strengthens –at different
levels-- the perception of government vis-ā-vis the complexity of
environmental problems and how closely they relate to social,
territorial and institutional problems perceived by local
stakeholders.
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5.
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As
a consequence, institutions involved in urban environmental
management are in permanent demand for information on holistic and
participatory approaches that allow for processes to formulate and
evaluate their decisions so that these are technically efficient as
well as socially responsible and legitimate.
Thus the growing awareness around environmental policy
provides a very important “point of entry” to experiment and
learn about new kinds of local government.
The appropriate management of this intervention cycle, that
involves the previous demand for information and knowledge about
comparable experiences and their effective implementation
--influencing the analysis and implementation of policies--,
represents one of the most significant challenges in our move
towards a social, economic and environmentally sustainable
government modality in LAC.
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Environmental
policy in managing urban development in LAC
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6.
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The
municipal and regional governments of LAC are in the process of
designing, implementing and evaluating policies for the
environmental management of urban development.
One of the most important lessons learnt during this process,
is the strong demand for financial and technical resources resulting
from this situation and the impossibility of limiting the
interventions to simply a need for more resources that guarantee a
better performance. Therefore,
the challenge for managers and civil society seems to be moving
quickly towards how to ensure instances for thought and how to
manage resources better; how to envisage and get involved in
alternative scenarios; how to get the clear signals of political
goodwill and social support.
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7.
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Within
this framework that looks for new avenues to improve environmental
policy management there are some aspects that have been emerging as
the future bottlenecks at the regional level.
Namely, the discussion on the capacity of local governments
to generate and manage the necessary income to cover for the
services and infrastructure they provide.
Discussions are mainly focused on the non-sustainability of
the existing transfer and subsidies schemes on the basis of public
resources that are becoming more and more scarce and on the need to
improve the capacity of local governments to apply the principle of
“he who pollutes, pays” in order to meet the growing demand for
intervention. In view
of this, and given the need to consider the different possibilities
of each municipality, as well as the increased competition among the
local centres to attract economic resources, discussion has started
around a harmonised action at the national level and even within
regional integration processes. As part of this debate, the presence of harmonised standards
appears as a key factor to avoid the huge transaction costs that
have their impact on environmental policy management.
Whenever new authorities take
office such bases are questioned; this has caused a deep erosion and
loss of credibility in the system.
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8.
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Another
outstanding aspect in the application of an integrated environmental
policy seems to be the difficulty to maximise means to facilitate
the discussion and legitimacy on the use of public resources as the
city is not understood as a system, as a whole.
The preservation of spaces, for example, green, coastal or
waterfront areas, agricultural fields, many times depends on
investment for the regeneration of infrastructure or for the
promotion of social integration in sectors that citizens not clearly
relate to these precious goods.
Therefore, the technical planning of a sustainable urban
development faces the challenge of an effective social participation
in the design, implementation and monitoring of its actions, taking
up the responsibility in processes of discussion, conflict, and
building of consensus, and going beyond the simple processes of
civic communication and information.
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9.
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Likewise,
the management of environmental issues related to the growing
presence of informal and illegal settlements around cities is one of
the main points of interest in the projection of a sustainable urban
development model in LAC. The
provision of basic services (sanitation, potable water, waste
collection) plays a critical role in the government’s function to
reduce poverty itself and not only at the level of its consequences
(health, violence, degradation).
Local governments have been playing a key role in integration
within the provision of mechanism services to strengthen dialogue
between the marginal population either in a direct way or together
with civil society organisations.
Improving the self-esteem of this sector of the population
represents a key factor to change scales in terms of the interaction
with government institutions and the organised civil society.
Guiding marginal groups in finding new ways to improve their
living represents one of the big challenges facing integrated and
socially responsible management at the local level.
The development of abilities to define agreements with
companies that are responsible for the provision of services, both
private and public, is accomplished by promoting investment in
solidarity and with responsibility.
The trans-disciplinarity implied by this type of management
by the government and in association with social organisations
represents one of the bases for debate around capacity building of
managers that have an impact on the application of environmental
policies in illegal settlements of cities throughout LAC.
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10.
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All
these aspects have in common a growing need for new networks to
design, implement and follow-up on environmental policies
applied to the management of urban development.
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11.
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Within
these networks, the provision of mechanisms to facilitate direct
influence of marginal sectors that find it difficult to express
themselves in the definition of policies, has been gaining
importance. By
ensuring the participation of this sector it will be possible to
understand the dynamics of the settlements themselves and the
generation of informal markets related to environmental services
affecting the management of development decisions.
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12.
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Governments
in charge of promoting the management of environmental policies at
the local level have enhanced their leadership in convening networks
integrated by citizens, social organisations, NGOs, government
institutions and the private sector.
Such efforts have resulted in a
growing awareness and tolerance in terms of social investment ; a
clear effect in terms of criticism as to the “single vision” and
in the appreciation of the need to consider what and how to
intervene; a clear effect in the demand for a permanent evaluation
and consolidation of a knowledge community around processes that
facilitate the implementation of effective solutions.
In
this way, the management of environmental policies in urban centres
faces the challenge posed by the opportunity to expand the vision
and intervene wherever necessary, by harmonising procedures and
whenever is demanded in a flexible way.
In addition, those in charge of management have begun to
appreciate the opportunity that new technologies offer to cut down
costs through networking and as a possibility to create and
participate in mechanisms that are highly attractive in organising
scattered knowledge.
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D.
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Global
articulation and local action:
new instances for international cooperation in LAC
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13.
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Different
regional meetings have focused on the analysis of the
above-mentioned aspects and problems that slow down the scale
changes in processes that attempt to apply sustainable management
policies in the medium and long terms, have been discussed in such
meetings. On
the one hand, we have the participation of scientific-knowledge
contributors together with the opening up of new processes for
citizen participation, who questions the punctual intervention
modality, following pre-defined sectoral guidelines.
In addition, a change of perception
is being generated at the international level on how to advance by
integrating environmental
management policy in the social development agenda.
The
structure of international institutions, the modality for advancing
agreements and the role and kind of intervention in cooperating
countries involved in terms of promoting environmental protection
policies, are undergoing important transformation processes in their
quest for a more critical influence on the agendas of governments in
those cases where possibilities for change and social impact are
better.
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14.
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This
process of transforming cooperation in sustainable development feeds
on a series of elements among which the following are highlighted:
(i) discussions around new mechanisms to enhance
environmental governance at the global level (World Environment
Organization); (ii) discussion
on the fact that this improvement of governance and the creation of
structures for action at the international level must learn from the
most operative local action scale; (iii) acceptance as to the fact
that effective interaction at these levels is the key to any change
in policies and that it will not be possible just by changing the
leadership structure, and, (iv) the need to promote new types of
coordination between government levels as well as the catalyst role
of central and regional levels to strengthen the correct
articulation of municipal action.
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15.
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In
such changing scenarios at the international sphere and in the
definition of development cooperation policies, LAC represents a
region whose characteristics include the presence of sound social
organisations, a mature structure of networks,
growing R&D due to the intervention of multilateral
banking in this sector and with important connectivity efforts in
terms of new information technologies.
In addition, cooperation for development identifies, as
differential factor in the region, the growing recognition by policy
managers of the value of an organised society and the contribution
in terms of planning and implementation of development programmes
and projects on the part of research centres (Universities and
NGOs). The evaluation of policies where research centres have worked
together with government, show how their early participation in the
design has an influence in areas such as:
who have access to jobs, who can use the resources, how to
move on and communicate a legitimised social investment for the
provision of infrastructure and services.
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16.
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In
view of this need to adopt such characteristics and to innovate in
the incidence of international cooperation in LAC, one of the
challenges faced by agencies that approach with a regional
coordination perspective is focused on:
(i) how to favour a cut down of transaction costs during the
design and implementation of environmental protection policies; (ii)
how to facilitate the promotion of policies that use knowledge
intensively; (iii) how to facilitate the articulation of networks
and the flow of appropriate knowledge towards demand for their
effective application.
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E.
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The
contribution of knowledge networks to institutional capacity
building
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17.
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The
knowledge networks working within formal structures generally have
an objective that focuses on the creation and dissemination of
knowledge, as well as the identification of signals to promote their
adaptation in view of the demand for new products and ways to use
knowledge and influence policies.
Therefore, the networks not only contribute information that
allows for a real-time management of a well-informed decision on the
basis of a comparable experience.
The
networks also help influence users’ policies by relating products,
information and exchanges between an international community
including the guarantee provided by managers, technicians and direct
beneficiaries of the products that are shared.
In this way, the network represents
an instrument to catalyse the development of institutional
innovations both in the structure of government institutions as in
the rest of users.
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18.
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The
Forum represents an opportunity to analyse experiences, expectations
and opportunities to promote the use of knowledge networks as an
instrument to improve the environmental management of urban
development in LAC. Some
of the questions we will discuss by means of a frank and open
exchange will focus on:
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Experiences
that reveal the value of knowledge networks in environmental
management in urban development.
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Characteristics
necessary for a knowledge network to achieve a real effect at
the level of generating or evaluating policies.
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Benefits
of a knowledge network and how to complement an “information
market” through investment in knowledge development,
institutional capacity-building or training.
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The
best mechanisms to measure demand and to generate an
alternative to design the network that follows this demand in
real time.
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To
identify opportunities and how to make them operational in
order to create a link between the networks operating in these
subjects in LAC and other organisations in cooperating
countries that have shown interest.
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How
to achieve a win-win balance between supply and demand for
knowledge in the management of an open knowledge network; a
network that is not closed to the interests of a
scientific or opinion community. |
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Please
send your comments
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