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14 September 2014

Istanbul and the case of the elusive Urban Development Guidelines

2010-05-09 08-39-00 Turkey Istanbul 7342 FD

Guidelines on why and how to develop integrated plans and projects were a key output from European countries participating in Habitat II in Istanbul in 1996.  Now, in the build up to Habitat III in 2016 it is useful to ask “What happened?”

The story begins in Istanbul.  At the Habitat conference in Istanbul in 1996 many member states had urban departments in their develop co-operation organizations.  During the conference they came together and decided that they should promote an integrated urban approach for development cooperation from the EC.  The result of this was an initiative to develop a policy together with guidelines on how it could be implemented.

Which should come first?   The urban development policy or the guidelines?  The practicalities dictated that it was better to first develop draft guidelines.  A team of development institutions were commissioned to develop the outline.  These included Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, in Netherlands, the Development Planning Unit in United Kingdom and  HDM at Lund University in Sweden.  I was  the  team leader,  which is why I have kept an interest in their progress.

Integrated urban development is very important.  Everyone recognises this, but it is difficult to implement.   European development aid has tended to be sectoral.  It is easier to manage large infrastructure projects than complicated integrated programmes.   The challenge was to try to develop a framework to encourage integrated “urban” approaches where synergies could be developed and conflicts minimised.  The approach had to be simple enough to be understandable, had to make sense and also had to fit with the procedures of European development aid.  Not an easy assignment!   Interestingly, during development of the guidelines it turned out that an overlapping work was being written on  urban environment.  It was agreed to integrate the two  – a rare case of  synergistic thinking and flexibility!

The draft guidelines went through a number of formats, were tested in regional workshops and in  EC projects.  They were finally made available in 2001 on  World Habitat Day.

cover of EC guidelines 2001Cover of 2001 version of the guidelines

Reorganization within EC meant that the guidelines disappeared from view.   They were re-discovered and  updated as Consultative Guidelines for Sustainable Urban Development Cooperation.  These were introduced for discussion early 2012.    The current status is no clear.   They are updated but are largely the same as the original work.  If you want to look at them they  are available for download via the above link.

I think that the guidelines still provide a very useful guide to thinking through integrated approaches, especially linking planning, infrastructure development  and governance.  They also show how to connect  these to the project cycle management used by EC and other agencies for development projects.

If you find this publication useful, or have any comments, please let me know – but  also it is very important to give feedback to EC on their Capacity 4 Dev page.  A direct link is  here.

7S diagramKey diagram of the guidelines

Filed Under: Approaches, Books, Capacity development, Integrated planning, Papers, Participation in planning, Planning, Strategic Urban Planning Tagged With: , , , , , Leave a Comment
4 November 2012

City planning integration – relevance of a good husband?

Poster at city participation meeting, Tenali, Andhra Pradesh Poster at city participation meeting, Tenali, Andhra Pradesh with former Chief Minister

Integrated planning needs  leaders who are able  to think across sectors. What Tony Blair used to call “joined up thinking.”

This simple “common sense” skill is often trained/ educated out of professionals.  In the workplace  this process  is completed by the  silo culture of  sectoral organizations.

For me, an inspiration for how to think in an integrated way came when I was not expecting it, while  running a workshop on strategic planning for local government in Uttar Pradesh in India some years ago. The group included both officials and elected representatives from local governments, including new  female  mayors (a quota system was in place).

We got to the point in the workshop where we discussed how to think through a city vision. Most teams followed the advice of imagining they were in their city in five years time and imagining what they would like to see different – would the streets be clean? Would the town hall be efficient?
“.. a good husband”
One lady mayor came up with her own vision. She said that for her, the city should be like a good husband. What did she mean?
Working
She explained that the husband should work and be able to support his family – so the city should also work. Citizens should be able to efficiently produce goods and services and be able to trade and bring an income to the city.
Healthy
Then the husband should be healthy, otherwise he could not work. So the city should be healthy so people can work well and be happy. There should be good safe water supply, effective waste management, health education and good health services.
Well presented
Finally, the husband did not need to be handsome like a Bollywood film star, but should be presentable. The city should be neat, tidy and clean and welcoming to visitors.

An integrated vision.

Sometimes as professionals we lose the integrated view that comes with common sense.
For example, it is seldom seen as the job of the roads department to think that their work may increase land values. But it does, so it is very important that both leaders and  professionals, including city managers and planners, are able to see the big picture.  They then need to be able to integrate or connect the decisions that can give real benefits.  Strategic planning is a useful tool for this, but it does need an integrated vision in those using it, and it does need to produce results.

Do you have any examples to share of  an integrated vision that really helped lead to real benefits?

Filed Under: Approaches, Integrated planning, Strategic Urban Planning Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments
21 October 2012

Integration of urban development in India: any answers?

Delhi metro

Delhi: rapid transport helps integrate some parts of the city

 

The workshop on integrated development in India was valuable, but it would be naïve to expect that one an a half days would give all the answers. It was good to get a range of experiences from India as well as International inputs from Cities Alliance, World Bank, (Capacity Development for Infrastructure in Asia (CDIA) and Metropolis.
For me, the significant points were:

  • 1) First that the conference took place and the Ministry took an active and leading role;
  • 2) the recognition of the  issue of limited capacity at the local level and the need for strong leadership from the local level, both political and technical;
  • 3) the openness to listen to experiences from South Africa, Nigeria, Philippines Korea, and to open up the thinking on the Indian situation;
  • 4) the highlighting of the  need for both statutory and strategic planning and for the relationship to be made more operational.

I talked about the need for real benefits from integration and  the concept of “smart connections” between plans. This is not very complicated.  It means that in the rules and during the process questions have to be addressed as to how the plan being worked on relates to other plans. How  conflicts are recognized and avoided, and perhaps more important, that synergies should be identified and  actively pursued.  This “common sense” approach does, however mean that some people, leaders, managers, planners need to actively pursue the goal of achieving better results.   The difficult task is to introduce this   approach in situations where local government is weak.

Lessons

  • The potential benefits of an integrated approach need to be clear to drive the process. This realization should be widely held, especially by leadership and not only by the technical staff involved.
  • As far as is possible, it is good to keep the initial sophistication at a basic level for smaller, weaker municipalities . A progressive development through incentives can be used to simulate stronger municipalities.
  • Examples from other countries showed that with will, initiative and creativity it is possible to make changes. However, this does not come easily, a strong integration of capacity development is vital.
  • The main focus was lessons to feed into the second phase of the the national programme JNNURM to support local integrated infrastructure development, but it was recognised that the City Development Plans (CDP) are a tool with much wider potential use.

Questions

Do you have comments or further examples?  You can post here.

I also posted a link to groups on LinkedIn (urban planning and IHS Alumni) and you can also follow some of the discussion there if you belong to those groups.

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