From community participation to urban management of the environment in Bogota, Colombia

Enda America Latina - Preceup

From community participation to urban environmental management in Bogota, Colombia

Summary, 1999

Colombia is often ascribed a negative image. Yet, it enjoys cultural diversity, interesting paradoxes as well as constant modernisation. Its substantial town development process is one of the most striking signs of this potential: 72% of the population is urban and, subsequently, the gap between the urban and the rural world widens.

In such a context, Bogota, as the capital city, benefits from a political, economical and social leadership. As a corollary for this evolution, a new culture and new problems related to urban expansion appear. Public policies do exist but remain inadequate.

Thus, the new 1991 Constitution launched a series of administrative and political reforms emphasising the need for decentralisation, territorial organisation and promotion of the citizen (notion of participatory democracy).

In the environmental field also, the State withdraws: public services tend to be privatised, consistent policies are scarce and the urban territory is far from being entirely serviced. Therefore, a few private initiatives have tried to make things change.

ENDA and FUNDAC have been working together on several projects for more than 10 years. FUNDAC is an organisation run by women from popular areas who have decided to set up a structure to carry out supportive actions aimed at young children and elderly people.

In previous projects, FUNDAC had created 17 community centres for children (day nurseries, kindergartens) directly managed by women. The objectives of the present project consisted in:

creating "productive green spots" within the existing community centres (vegetable gardens for the children’s consumption, cultivation of decorative plants…); then, in a second phase, in

developing a composting activity, using the collected organic material.

Certain technical aspects slowed the project down. Although most schools owned the required pieces of land, the surface of the latter was too small. Furthermore, irrigation problems, extra work imposed on women employed in the centres and weak motivation of parents, whose participation was required, were limiting factors. For this reason and also because the pieces of land were needed for seniors’ care, reorientation of the project towards educational and recreative actions was considered.

At the same time, women asked for training sessions so as to be able to carry out research and surveys. Three groups worked assiduously for two years in order to publish reports on the history of FUNDAC, on the analysis of women’s leadership and its impact on families and communities, and on a diagnosis on urban agriculture. Exchanges have given some women the opportunity to go to other cities on seminars. Also, the organisation of events (carnivals, games…) facilitated the environmental awareness of the concerned neighbourhoods.

The whole initiative proved to be particularly interesting insofar as learning to work with several actors means experiencing mutual recognition. In addition, the "green spots" concept is an important innovation as regards environmental management in urban contexts, even more so in Columbia where decentralising and building citizenship are new processes.