Canada
Policy framework: Canada's development cooperation is administered by the work of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). CIDA does not have a policy on urban environment as such, but since 1992 it has adopted a corporate policy on environment aiming to integrate environmental considerations into all decision-making activities and to work with other partners and developing countries improving their capacity to promote environmentally sustainable development.
Urban environment: CIDA recognises the growing importance of sustainable urban development in cities and their role in achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction at a global level. As a follow-up to the adoption of the Habitat Agenda and Global Plan of Action in Istanbul (1996), efforts are now under way within CIDA to integrate urban issues into the current priorities for Canadian ODA. A draft Statement for Sustainable Cities was expected to be completed in 1997, which, once approved, will represent CIDA's official position in development cooperation on urban EPM. A series of activities are also under way to provide information and raise the level of awareness of urban issues, including the preparation of country and regional urban profiles and a user-friendly operational version of the HABITAT Global Plan of Action, intended as a tool for managers, officers and stakeholders who need recent references on human settlement issues and strategies.
A review of CIDA's urban development projects and programmes (CIDA, 1996) over the ten years prior to Habitat II reveals that CIDA invested $707 million (Canadian dollars) in support of urban development through both bilateral and multilateral aid. This represents 4.8% of the total ODA disbursed during the period and follows a rising trend. Although most interventions have been concentrated in the area of physical infrastructure, more recently, emphasis has shifted towards support for institutional capacity-building. Some examples of recently approved projects are as follows:
China - Assistance to Open Cities, Phase II (1993/94 - 1998/99): implemented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities aims to strengthen the capacity of municipalities in urban management and economic development.
ASEAN - Urban Environmental Management Project (1996/97 - 2000/01): is an initiative executed in conjunction with the Canadian Universities Consortium to assist in the establishment of effective and sustainable Urban Environmental Management programmes and services at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT).
Sustainable Santiago (Chile): through the Canada - Southern Technology Transfer Fund, CIDA supports ICLEI in the preparation and implementation of the Santiago Municipal Strategic Plan. The project will address several priority sustainability issues including environmental assessment, improving air quality through transportation demand management and municipal and industrial waste.
Further steps to develop CIDA's urban policy include: the creation of a Directory of Canadian Urban Cooperation Resources and a Directory of International Urban Cooperation Policies and Programs, describing the activities of multilateral and bilateral agencies, regional development banks and international associations of local authorities. All these initiatives aim to make it easier for CIDA officials to access Canadian resources in urban development cooperation, to raise the visibility of CIDA's activities in the field, and ultimately to help improving the coordination of activities with other international donor agencies.
Policy Framework: The bilateral contribution of the Japanese government to development cooperation is the largest in the world, and most of it is directed to Asian countries. This is mainly managed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). JICA's earlier focus on rural and agricultural development has changed since the 1980s, when more attention started to be paid to urban issues.
Urban environment: Urban development aid has been largely focused on the development of infrastructure. Other urban related areas of cooperation have been environmental management protection, urban transport, and town planning and housing. Building the capacity of developing countries to deal with environmental problems is becoming one of the priority areas of Japan's development cooperation policy. This objective is pursued by encouraging twinning links between Japanese municipalities and their partners in the South, and by training municipal officers to participate in overseas activities.
Japan provides financial support to the Sister Cities International Trilateral Exchange Programme, initiated in 1994 by Sister Cities International. The programme's objective is to bring a global perspective into existing partnerships between US and Japanese cities by introducing a third partner from developing countries or countries with a less developed economy. Several new trilateral partnerships have been established around urban environmental issues.
Policy Framework: Switzerland has a long-standing interest and experience in supporting decentralised urban environmental projects in a number of countries in the South. Swiss ODA stood at US 1.084 billion in 1995 which was 0.34% of GNP. This is concentrated in just 16 countries. Funds are predominantly bilaterally administered through the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC). There are, nevertheless, two important support organisation with respect to urban environment, namely the Swiss Centre for Development Cooperation in Technology and Management (SKAT) and Swisscontact.
Urban Environment: The approach taken by the SDC towards urban environment involves integration of several themes, aimed at raising local capacity. It is estimated that approximately 7% of the Swiss bilateral aid in 1994 went to urban issues and this is expected to rise to 10% towards the year 2000. The SDC's follow-up programme to Habitat II aims at reinforcing Swiss development aid in support of urban development projects and to ensure the continuity of projects in urban areas. The implementation of urban projects involves a broad spectrum of northern and southern partners and actors from the public, private and community sectors.
The SDC’s urban development and environmental policies are conceived as key components within the context of the DSc’s Global Guidelines or Leitbild (1991) and the North-South Guidelines (1994). SCD urban policy acknowledges that urban development problems are intrinsically interrelated and require an integrated and transectorial approach. In view of the vast agenda of urgent development problems experienced in the cities of the South, SDC focuses its capacities on a well-defined range of objectives and priorities in order to achieve a coherent and satisfactory impact. At the same time, SDC recognises that development cooperation strategies and modes of intervention must be context-specific. Therefore, the focus and priorities of individual strategies depend upon the specific characteristics of urbanisation problems, development potentials, and existing local initiatives and policy context.
The SCD’s urban policy is oriented by five principles: balanced spatial development, poverty alleviation and empowerment, communication and public-private collaboration, commitment and good governance and pilot approaches. These principles are pursued within the framework of four strategic orientations: municipal management support, environmental management and sanitation, socio-economic productivity and income generation, and service access and area upgrading. Within this framework SDC has a specific Urban Development Programme which promotes an integrated and transectoral approach to sustainable urban development by dealing with the connections between natural, social, economic and political factors.
Examples of specific activities supported in the field of the urban environment in recent years include projects in the following areas:
The United States
Policy framework: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has historically been more concerned with rural areas but urban issues, focusing particularly on financing housing development, have been considered in many of USAID's activities. USAID has recently become less concerned with housing provision, focusing more attention on strengthening the capacity of local governments to manage resources effectively for expanded service delivery.
Urban environment: The mission of USAID Office of Environment and Urban Programmes (G/ENV/UP) is to improve the living conditions of the urban poor by promoting development practices which balance social, economic, and environmental concerns without endangering the wellbeing of future generations. G/ENV/UP is reviewing its activities and approach to development cooperation in the light of two policy strategies: shifting from individual projects and programmes to strategic cross-cutting objectives and seeking articulation with the activities of other agencies in urban EPM development cooperation.
G/ENV/UP pursues as a primary implementation objective to use the limited grant funds available from USAID to leverage funds from other donor agencies, the private sector, host country governments, etc. The current programmes of this office aim to strengthen the management capacity of local governments, encourage participatory democracy and facilitate decentralisation policy reform. All current programmes support three strategic intermediate results: expanded and equitable delivery of urban services and shelter; more effective local governments; and reduced urban pollution.
The central component of USAID Urban Programmes is the Urban and Environment (UE) Credit Program, which is managed by the Regional Urban Development Offices (RUDOs). USAID provides a guarantee on loans from the US private sector to partner government or non-government institutions for environmental infrastructure and housing projects which benefit below medium-income level families and supports technical cooperation accompanying the loan programmes. RUDO-assisted countries working on urban finance policy frameworks introduced policy and legislative changes at the national and local level to allow for decentralised and alternative sources of financing. Examples of these are the Central American PROMUNI Programme and the Municipal Finance Project in Indonesia.
All of the UE programmes in Latin America will be closed by September 30, 1997 and no new programmes are currently planned for the region due to declining credit resources. G/ENV/UP will continue to provide targeted technical cooperation in the area of municipal finance and to fund a small group of financial advisors to assist RUDOs with municipal and shelter finance activities. Other components of G/ENV/UP portfolio include the following:
International Agencies and Organisations in Development Cooperation on Urban Environment
General Organisational Structure Regarding International Development Cooperation on Urban Environment
Chapter 1 presented a short analysis of the types of institutions and organisation involved in development cooperation on urban environment. This section focuses more attention on the role of the various international organisations. There is a very wide range of institutions involved in development issues and it is in the first instance useful to map out the territory in general.
Main International Agencies and Organisations Involved in Development Cooperation on Urban Environment
The organisation and funding of urban environmental programmes by the international agencies and organisations is complex. Programmes are generally initiated by one agency but with funding from many other agencies and in a few cases responsibilities for programmes have changed as they have evolved. There are several programmes, which are explicitly concerned with urban environment (e.g. MEIP*, SCP*); others are environmental with an urban focus or component (e.g. METAP*, Capacity 2000*) and others which have a bearing on urban environment in the case of some initiatives (e.g. UMP*, MDP*, PPUE).
Although possessing a relatively high profile, international programmes on urban environment are generally small in financial terms, spending between one and five million dollars per year (contrasting with World Bank in-country projects which range between US$ 20-500 million). This section looks at some the main institutions and the main urban environmental programmes with which they are involved.
the Urban Management Programme (UMP)*
Local Initiative Facility for the Urban Environment (LIFE)*
Public-Private Partnerships for the Urban Environment (PPUE)
Capacity 21 (assisting in implementation of Agenda 21)
Asia-Pacific 2000 (predecessor and linked to the LIFE Programme)
Some of UNDP's urban activities are being coordinated regionally. In Asia the UNDP has established a coordinating office, the Urban Management Programme for Asia and the Pacific (UMPAP - not the same as UMP) which in 1996 was allocated a budget of US$ 4.7 million. This was used to finance regional programmes including both those of UNDP itself (the regional UMP and Asia-Pacific 2000) but also the World Bank Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Programme (MEIP)*. Furthermore, UMPAP funds its own initiatives, which have included:
financing activities of existing regional networks including CityNet* and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights;
developed a regional data base on city needs and resources, producing and circulating ‘country files';
funded the creation of a series of regional networks for Women and Shelter, Sustainable Transport (SUSTRAN), Human Settlements Research and Training, Women and Local Government, Solid Waste Management, Water Issues (Waterwatch) and Urban Heritage Conservation;
organised its own regional activities on urban environmental action planning, governance, children and cities and other themes.
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF): In implementing their remit to establish the rights of children and improve their living conditions, UNICEF has focused considerable attention on cities and run a initiiated a number of programmes. With regard specifically to the urban environment, the Urban Basic Services (UBS) programme was initiated already in the 1970s to organise activities in the poorest neighbourhoods of cities throughout the South. In 1993 UBS was supporting 32 projects in 24 countries with an average budget of US$ 650,000 per project.
The focus of the UBS programme is mainly on healthcare, early child development and education, but also strongly supports community-organised water and sanitation projects. Some projects extend to the support of municipal development planning and coordination at the municipal level. Hitherto UNICEF has operated the UBS on its own, but attempts to coordinate with other main actors in the field, including UNDP, the World Bank and UNCHS are being made.
World Health Organisation (WHO): In 1984 the WHO initiated a programme entitled Healthy Cities. Initially organised in Europe and North America it was subsequently extended to the countries of the South. There are now some 600 cities of the South involved. The programme focuses attention on the environmental causes of ill-health in urban areas and is thus predominantly an environmental management programme. The participants are municipal governments with support from local and regional WHO offices with considerable freedom to determine the structure of local programmes, which may request and receive support from WHO headquarters but are not controlled from (and sometimes not even registered with) headquarters.
Participating municipalities designate a coordinator who assesses city health problems and frames a Municipal Health Plan in association with private and voluntary sectors. Community-wide solutions are formulated and actions proposed. Themes might include water supply, control of toxic materials, sewerage, housing improvements, transport and air quality measures. The programme promotes networking by participating authorities hosting meetings. Health-related indicators are used to gauge progress. A number of ESAs have collaborated with WHO on individual aspects and in certain cities on the Healthy Cities programme. The EU has been involved so far mainly within Europe where there are over 500 Healthy Cities programmes.
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS): As already noted, this relatively small agency has as its remit improvement in housing and urban planning and management, financing projects in a substantial number of countries. It was born out of the first HABITAT conference and was responsible for organising the second conference in 1996. Besides national programmes, it runs regional and global programmes of which the most important concerning urban environment is the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP)*. Since 1992 it has also been the main executing agency for the Urban Management Programme (UMP)* and devised and runs the Urban Indicators Programme referred to in Chapter 2. For the HABITAT II conference, UNCHS generated a ‘Best Practices' database on urban initiatives with a strong focus on urban environment; the agency is continuing to update this.
The World Bank: Although in the course of the 1980s the World Bank developed strong environmental policies (Turnham, 1991) and now funds a large number of urban environmental projects (World Bank, 1997) it does not possess an adopted policy specifically for urban environment. The World Bank was the executing agency for the first phase of the UNDP-funded UMP and in that context published an urban policy (Cohen, 1991) and a series of policy papers including two concerned with defining urban EPM methodologies (Leitmann, 1993; Bartone et al, 1994). In the mid 1990s, however, with the Bank having only a minor role in the UMP, this focus was dissipated.
A further, independent programme is the Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Programme (MEIP)* which has been operating in selected Asian cities since 1989 with funding from UNDP and, more recently, from several bilateral agencies. The Bank is also involved in a number of other initiatives, together with other agencies. These include the METAP (Mediterranean)* and MELISSA (Southern Africa) initiatives in which the EC is a partner.
Asian Development Bank (ADB): Besides funding individual urban infrastructure projects and programmes, the ADB has taken several strategic initiatives in environment with an urban focus. Between 1976 and 1986 the ADB funded a number of ‘integrated regional economic-cum-environmental development plans', most of which had a strong urban and/or industrial component. It then published a methodology for such plans (ADB, 1988). The experience in implementation of these plans which were carried out with little local participation was not, however, very encouraging. In recognition of the importance of the area, the ADB is currently in process of developing a more coherent policy on urban environment (ADB, 1997). This recognises the need for substantial investments in institutional capacity-building.
International Municipal Associations
As noted above, European municipalities and their associations have become substantially involved in development cooperation in recent years. In addition to national municipal associations, there is also a number of international municipal associations representing the interests of various groupings of municipalities in the international arena and facilitating networking between countries and continents.
These associations have played an important role, not only in promoting urban interests, but also in tabling municipalities as key actors in the process of achieving sustainable development. Chapter 1 made reference to the events organised by these international municipal organisations in the run-up to UNCED. At the time of UNCED itself four of these association, namely the United Towns Organisation, the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), Metropolis and Summit, formed a further association termed simply G4 Group with the purpose of developing a more integrated municipal position on the role of municipalities in achieving sustainable development in the international arena.
On the eve of the Habitat II Conference, six regional municipal associations (Arab Towns Organisation, Eurocities, Citynet, the Union of African Towns and representatives of municipal associations of North America and Latin America) joined the group, to organise the municipal contribution to HABITAT II, becoming the first World Assembly of Cities and Local Authorities. In September 1996 this grouping formed the World Association of Cities and Local Authorities Coordination (WACLAC), with the purpose of coordinating and expanding the ongoing movement of local authorities committed for sustainable development and representing the local government sector in the international fora. The following paragraphs describe the most important of the associations concerned with municipal capacity-building in urban environment and sustainable development.
United Towns Organisation (UTO): The French municipal associations have been active in development cooperation over a long period stemming originally from the fact that French colonial towns were seen as French towns and so serviced as integral members of the association. The UTO, headquartered in Paris, has a formal membership of about 2,500 municipalities worldwide, being active in over 100 countries. In 1989 it established a specialised agency for decentralised cooperation, the United Towns Development Agency (UTDA), which generates and assists innovative forms of intermunicipal cooperation, including twinning agreements and networking with specific technical cooperation components.
In conjunction with several bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, UTDA also plays a central role in the organisation of many programmes which led to the creation or consolidation of regional and thematic networks of municipalities, including the Municipal Development Programme - Africa (MDP); the Euro-Asian Municipal Environmental Cooperation Programme (MECP); CIUDAGUA (Water and Sewerage in Urban Areas in Latin America) and MEDCITIES (Environmental Audits and Action Plans in Coastal Mediterranean Cities).
UTO publishes widely, including newsletters, aiming to raise public awareness on sustainable urban development and decentralised cooperation, to disseminate and cross-fertilise good practices in the field, and provide tools for urban EPM. Several European countries have UTO chapters, including Cités Unies France (CUF), United Towns Germany (WPS) and United Towns Italy (CICU).
The International Union of Local Authorities (IULA): Based in The Hague, IULA is a membership organisation consisting of national municipal associations in 90 countries. IULA is associated with and provides funding to several international programmes including ICLEI's Local Agenda 21 Model Communities Programme* and Communities Network and the Global Cities Programme launched by Towns and Development (T&D). In recent years IULA has decentralised much of its programme activity to its six regional sections covering Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, Latin America, Europe and North America.
IULA Regional Sections are also active in several sustainable cities programmes. The Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Section is involved with the EC LIFE programme. The African section is implementing decentralised programmes and activities with the Municipal Development Program (a World Bank initiated programme) and the UMP. The Asia-Pacific region has developed several activities in 1996 through its Education, Training and Research Committee with funding from the EC. Finally, the Latin American section also has funding from the EC, USAID and other ESAs and works with NGOs, municipal associations and training centres throughout the region in institutional strengthening and capacity-building for urban EPM.
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI): ICLEI was launched in September 1990 at the World Congress of Local Government for a Sustainable Future as a worldwide association of local authorities from all regions of the world. It has approximately 300 members, committed to the prevention and solution of local, regional and global environmental problems. The implementation of programmes and projects is assisted and organised by four regional secretariats and coordinators, a number of national offices and ICLEI's International Training Centre (ITC). The regional secretariats and the ICLEI representative in every member city make up a global network of partners that facilitate a democratic, participatory and mutual process of development cooperation between actors in the South and the North.
The main objective of ICLEI is to mobilise a broad set of local actors working together to create a strategic plan for the sustainable development of their own community. ICLEI promotes a comprehensive approach to defining and implementing Local Agenda 21 focusing on the following components: educational campaigns, consultation processes, local ecosystem audits, local-global linkages and action recommendations. Within this framework, ICLEI's activities are divided into two main programmes, each with several different components:
The Capacity Programme supports local government management capacity through training, technical assistance, and information resources development and exchange. Activities under this programme include: ICLEI ‘Internal Consultant' Network Development, Case Studies Series, Policy and Practice Manuals, International Training Centre, and ICLEI Newsletters (Local Agenda 21 Network News).
The Solutions Programme brings together municipalities that have specific expertise to devise comprehensive frameworks for addressing global and regional environmental problems at the local level. These include the following components:
The Urban CO2 Reduction Project involves 14 municipalities working together on strategies for reducing fossil fuel consumption. The Green Fleets Project focuses on implementing strategies to reduce greenhouse emissions in the transportation sector; and the Green Building Project focuses on innovative approaches to financing and implementing energy efficiency measures in municipal and commercial buildings.
The Local Agenda 21 Initiative established to assist local authorities by implementing ongoing planning processes for sustainable development. This initiative is organised into two main components. The LA 21 Model Communities Programme (MCP)*, a research and development collaboration initiative among 14 local authorities from all continents. Its purpose is to test and evaluate methods and tools for local Sustainable Development Planning (SDP) and to develop general planning guides for Local Agendas. The second component is Local Agenda 21 Communities Network, which involves a larger number of municipalities adopting SDP processes with the technical support of ICLEI.
Other current ICLEI projects include: the Incentive Grants Project which provides training, technical assistance and small grants to 17 cities and town in Africa, Western Asia and Latin America for the completion and implementation of environmental action plans. The Local Agenda 21 Charters Project aims at establishing links between local authorities in the North and the South, committing them to reciprocal actions and mutual assistance in implementing local environmental action programmes. A Local Agenda 21 Survey has been initiated with the purpose of collecting data on the range and extent of LA 21 processes on a country-by-country basis.
ICLEI has also launched a number of initiatives in Africa, Asia and Latin America in partnership with local authorities and regional and international associations of municipalities. These include the following projects: Capacity for Sustainability (Latin America), the African Sustainable Cities Network and the Asian Local Environmental Initiatives Project.
Towns & Development (T&D): Towns and Development is a consortium of NGOs, local authorities and both national and international municipal associations, which operates with funds provided by its members and by the European Commission. Based in The Hague, T&D was created in 1986 as a result of the follow-up of a series of conferences sponsored by IULA, UTO and UNESCO (Florence, 1983; Cologne, 1985), which culminated in the adoption of the Cologne Appeal ‘From Charity to Justice', by local authorities and NGOs from all over Europe.
T&D is becoming a global network with regional components for Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe. Since its creation, it has convened several international conferences including the 1992 Berlin Conference on local initiatives for sustainable development that adopted the Berlin Charter and Action Agenda, which has since framed T&D cooperation projects. T&D focuses its activities on two complementary areas:
Decentralised cooperation, bringing together appropriate partners for the definition and implementation of concrete joint actions aiming at improving the quality of life and providing better services to local communities.
Public awareness-raising and development education, by organising and supporting activities and providing action-oriented guides to good practice to support local initiatives on sustainable development.
CityNet: This network of local authorities and non-government organisations was established following the Regional Congress of Local Authorities for Development of Human Settlements in Asia and the Pacific, held in Yokohama in 1982. In its early years it operated directly under the sponsorship of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) but since 1992 it has been an autonomous organisation with headquarters in Yokohama. In 1995 it was granted ECOSOC status with the United Nations. It is financed in part by membership fees but also continues to receive support from international sources including UMPAP, the EC and UTDA.
The overall goal of CityNet is to foster ‘people-friendly cities' and to that end it organises seminars, workshops and other training activities, operates TCDC study visits and documents and disseminates urban experiences from the region; it also operates a technical advisory service. It has not yet become involved in disseminating Local Agenda 21 processes, but has focused heavily on developing technical capability and participatory approaches to ‘brown agenda' issues centring particularly on waste water and solid waste management, including recycling (CityNet, 1991; 1992; 1994; 1996a; 1996b).
The Role of the Private Sector at the International Level
Multinational corporations, whilst not generally being considered agents of development are, in practice, extremely effective in influencing the direction of the development process. The GATT agreement is a consequence of private sector aims put into practice and this is having an enormous impact in promoting ‘economic globalisation', the social and environmental impacts of which are by no means wholly beneficial. The Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) had a major influence on the Rio process (Chatterjee and Finger, 1994) and has subsequently worked to promote good environmental practice in business through national BCSDs in both countries of the North and the South.
Potentially private business has much to contribute to improved urban development and environmental management, bringing their methods and expertise to bear in urban services provision via privatisation and partnership approaches, and developing technologies to solve urban environmental problems that are appropriate to the economic, climatic, cultural, etc. circumstances of cities of the South. The RIET and IECT already discussed are dedicated to tapping this potential whilst avoiding problems of the past where business has sold inappropriate technologies that have cost cities of the South dearly whilst failing to solve the problems they are ostensibly designed to solve.
By way of ending this Chapter a few conclusions need to be drawn and points emphasised as follows:
The following chapter draws conclusions from this experience and from that of the EC analysed in the forgoing Chapter, with a view to devising a strategy for more effective cooperation in the urban environment on the part of the EC, the member country bilateral agencies and non-government organisations and the international ESAs.