Table of Content:

Introduction

Problem Statement: The Institutional Framework for Local Implementation of Agenda 21

Barriers to Local Implementation of Agenda 21

Focus on National and Sub-national Barriers

A Typology of Barriers

Private Market Barriers

Public Market and Finance Barriers

Legal and Regulatory Barriers

Jurisdictional Barriers

Professional and Trade Group Barriers

Foreign Assistance Barriers

Conclusion

Table 1 - National and Sub-national Barriers to Local Sustainable Development

Case Studies

Foreign Assistance Barriers to Local Sustainable Development Planning - The World Bank's Urban Sector Engineering Project in Mwanza, Tanzania

Public Markets and Finance Barriers: Split Incentives - The Costs of Urban Sprawl in Ling County, Washington, USA

Public Market and Finance Barriers - Waste Mininisation in the London Borough of Croydon, UK

Legal and Regulatory Barriers to Environmentally Sound Technology - The "Healthy House" of Toronto, Canada

Jurisdictional Barriers to Local Agenda 21 Implementation in Zurich, Switzerland

Facilitating Local Sustainable Development Measures: A Rapid Assessment Exercise

Worksheet 1: Force Field Analysis for Local Agenda 21 Implementation

Worksheet 2: Measures to Support Local Agenda 21 Implementation

References

This study is prepared by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and CAG Consultants in collaboration with the Division for Sustainable Development.

Introduction

In the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, adopted in June 1997, the 19th Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development to review progress in Agenda 21 implementation concludes that "The efforts of local authorities are making Agenda 21 and the pursuit of sustainable development a reality at the local level through the implementation of "Local Agenda 21s" and other sustainable development programmes..."[para. 12 of A/RES/S-19/2] Echoing the themes of Chapter 8 of Agenda 21, the Programme goes on to assert that

...Achieving sustainable development cannot be carried out without greater integration at all policy-making levels and at operational levels, including the lowest administrative levels possible..."[para. 24]

By the year 2002, the formulation and elaboration of national strategies for sustainable development which reflect the contributions and responsibilities of all interested parties should be completed in all countries...Countries which already have national strategies should continue their efforts to enhance and effectively implement them...Local Agenda 21 and other local sustainable development programmes...should also be actively encouraged;" [para. 24(a)]

In specific, the General Assembly states:

Global targets could be established by the Commission on Sustainable Development to promote local Agenda 21 campaigns and to deal with obstacles to local Agenda 21 initiatives.[para 32]

This paper was prepared in response to the above calls for promotion of Local Agenda 21, in particular addressing obstacles to effective local implementation measures for Agenda 21. The proposal for the paper was prepared by ICLEI, upon the invitation of and in consultation with the Division for Sustainable Development of UNDESA. The resulting research provides a framework for governments at all levels -national, subnational and local- to use in the identification and analysis of barriers to Agenda 21 implementation at the local level. In this way, the paper may provide valuable assistance to national governments in their efforts to formulate, elaborate, enhance and implement their national strategies for sustainable development.

An important element of any sustainable development strategy is the review of existing policies and measures to ensure that they are consistent with efforts to implement that strategy. Policies designed to promote a single development objective often can have unanticipated hindering effects on efforts to promote other development objectives. Likewise, measures to implement policies at one level of government -regulations, taxes and other fiscal measures, and administrative standards and directives- can undermine implementation measures at other levels. These hindering effects or barriers are often unintended and are difficult to discern from the vantagepoint of a single ministry or level of government. This paper aims to make these barriers more apparent and to aid the development of better-integrated national strategies for sustainable development.

Towards this end, Section 2 of the paper briefly describes the institutional context for local barriers to Agenda 21 implementation. Section 3 describes the different types of barriers faced by local authorities and their local partners and presents a typology, with examples of actual experiences in local communities. Section 4 presents a selection of case summaries, which provide a more detailed description of the ways in which selected barriers affect local progress towards sustainable development. Section 5 presents a straightforward analytical exercise that may be used to identify barriers to local action within a specific country context. The exercise facilitates the ranking of barriers and the identification of measures for remedial action that could be included within a national strategy. Governments may consider the merits of undertaking this exercise in the context of intergovernmental and/or multi-stakeholder forums for sustainable development, such as national councils for sustainable development.

Problem Statement: The Institutional Framework for Local Implementation of Agenda 21

Chapter 8 of Agenda 21 (Integrating environment and development in decision-making) highlights a variety of ways in which institutional frameworks can hamper government decision-making for sustainable development. Institutional arrangements at all levels of government can create impediments to sustainable development policy-making, planning and management at all levels of government. Chapter 8 therefore recommends that each country "conduct a national review and, where appropriate, improve processes of decision-making so as to achieve the progressive integration of economic, social and environmental issues in the pursuit of development that is economically efficient, socially equitable and responsible and environmentally sound." [para. 8.4]

With support from the international community, many countries already have undertaken such a review. Examples include the development of Agenda 21 country strategies prepared with assistance from the Capacity 21 Programme and National Councils for Sustainable Development, the National Environmental Action Plans (NEAPs), supported by the World Bank, and the National Environmental Management Plans, supported by the Asian Development Bank. Key impediments highlighted in these reviews include:

• Inadequate consideration of environmental impacts in developmental decision-making processes, which has given rise to environmental impact assessment legislation in many countries;

• Organisation of governments along "vertical" sectoral lines (e.g., energy, transport, agriculture) thereby hindering adequate cross-sectoral consideration of social and environmental issues, which has given rise to inter-ministerial committees and task forces for policy integration;

• Conflicts that arise when environmental regulatory responsibilities are delegated to a ministry whose primary function is development promotion and, conversely, conflicts that arise when environmental responsibilities are delegated to a single, relatively weak agency while other ministries, whose work involves substantial environmental impacts, may fail to consider their own internal responsibilities for environmental policy making and regulation.

• Poor integration of social and environmental planning processes with economic planning, fiscal policies, and budgetary processes;

• Poor planning and management of important natural assets as a result of overlapping and split jurisdictions, which has given rise to new inter-jurisdictional planning mechanisms, such as watershed planning;

• Poor integration of regulatory measures with public sector economic instruments, thereby sending conflicting signals to the market about appropriate development and economic practices.

While most reviews have focused primarily on national-level policy, planning and management, many reviews have sought input from local and subnational tiers of government. The resulting dialogues have highlighted the need to further adjust policies and institutional arrangements so that consistent support for sustainable development measures is provided at the national, subnational and local levels.

Lack of integration has been observed in the emergence of Local Environmental Action Plans (LEAPs) in countries that have established NEAPs. Some LEAP planning processes were triggered by NEAPs and others have arisen from local initiatives, with different types appearing at provincial, city and state levels. Lacking any intergovernmental structure for integration of these efforts, they may confuse and diffuse implementation efforts. For example, in Burkina Faso, village associations have prepared land use plans including actions to maintain natural capital, but the country is burdened by a multiplicity of environmental plans which are not integrated with each other (World Bank, 1995). In response to these kinds of issues, some countries, such as Australia, have created intergovernmental bodies to discuss and co-ordinate environmental policy making at all levels of government.

Widening the agenda from environmental policy-making to sustainable development tends to add to the complexities and difficulties of lack of integration between different tiers of government each of which may maintain distinct, and potentially conflicting, policies for natural resources management, environmental protection, economic development and social welfare. Even while national governments, via decentralisation policies, delegate increasing responsibilities for sustainable development to the local level, the parameters for action at the local level remain defined in both apparent and indiscernible ways by national and sub-national governments. National tax and fiscal policies, regulations and investment programmes may serve as powerful barriers to specific local initiatives. If local initiatives -which have been highlighted by national governments as an increasingly central element of their national sustainable development strategies- are to have their promised impact, these barriers must be more fully understood.

Barriers to Local Implementation of Agenda 21

Focus on National and Sub-national Barriers

Sustainable development in any jurisdiction is a process that is mediated by multiple institutional actors in the public, private and civil society sectors. The globalisation of the development process is rapidly increasing the interaction of institutional actors from the international, regional, national, subnational and local arenas in important development decisions. The outcomes of this process are sustainable development projects and activities, which, by nature, must be implemented in a local context. The implementation of sustainable development in such a global context therefore requires mechanisms to ensure that the policies, plans and practices agreed upon by these diverse actors ultimately are consistent with local realities and implementation needs.

This report primarily focuses upon the policies, plans and practices of government institutions and their impacts upon the implementation of sustainable development measures at the local level. As sustainable development implies reforming the traditional modes of development decision-making and activity, the implementation of any programme for sustainable development will inevitably require reforms to government policies, plans and practices at the national, sub-national and local levels. These reforms must particularly focus on removing the unintended barriers to sustainable development measures.

The Local Agenda 21 process, mandated in Chapter 28 of Agenda 21, has provided a mechanism for thousands of local authorities in more than 60 countries to identify necessary local government reforms for, and the related barriers to, sustainable development. This mechanism has been reviewed in Background Paper 10 titled, Local Agenda 21 Survey: A study of responses by Local Authorities and their National and International Associations to Agenda 21, prepared for the fifth session of the CSD in 1997. The current paper therefore focuses upon barriers that arise from policies, plans and practices of national and sub-national governments.

Typology of Barriers

The paper describes different types of national and sub-national barriers and the ways in which they manifest themselves in the local context. These barriers arise from and are exacerbated by the institutional framework issues described in section 2 above. The resulting typology aims to assist managers in national and sub-national government to identify those barriers that are relevant to their country's institutional and policy context. This typology focuses on six types of barriers.

• Private Market Barriers, where problems are caused by market failures and externalities

• Public Market and Finance Barriers, where problems are caused by government influence over price signals and by the way public agencies spend money

• Legal and Regulatory Barriers, where problems are caused by rules and regulations set by government

• Jurisdictional Barriers, where problems are caused by the nature of delegation of government responsibilities

• Professional and Trade Group Barriers, where problems are caused by standards, practices and agreements in labour markets

• Foreign Assistance Barriers, where problems are caused by impacts of international development agency practices

The table at the end of this chapter provides examples of the ways in which these barriers (and their subtypes) work in practice. Some suggestions for addressing these barriers are also included. Case summaries are presented in section 4 to demonstrate the impacts of different barriers on local sustainable development activities.

Private Market Barriers

Economists have long recognised that certain failures in private markets can prevent rational market behaviour, in particular with regard to the environment, natural resources and "public goods" such as public safety or community life. While these failures operate in diverse ways, the most important ones fall into four categories: externalities, the "free-rider" syndrome, natural or publicly devised monopolies, and informational barriers to rational consumer behaviour.

Externalities

Externalities are market conditions that permit a producer or consumer to shift the costs for their economic activities to other parties. Externalities are particularly prevalent in the environmental and social arenas, as many environmental and social goods, i.e., "public goods" -clean air, clean water, public health- are not monetised and tradable in a market environment. As a result, a producer may use or damage the environment or public health through its economic activities without paying a direct cost. These costs are 'externalised' or transferred to the affected individuals or to governments which take responsibility for maintaining 'public goods.' In a market economy which aims to maximise investor profit, the externalisation of costs has proven to be a lucrative strategy for reducing costs relative to revenues, in other words, for increasing profits.

Due to their direct responsibilities for managing waste (when producers externalise this cost of business), providing social services (when corporate decisions result in unemployment or worker health problems), and addressing pollution problems caused by economic activity, local governments typically pay a high price for externalities in the market system.

A variety of instruments exist to eliminate externalities, including regulations, special taxes and financial transfers to aid affected parties, and regulated pricing schemes that 'internalise' these activities into the market. As there are many externalities implicit in the market, and producers can be very creative in finding ways to externalise their costs, solutions typically must be designed on a case-by-case basis to re-establish rational market forces.

'Free-Rider' Syndrome

The 'free-rider' syndrome is a form of externality that derives from the inability of any institution to control and charge for the use (or abuse) of a natural asset. A typical example of the free-rider system is the use of the seas. No one can fully regulate and therefore charge for the use of marine resources. Instead, governments can collect fees from a portion of users in the form of taxes and fees for fishing and other maritime activities. However, some users will find ways to avoid paying user fees and will thereby become 'free riders.' When large numbers of free riders exist, or when a single free-rider exerts a large impact, the free-rider syndrome can cause severe deterioration of a public asset.

Particularly in the area of sewage discharges, local governments themselves have played the role of free-rider. However, many cases also exist of local governments suffering from damages caused by free-rider use of ground water and surface water sources that threaten local water supplies.

Another problem arises when national laws require major companies to pay taxes in the jurisdiction of their head office, rather than in the cities where they locate their production facilities. For instance in Turkey, major automobile companies operate production plants in the city of Bursa, using local infrastructure and contributing to local pollution problems, yet they pay their municipal taxes to the city of Istanbul.

Another example is the use of tall smokestacks by power stations in one jurisdiction to pump their air pollutants into the air currents that feed the air sheds of distant cities. In North America, coal-powered electrical plants in the mid-western United States are a major source of the air pollution in eastern cities of the US and Canada. These cities must directly respond to the health problems arising from this practice.

The traditional instrument for eliminating free-rider effects is strictly enforced government regulation. However, government regulation of major natural assets, such as the seas and the atmosphere, requires establishment of international laws that are both detailed and broad enough to satisfy numerous national interests. The costs, rigidity and lack of enforceability of parallel regimes of national and international environmental laws have brought them under criticism. One recent invention devised as an alternative for controlling the free-rider syndrome is the use of tradable pollution permits. Though still highly controversial, pollution trading schemes aim to exact a charge on all resource users (or polluters) by creating a market for rights to use (or pollute) a public good.

Monopolies

Monopolies are another form of market barrier. Markets are presumed to generate rational behaviour through the disciplines of supply and demand, competition and constant innovation. Monopolies operate above such discipline. Of particular relevance to sustainable development is the so-called natural monopoly that arises, for instance, when there is only one water source or electrical power station controlled by a single company. Alternatively, governments have created public monopolies, oftentimes in response to the market's inability to generate private investment or necessary technology for major infrastructure projects. Whatever their initial justification may be, natural resource monopolies today are often inefficient and encourage non-sustainable consumption patterns. Regulation or elimination of these monopolies is the most common instruments for correcting these problems.

Electrical and water monopolies are known to prevent local governments and their local businesses from undertaking initiatives that would support sustainable development. Municipalities and businesses in the province of Ontario, Canada have been prevented from building co-generation and other energy efficient facilities because the province's monopolistic power company, Ontario Hydro, seeks to protect its market. The province is currently considering deregulation of this monopoly, but the legislation still may not support these local measures.

Information Barriers

Finally, even in this information age, informational barriers continue to serve as an important barrier to rational consumer behaviour. Rational market behaviour is predicated on full and equal access to information by producers and consumers. In reality, economic actors carefully manage the information that they provide to consumers. Many billions of dollars are spent each year to disseminate favourable information via advertising and to control access to unfavourable information. The result is the inability of consumers to consistently factor sustainability issues into their purchasing decisions. Government information disclosure requirements, public information programmes, and favourable tax benefits for public education activities are typical instruments to counteract this private market barrier.

In apartheid South Africa, the city of Durban was not able to obtain information on pollution discharges from local petrochemical factories. Today, the families abutting these facilities are seeking information on the pollution levels in their neighbourhoods and related long-term health effects. While the unique rigidities of the apartheid system can explain the Durban experience, many similar situations exist (or have existed) in democratic countries.

Government information disclosure requirements, public information programmes, and favourable tax benefits for public education activities are typical instruments to counteract this private market barrier.

Public Market and Finance Barriers

Government taxes, subsidies, fees and charges, regulations and expenditures can have a tremendous impact upon prices for goods and services. Often these government instigated price impacts provide an economic incentive to producers and consumers to pursue unsustainable behaviour.

Price

In the simplest terms, if the price of an unsustainable service or product is lower than that of a more sustainable alternative, this discourages more sustainable consumer behaviour. Examples of this in practice are:

(i) Where the impacts of the less sustainable option are not fully reflected in the price because they are "public" goods. Attempts to reflect these impacts by valuing them in economic terms are unnecessary (and ineffectual). It would be far more effective to use taxes to influence behaviour and achieve sustainable policy objectives.

(ii) Where taxes point in the wrong direction. Labour/employment/income taxes make people more expensive to employ, compared with other factors of production like energy and natural resources. Sales taxes and value-added tax (VAT) penalise the adding of value to raw materials. Taxes on energy and materials and on "value subtracted", e.g. waste and disposal, have the opposite effect.

(iii) Arbitrary or perverse inconsistencies, such as tax concessions on cars owned by companies, none on other forms of transport.

In many cities and towns, prices that favour unsustainable activities, such as wasteful consumption and commuting in private automobiles, establishes market forces that are contrary to local environmental policies to increase public transit use, reduce fresh water consumption, and reduce waste generation.

Price Structure

The way in which prices are arranged is often within the remit of national government, through the way in which taxes are levied or the structure of tariffs that result in incentives to behave in unsustainable ways.

(i) High fixed costs and low variable costs can make unsustainable options like private car use seem cheaper at the point of decision when compared with (unsubsidised) public transport. A shift from fixed to variable costs for the unsustainable option, e.g., replacing car ownership taxes with taxes on fuel, would reduce the impact of this barrier by encouraging more sustainable consumer behaviour. This would be further encouraged by a shift in the opposite direction - from variable to fixed costs - for the sustainable option, e.g. season tickets, residents' concessionary fares.

(ii) Regressive tariffs reward larger users. These are common in the energy sector, especially where government has never had or has relinquished ownership and control of companies which sell fuel.

Governments at all levels have moved slowly to adjust tariff structures for energy, water, waste water treatment and solid waste in order to provide an incentive for conservation and waste reduction. The result, often unwittingly, is higher public expenditure for new potable water sources, waste disposal facilities, and waste treatment programmes. The burdens of these expenditures often fall most directly on local governments. Where local governments lack sufficient funds, local residents pay the price in terms of water shortages or increasing public health risks. Governments often accept such outcomes as a price that must be paid to avoid confrontation with energy suppliers, large resource consumers and their lobbies.

Subsidies against the Public Interest

Subsidies or incentives often act against local sustainable development by supporting activities that have a marked adverse effect at local level.

Agricultural subsidies and incentives through tax "breaks" (fiscal and credit incentives) can encourage unsustainable development activity, causing reduction of "carbon sinks" through deforestation, loss of biodiversity, increase in soil erosion, damage through over-use of chemicals, displacement of local communities and destruction of local economies.

The provision of water for drinking and irrigation is often heavily subsidised, resulting in excessive irrigation, water logging and salination of agricultural areas as well as wastage by domestic consumers.

Fossil fuel subsidies create distortions in world markets and confer an unfair price advantage when compared with locally generated renewable energy.

Road transport is subsidised by the failure to recover the full costs of infrastructure provision. The inability of some countries to maintain roads efficiently, which results in the large expenditures each year on premature road rehabilitation, also amounts to subsidised road provision. Though local governments may be able to recover some of the costs associated with road use, such as car parking, they have no ability to influence a change to more sustainable behaviour in the face of national subsidies on this scale.

Subsidies can be broadly described in two ways, namely production and consumption subsidies. The concept is particularly familiar in the energy sector, where production subsidies are common in developed countries, whilst consumption subsidies, designed to keep domestic prices below world market levels, are found in many developing countries.

(i) Production subsidies paid to anti-sustainable producer interests. These would include the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and subsidised construction of national roadways (though for convenience the latter is described below as investment.)

(ii) Subsidies intended to alleviate poverty/inequity, which in fact promote unsustainable activities, e.g. blanket fuel subsidies.

These subsidies can have a devastating effect on local sustainable development policies, counteracting the force of local projects and programmes. Local governments themselves are often a part of the problem. For instance, in 1990 the city of Denver, USA hired a consultant to determine whether the municipality was subsidising local private automobile use. The consultant found that in 1989 the city spent $57 million on motor vehicle-related services (including roads, policing, health costs due to accidents etc.) and generated $40 million in revenues from auto-related charges -a subsidy of $17 million or 30% of total expenses.

Investment

Capital investment can promote and facilitate unsustainable behaviour and act as a powerful barrier to local initiatives.

(i) Government sponsored road building in developed countries is acting in direct opposition to local efforts to encourage more sustainable methods of transport, by diverting resources and attracting more traffic to congested areas, instead of relieving congestion. Developing and transitional economies are now experiencing similar problems. Encouraged by international institutions to pursue the 'Northern' model of automobile dominated urban transport, many affordable and indigenous modes of transport, such as bicycles, have been increasingly excluded in fast-growing Asian urban centres.

(ii) Investment in unsustainable industries such as coal mining or oil exploration may transform the national economy in the short term but is not a long-term option for sustainable development. Many communities can be found, particularly in the developing world, where subsidised mining or fish/shrimp farming enterprises have destroyed local living conditions and long-term economic prospects.

(iii) Investment decisions for urban and rural regeneration do not take sustainability into account.

Legal and Regulatory Barriers

Jurisdictional Barriers

Professional and Trade Groups Barriers

Foreign Assistance Barriers

Conclusion

Table 1. National and Sub-national Barriers to Local Sustainable Development

Case Studies

These brief case studies demonstrate local experiences with the types of barriers that have been identified and discussed in Section 3.

Private Market Barriers: Externalisation of Costs-Disposable Plastic Containers
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The externalisation by producers of costs associated with their plastic packaging materials is graphically demonstrated in the case of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the early 1990s, soft drink bottlers in Brazil still used returnable glass bottles for the distribution of their soft drink products. This system provided an incentive to individuals and households to collect and return bottles in exchange for a deposit fee. Within a few years, however, bottlers ended the returnable system in exchange for the use of plastic 'PET' bottles. The conversion to PET bottles reduced industry costs, particular due to their reduced transportation weight. Also reduced were any costs borne by the bottlers for collecting and processing returnable bottles. Many bottlers marked their new PET bottles with the slogan "disposable."

This simple change in technology and bottling practices rapidly shifted responsibility for a significant commercial waste product to the municipal waste management system. The municipality of Rio de Janeiro previously had a minimal role in the collection and disposal of returnable bottles. Now, consumers were disposing their 'disposables' into city streets, alleys, streams and garbage collection containers. The resulting, costly problems arising from externalisation of packaging materials responsibility were far greater than anyone could have imagined. (They were exacerbated by a simultaneous, rapid introduction to the market of cheap, disposal plastic shopping bags.)

In many countries, North and South, the costs associated with collection and disposal of packaging materials, such as plastic soft drink containers, are so high relative to their resale value that local authorities are unable to even recover these costs through municipal waste collection fees. This contributes to the underfinanced condition of municipal solid waste management systems in many countries. Further problems are created when plastic shopping bags and soft drink containers find their way into storm water drains, causing flooding, public health risks, and a variety of economic losses. In Rio de Janeiro, tens of thousands of PET bottles never find their way into the municipal collection system. In many parts of the city, the municipality now stations workers at major storm drains to constantly clear plastic soft drink containers from the drains. These measures are not enough to prevent clogged drains and flooding.

Flooding is a common problem during periods of heavy rain in Rio de Janeiro. Floods resulting from clogged storm drains in city streets and neighbourhoods often bring traffic to a halt and damage local homes and businesses.

In February 1996, strong rains fell on the hillsides surrounding the Jacarepagua lowlands district of western Rio de Janeiro. Along the stream called Arroio Fundo, squatters had established a new neighbourhood called Novo Horizonte ("new horizons"). (The municipality sought to remove the squatters due to their hazardous location, but were blocked from doing so by the State of Rio de Janeiro.) During the rains, thousands of littered PET bottles and plastic bags were washed into the Arroio Fundo. They collected under a bridge where the plastic materials formed an artificial dam, flooding the Novo Horizonte community, destroying its homes and killing 13 people, including 8 children.

Two days later the municipal Environmental Secretary obtained a bulldozer to destroy the plastic dam. The water level in the community immediately fell by two meters. In the following weeks, the municipality used heavy equipment to dredge the Arroio Fundo, a process that was constantly interrupted by the large masses of plastic bags and containers in the stream bed.

The costly problems introduced by plastic packaging materials can be overcome by addressing the market failures that allow private companies to externalise the costs associated with their products. The 'internalisation' of these costs can be achieved in a variety of ways, including through container deposit charges, direct payments by soft drink manufacturers to municipal waste management enterprises, or regulations requiring soft drink distributors to recollect their containers at their own expense. If national and sub-national governments do not institute such measures, the result is an enforced subsidy, at the expense of local authorities, to the business costs of soft drink manufacturers and distributors. Either municipalities collect and dispose these packaging products at their expense or they face more costly problems to local life, sanitation, infrastructure -and the vitality of their local economy.

Sources: Site visits; interviews with Environmental Secretary (retired) of Rio de Janeiro.

Foreign Assistance Barriers to Local Sustainable Development Planning - The World Bank's Urban Sector Engineering Project in Mwanza, Tanzania

Mwanza is the second largest city in Tanzania, located on the southern shores of Lake Victoria with a population of approximately 600,000. More than one-third of the population, or 216,000 residents, live in unplanned and technically illegal squatter settlements without access to basic urban services such as water, sanitation facilities and publicly maintained roads. These settlements, which suffer a variety of public health and economic problems, are often left to provide their own crude infrastructure for day-to-day life.

In 1995, the Mwanza Municipality and representatives from local CBOs, NGOs, trade co-operatives, research centres, and the business community constituted a multi-stakeholder committee to establish a Local Agenda 21 planning process for the city. The committee started its work by meeting with community leaders and by recruiting representatives from squatter areas and women's and youth groups to join the committee. Having established a representative body, this committee then held a series of priority-setting meetings and in June 1995selected two issues -upgrading squatter settlements and pollution of Lake Victoria- as the initial focus of an action planning process.

To prepare for action planning, the committee formed six working groups to hold meetings in different settlements and collect data using surveys (100 households in five wards), physical measuring and observation. These activities were also used to recruit the participation in the planning committee of neighbourhood leaders from squatter areas. Following these efforts, a two-day workshop was held to prepare specific objectives for each action area. Specific priority was given to upgrading water, sanitation and health services in the squatter communities.Further follow-up activities were organised to prepare more detailed projects to address these objectives. The committee then began the arduous task of finding resources to implement its project proposals.

Parallel to this community-based process, the World Bank started work on the design of its multi-million dollar Urban Sector Engineering Project (USEP) in Mwanza. World Bank project documents state that the USEP would employ "sustainability criteria" in project selection and design, the Project Interim Report indicates that "financial cost recovery should...be the overriding criterion." The Report also states that "formulation of the project will reflect local preferences. " This is to be achieved through "extensive consultations." The Report describes these consultations as follows:

[Consultations] were made with staff from municipal councils...They took place during the town visits as well as in Dar Es Salaam...All major problems and possible solutions were discussed with the staff in order to build on local knowledge and preferences as much as possible ... The meetings in Dar Es Salaam were particularly useful as they took place at a stage where the consultant had made an initial project formulation. (italics added for emphasis).

To prepare this formulation, in early 1995 a foreign Project consultant undertook "a small household sample survey" to identify service priorities. Fifty-five homes in five different neighbourhoods were surveyed. Only one neighbourhood was an unplanned low-income area. The survey revealed the following service priorities (in rank order): improved sanitation, better refuse collection, improved drainage, better roads and improved water supply. While differences between the final project formulation and the survey's conclusions might be justifiable due to the survey's limited scope, the Project ultimately allocated 74% of its 6-year programme budget to roads and drainage projects. Most of the USEP investment will focus on upgrading services in the central business district and planned areas. Only 2% of the total budget will be applied to low cost sanitation facilities.

In the course of the community's Local Agenda 21 planning process and the World Bank's USEP design process, no contact was ever achieved between the Local Agenda 21 committee and World Bank representatives. While one could argue that the Local Agenda 21 committee could have been more aggressive in pursuing contact with the World Bank, the lack of physical presence of the Bank's representatives, the Bank's stated commitments to support local capacity-building and its superior resources to take the lead in co-ordinating with the committee, must be seriously factored. As a result, one of the largest, multi-year development assistance projects in Mwanza's history will unlikely lend any support to community-based sustainable development planning efforts of the city. Only the barest support will be given to the top priorities identified by that process. In recent years, other international development agencies have flocked to Mwanza. While the story therefore is not over, the Local Agenda 21 committee remains ready and vigilant to see whether these efforts will lend it support.

Sources: Extensive local interviews and site visits by ICLEI staff. World Bank. Urban Sector Engineering Project, TWG2-Interim Report, (Washington DC, COWIconsult/inter-consult). Also Luanda, Alfred. Local initiative strategies to control the growth of squatter settlements: The case of Mwanza Municipality, (Lund, Sweden, LCHS: 1997).

Public Markets and Finance Barriers: Split Incentives-The Costs of Urban Sprawl in King County, Washington, USA

In response to fiscal and environmental concerns, state and local governments throughout the United States have been researching the full costs -local, state and federal; direct and indirect- associated with different types of urban land-use patterns. The general finding of these studies is that compact, transit-friendly forms of development are more economical than low-density, automobile-dependent forms of urban sprawl. In short, relative to higher density areas, the greater distances between buildings in low-density areas increase the net costs (costs minus revenues from local taxes and service charges) for construction and maintenance of water, sewer and transportation infrastructure. These findings should encourage local governments to use their land-use and development controls to reduce urban sprawl. However, a closer look at municipal finances demonstrates a contrary economic incentive.

King County (1990 population-626,000) in the state of Washington, USA consists of the city of Seattle, its surrounding suburbs, and more distant towns and rural areas that are subject to considerable low density development pressures. In 1994 the County commissioned a study to estimate the direct costs (net) to the municipality of three 20-year growth scenarios for absorbing an estimated 35% increase in County households. The scenarios were based upon different land-use patterns -a sprawl scenario (existing plans), a medium density scenario with 16 'nodal' centres, and a higher density scenario with 8 'nodal' centres. The costs of providing urban services to each scenario were computed and compared with the tax, development fee and service charge revenues that would be generated in each scenario.

Contrary to the studies of other North American cities and counties, the King County study found that net costs in the sprawl scenario are considerably less than either of the nodal s cenarios. Revenues from a special state-level tax subsidy to support high capacity public transit services were factored in this calculation. The explanation for this apparent contradiction lies in the definition of costs in each case. While comparable studies factored in all costs, regardless of who pays for these costs, the King County study considered only those costs that would be paid directly by the municipality. The study revealed that the municipality's finances would benefit from sprawl because a large portion of transportation infrastructure costs in the sprawl scenario would be paid by state and federal governments. King County's rural areas are serviced by three major federal highways and more than ten state highways. As development in these rural areas will rely heavily on this infrastructure, a sprawling growth pattern allows the municipality to shift significant costs for development off of its balance sheet.

Both King County, the city of Seattle and the state of Washington have recognised the detrimental impacts of urban sprawl and have adopted policies to contain sprawl development. However, the King County case highlights how a lack of co-ordination of economic instruments between levels of government can split incentives and encourage development that is more costly to government, in the whole, than the sustainable development alternative.

Sources: Tischler & Associates. Marginal Cost Analysis of Growth Alternatives: King County, Washington, (Seattle, WA: King County, 1994). Also Burchell, Robert and Listokin, David. Land, Infrastructure, Housing Costs and Fiscal Impacts Associated with Growth: Literature on the Impacts of Sprawl versus Managed Growth, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutger's University, 1996). Individual studies for South Florida (FL), San Jose (CA), Toronto (Canada) were also reviewed.

Public Market and Finance Barriers - Waste Minimisation in the London Borough of Croydon, UK

Croydon's Local Agenda 21 Action Plan lists 239 points for action in order to achieve objectives and targets in key areas of pollution (air, water, land and noise), water resources, natural environment, waste, energy, transport, work and economy, education and awareness and global links. Three key waste objectives are established in the plan. These are to reduce the amount of waste (including packaging) produced by residents and businesses; to reduce the amount of waste sent for final disposal; and to increase recycling and recovery of materials.

The UK central government has introduced a landfill tax that could make an important contribution to the achievement of these objectives. However, the tax is not being applied in a way that will achieve this potential. Under the tax, waste disposal operators pay a levy for all solid waste disposed to landfill. Most of the proceeds of this scheme are to be used by the Treasury to subsidise employers' national insurance contributions, with the intention to reduce employer labour taxes and encourage job creation. However, up to 20% of the landfill tax can be paid by the landfill operator to the so-called "environmental bodies" which are licensed by a central government office. They use the money for initiatives such as improving a park or public amenity within 10 miles of a waste disposal site. However, these funds can not be used for any waste minimisation or recycling projects because such activities would be considered to directly benefit the landfill operator (either by reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and thereby the related tax liability or by commercially supporting recycling centres run by the landfill operators).

Thus, while in principle the landfill tax shifts the general tax burden from a non-sustainable activity (waste production) to a sustainable activity (employment generation), the application of the tax undermines the full potential of this positive effect. The exclusion of new recycling, waste recovery and waste minimisation projects from funding under the tax scheme acts as a barrier to achievement of the tax's primary objective -to encourage waste minimisation strategies. A more sophisticated scheme is required to address both this shortcoming and concern about tax evasion by unscrupulous operators.

Source: CAG Consultants

Legal and Regulatory Barriers to Environmentally Sound Technology - The "Healthy House" of Toronto, Canada

Outdated building, health and energy codes can serve as powerful barriers to the introduction of new technologies required for more sustainable lifestyles. In 1991, the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation, an agency of the Government of Canada, launched a nation-wide competition for the design of a state-of-the-art, healthy and environment-friendly family home. Two winning designs were selected on the basis of the following criteria:

• Provision of a healthy living environment for occupants;

• Achievement of high efficiencies for energy and natural resource use;

• Encouragement of environmental lifestyles;

• Affordability.

In Toronto, the winning design of Martin Liefhebber Architect, Inc. employed more than 15 state-of-the-art technologies to create a three-story, two-family home that is completely self-sufficient. The "Healthy House" produces its own electricity from solar panels, provides its own water supply from rainwater collectors, and fully treats its wastewater using a system of biological filters and ultraviolet light. The home is constructed of low chemical materials, employs a sophisticated, energy-saving ventilation system, as well as high efficiency appliances, lights and windows. Furthermore, the house is built on an "in-fill" lot so that no undeveloped land is used for its construction. As the house requires no government energy, water and sewage services and is located on existing transportation infrastructure, operating costs for the house are eliminated or severely reduced for the municipality and the homeowner.

For a city that had made numerous statutory plan and policy commitments to sustainable urban development, the Healthy House made tremendous good sense. However, the city of Toronto is required by laws of the Province of Ontario to implement the Province's Building Code. This Code provided numerous barriers to the construction of the house. Without intense support from both the federal government and the city of Toronto, over a period of four years, the house never would have been built.

Provincial building legislation is prescriptive only. In other words, on the basis of old technologies, it prescribes what a builder can do and what kinds of systems a builder can install. Many of the systems and materials used in the Healthy House are not prescribed in the Building Code. As a result, extensive time was spent determining which provincial agency had responsibility to grant special approvals for each individual system. The building materials used in construction of the Healthy House required individual review by the Ontario Building Code Commission. As provincial legislation has only eight categories for sewage management and none cover on-site sewage treatment, the bio-filtration system -which allows all wastewater to be recycled for bathing and washing- required a special Certificate of Approval from the Ontario Ministry of Environment. This process took 10 months. The construction of a house that would not receive electricity services from Ontario Hydro (the provincial energy utility) also required review.

The ensuing bureaucratic process lasted for a period of nearly four years. The house was finally offered for sale in 1996. Naturally, the elapse of time increased the expense of the p roject and local market conditions changed, reducing the economic replicability of such housing designs. (The process did not result in provincial changes to legislation that would reduce barriers for similar projects in the future.) Without the barriers arising from standards and lack of clear jurisdiction, the replication cost of building and installing the Healthy House's water and waste water system would be approximately US$7,000. In comparison, the cost to the municipality to connect the Healthy House (at its in-fill lot location) to municipal water and sewer services would be approximately US$ 105,000. This case demonstrates that standards need to be made flexible to support timely adoption of new technologies with environmental, health and economic benefits.

Sources: CMHC. Healthy Housing: A Winning Design, (brochure). Interviews with Martin Liefhebber (architect), Rolf Paloheimo (builder), and planning staff of the city of Toronto.

Jurisdictional Barriers to Local Agenda 21 Implementation in Zurich, Switzerland

Environmental legislation in Switzerland is enacted at the Federal level and there is restricted scope to enact local laws. Environmental laws are generally adequate, but the job of enforcing them is left with the Swiss cantons (states or provinces), which can delegate this authority to local governments at their discretion. This division of jurisdiction can result in an under-utilisation of local mechanisms to achieve national sustainable development objectives. The following case provides examples of jurisdictional barriers to the implementation of city of Zürich's 1995 environmental policy, which is part of the Zürich Local Agenda 21 programme.

Urban Planning

The Cantonal Structure Plan for the Zürich region sets the parameters for growth, infrastructure and recreational and nature protection areas. The plan's orientation is to meet growth objectives. Meanwhile, the city sets binding limitations for environmental protection in development activities. The city's principles and limitations for environmental protection are not carried through into the Structure Plan commitments.

Energy

Zürich's energy conservation policy has identified a variety of actions to be taken at the Cantonal or Federal level to enable the city to meet local goals. These actions include taxation of energy use; setting energy consumption standards for established production facilities, motor vehicles and equipment; and establishing regulations that oblige owners to improve the energy performance of buildings.

Road Traffic and Air Pollution

The City of Zürich has vigorously pursued a policy of promoting public transport and reducing the use of private motor vehicles as far as possible within its jurisdiction. Nonetheless car ownership and use is increasing rapidly throughout Europe and traffic pressure on the city is growing. One possible solution being pursued by the City is to concentrate motor vehicle transport on main roads, which are under the jurisdiction of the Canton. Plans put forward by the city, such as redistributing road capacity in favour of environmentally friendly forms of transport, have been rejected by the Canton if they were seen as anti-motor vehicle.

Air quality in Zürich does not meet all the national standards, particularly with regards to nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Motor vehicles and heating installations are together the primary source of these problems. The City's authority is restricted to the enforcement of regulatory restrictions on industrial and commercial installations and the management of community streets and parking. The Canton's clean air plan cannot be enforced effectively because of the City's lack of jurisdiction over main roads, where most traffic-related emissions are produced.

Waste Management

Zürich's policy objectives for refuse and waste water call for massive reductions in the use of materials and goods, causing difficulties for the City, whose power to act is established at the end of the chain of materials flow. With few mechanisms to reduce the volume of waste, the City must focus its efforts on recycling. Zürich's recycling programmes have been so successful that plans are being made to decommission local incinerators. However, the recycling operation must be subsidised due to the collapse of the market for recyclable materials and subsidies in neighbouring countries.

Information

Swiss Federal law of environmental protection obliges authorities to inform the public about the state of the environment and the success of measures which have been taken to protect it. However there is no legal basis for granting comprehensive public access to administrative records.

The city notes that the area of competence for environmental policy has shifted in the last few years to the federal and canton levels. In contrast with the mid 1980s, the city now has little authority to enact environmentally relevant regulations, yet it is often left as the only authority that enforces regulations that are enacted at a higher level. The success of t he city of Zürich in such efforts, as well as in the implementation of its own policy, will require:

• Better integration of the cantonal structure plans and the city ordinances to take account of local sustainability;

• Incorporation of local objectives for traffic reduction and air pollution control into national and regional highway objectives, plans and programmes;

• National regulations, fiscal incentives and international trade agreements to minimise unnecessary packaging and use of resources (which would reduce the current need to subsidise markets for recycled materials);

•  Re-establishment of local legislative powers to address local environmental and sustainable development issues. And greater consistency in legislation so that local authorities can meet their obligations to provide information to the public

Source: CAG Consultants

Facilitating Local Sustainable Development Measures: A Rapid Assessment Exercise

The barriers described in Section 3 of this paper are generic and can appear in different ways according to country context. As the cases in Section 4 illustrate, even within one country a barrier may be manifested in dozens of different ways, according to local context. Realistic responses to these barriers must also be designed according to context.

Therefore, the following exercise is presented to assist the identification of measures (policies, plans, practices, instruments), at each level of government, that either facilitate or hinder the achievement of an identified local sustainable development objective. The exercise is particularly designed for use by the sustainable development contact persons in national/sub-national government ministries/departments. It may also be an effective way for other government policy analysts, legislative staff or program directors to rapidly assess the implications of planned measures upon local sustainable development efforts.

The exercise is derived from a participatory planning tool called force field analysis. This tool is commonly used in workshops for priority setting and action strategy development. This exercise therefore will be most effectively employed in workshops that bring together representatives from all levels of government for the purpose of establishing co-ordinated sustainable development strategies. In this sense, the exercise may serve as a valuable tool particularly for National Councils on Sustainable Development.

Steps

1. Select the local sustainable development objective that you aim to support.

2. Identify and list the different measures that can be taken at the local level to achieve this objective. The listed measures should include all available local instruments for sustainable development. These include regulatory instruments, land use control, provision of infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles (e.g., mass transit, recycling facilities), economic instruments, management practices and procedures, communication and awareness raising instruments, and performance evaluation instruments. Use as many worksheets (see Worksheet #1) as necessary to list each of the key measures available to local authorities in your country context.

3. For each measure, identify the forces (policies, plans, practices and instruments) at the sub-national, national and international levels that will influence local implementation of the local measure. List these forces on a separate sheet of paper and then evaluate whether each listed policy, plan, practice or instrument will facilitate or hinder the local measure. You might compare and rank the different forces to identify those that would be most facilitating and most hindering. Then enter the most important facilitating and hindering forces into the worksheet. Continue this process until you have completed the worksheet for each measure.

[Note: Local governments also maintain policies, practices and instruments that hinder their local sustainable development measures. It therefore will be important for local government officials to also undertake this exercise.]

4. After the first worksheet is completed, identify the most common facilitating and hindering forces listed on the worksheet. Identify strategies or measures that your ministry or department can take to strengthen the facilitating forces and to reduce the hindering forces. These strategies and measures can be entered into the second worksheet (see Worksheet #2) for consultation and planning purposes. 

Worksheet 1: Force Field Analysis for Local Agenda 21 Implementation

Local Sustainable Development Objective:
___________________________

  Worksheet 2: Measures to Support Local Agenda 21 Implementation

Local Sustainable Development Objective:_________________________

References

Asian Development Bank (1990), Economic Policies for Sustainable Development, Manila: ADB

Carew-Reid, J et al (1994), Strategies for National Sustainable Development, IUCN/IEED/Earthscan

De Moor, A and Calamai, P. (1997), Subsidizing Unsustainable Development, Undermining the Earth with Public Funds, Earth Council/Van Lennep Program on Economics and Sustainable Development

Falloux, F & Talbot, L M (1993), Crisis and Opportunity - Environment and Development in Africa, London: Earthscan

Kamugasha, B B N (1989), Developing Institutional and Legal Capabilities for Dealing with Environment in Sub Saharan Africa, AFTEN Technical Note No 3, Environment Division, Technical Department, Africa Region, World Bank

Kitchen, T, Whitney, D & Littlewood, S (1997), Local Authority/Academic Collaboration and Local Agenda 21 Policy Processes, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 40 (5), 645 - 659

McDonald, D (1994), It's Not Easy Being Brown - ANC Environmental Policies, Southern Africa Report, Toronto, 9 (4), p 31

SARDC/IUCN/SADC (1994), State of the Environment in Southern Africa, Harare: Southern African Research & Documentation Centre/World Conservation Union/Southern African Development Community

Voisey, H, Beuermann, C, Sverdrup, L A and O'Riordan, T (1996), The Political Significance of Local Agenda 21: the early stages of some European experience, Local Environment 1 (1), 33-50

World Bank (1995), Towards Environmentally Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A World Bank Agenda, Discussion Draft 16.5.95., World Bank Africa Technical Department

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