As Peru's capital and largest metropolitan area, Lima is
home to three levels of government: the national, the city
(Province of Lima), and 40 district-level governments (municipios)
making up the Province of Lima. It was at the district level
that researchers felt the most innovative collaborations
in Lima were occurring. Case studies were selected from
each of the four major geographic zones comprising the Province
of Lima: the Northern, Southern and Eastern Cones and the
historic city centre (El Cercado).
In the Northern Cone, three case studies (María
Josefina Huamán, Gloria Cubas Rivera and Juan Pedro Mora
Sono, Los nuevos desafios de la ciudad para las mujeres
y la visibilizacion de su participacion en la construccion
del habitat: el caso del cono norte, mimeo, 1997 (a compilation
of three case studies). Jaime Joseph, Organizaciones comunitarias
de base y gobiernos locales, mimeo, 1997. These and the
other Lima studies have been revised and updated and will
be published in Lima in monograph for in early 2000.)
describe the efforts of women's CBOs and local NGOs to work
with district governments to ensure improved nutrition,
sanitation and public health in their districts. The Eastern
Cone case study (Julio A. Calderón Cockburn,
La organizacion zonal de las comunidades de base y su articulacion
con los gobiernos locales en el cono este, mimeo, 1997.)
compares two separate experiences in which neighbourhood
associations, community kitchens, mother's clubs, etc.,
from a set of contiguous neighbourhoods formed a committee
to engage in social and economic planning at the sub-district
level. In one case the municipio joined the effort; in the
other it did not. The Southern Cone case study (Eduardo
Ballón, La experiencia de comercializacion del frente unico
de comerciantes minoristas de villa el Salvador, Lima, Peru,
mimeo, 1997.) examines the efforts of a retail merchant's
association, community organizations, NGOs and the municipio
of Villa El Salvador to develop the infrastructure and supply
links necessary to prevent hoarding, price gouging and other
forms of corruption in the marketing of food in the municipio.
In the Cercado (Federico Arnillas L. and
Arq. Silvia de los Rios, Organizaciones comunitarias de
base el cercado de Lima y formas de coordinación y participación
en la gestión municipal, mimeo, 1997.) government
collaboration with community organizations barely exists
because the level of community organization is so limited.
In
all but the Cercado case, interaction between local authorities
and community organizations resulted in positive impacts
on the individuals involved in the community organizations,
on the organizations themselves and on the development of
innovative and appropriate approaches to social problems
at the local level. But their immediate influence on policy
- in other words, on resource distribution and decision-making
structures - was minimal. This typically stems from the
unwillingness or inability of the mayor to transfer adequate
resources to the collaborating organizations or to extend
to them control over the resources needed to make the collaboration
function as intended by the community participants. Excessive
dependence of these collaborations on the goodwill of the
mayor proves to be another important impediment to their
sustainability.
Mumbai
In
Mumbai, two of the three main collaborations studied reflect
a similar phenomenon, albeit substituting dependence on
a senior civil servant for dependence on the district mayor.
In the case of the Rationing Kruti Samiti, the successes
of a coalition of NGOs, CBOs, and government agencies in
halting corruption and abuse in the public distribution
system of subsidized grains, oils and cooking fuels began
to rapidly erode when the officer who catalyzed the effort
was transferred to another post outside the rationing system.(Apnalaya,
Rationing Kruti Samiti: Experience of Collaboration Between
NGOs, GOs and CBOs in the City of Mumbai, mimeo, 1998.)
In the second case, the Deputy Municipal Commissioner (DMC)
with jurisdiction over Jogeshwari, one of Mumbai's largest
slums, brought city agencies, NGOs and CBOs together in
a two-year-long fact finding collaboration in order to unravel
a series of conflicts over the legal rights and responsibilities
of tenants, chawl (tenement) owners, and various municipal
authorities vis-à-vis one another. Using the information
collected, the DMC ruled in favour of the tenants, strengthening
their rights to tenure and security against harassment by
the chawl owners. However, the DMC was transferred not long
after making his ruling which, eight years later, has yet
to be implemented. While this suggests that implementation
may have been too dependent on the DMC, it also highlights
a more serious problem: the absence of accountability for
the civil service to follow through on its own decisions
or rulings.
The Mohalla Committee case study (Sushoba
Bharve, Mumbai Mohalla Committees: A Case Study, mimeo,
1996.) describes incipient efforts of the Mumbai
Police Force to open effective channels of communication
and co-operation between itself, community organizations
and ordinary citizens. The police have been accused in some
quarters of having taken sides in the communal strife experienced
in Mumbai in late 1992 and early 1993, and the proposed
action was intended to show the police force's commitment
to promoting harmony among Muslim and Hindu residents living
in close proximity in Mumbai's slums. To date, however,
doubts remain about the nature of the collaboration established.
Two main reasons for this are: 1) the selection of Mohalla
Committee members remains under the direct control of local
police offices; and 2) the police force strongly resists
any suggestion that the Mohalla Committees should directly
monitor police work in the community.
The
studies in Mumbai also highlight other constraints that
must be overcome before there can be more genuine partnerships
between community organizations and local authorities. These
include internal weaknesses of CBOs, their over-reliance
on NGOs (whose number and resources are extremely limited),
and the general resistance or inability of the lower-level
bureaucracy to work with CBOs and NGOs.
São Paulo
The São Paulo case studies reflect the willingness of the
first Worker's Party (WP) administration (1989-1992) to
democratize the traditionally closed and clientelistic machinery
of urban government in one of the world's largest cities.
Of the four São Paulo cases, two describe initiatives of
the WP administration (Valmir de Souza,
Acao cultural regionalizada area central da cidade de São
Paulo, mimeo, 1996. Pedro Jacobi, Orcamento participativo:
o caso de São Paulo (1989-1992), à luz das experiencias
de Porto Alegre e Belo Horizonte, mimeo, 1997. Additional
information on the Erundina Administration is contained
in Pedro Jacobi, Overview Paper: São Paulo, mimeo, 1998.)and
two examine ongoing initiatives of community organizations
and NGOs that the new mayor, Luisa Erundina, decided to
promote for "demonstration" purposes.(Raquel
Rolnick and Walter Cruz de Oliveira, Mutirao autogerido
apuaña: enfrentando a questao da moradia com parceria, mimeo,
1997. Beth Grimberg, Estudo sobre a coopamare: Cooperativa
de catadores autonomos de papel, aparas e materiais reaproveitaveis
de São Paulo, mimeo, 1997. ) The most public and
extensive experiment of the WP administration was the Participatory
Budget (PB), which for the first time formalized channels
for public review and comment on the city's spending priorities.
Its most revolutionary feature was to offer community organizations
throughout the city the opportunity to comment on and offer
their own spending proposals. The process for mobilizing
such large-scale participation was cumbersome and, despite
efforts to improve and streamline it in subsequent years,
the PB never caught the imagination of the public or had
a large impact on the decision-making process. The greatest
impediment to the successful implementation of the PB was,
however, that the final spending decisions were made by
the city council, on which the WP held a minority position.
Thus, the WP was neither able to change the legislative
basis of the budget-making process, nor force the city councillors
to accept the recommendations of the PB. And without an
effective campaign to convince the public of the validity
of the PB, it will be hard to overcome these weaknesses.(
Relatively successful instances of Participatory Budgeting
(PB) have proceeded in recent years in Porto Allegre and
Belo Horizonte, and may eventually catalyze a change in
public opinion about the PB in São Paulo.)
The
two cases promoted by civil society organizations, and supported
by the WP administration for their demonstration value,
pioneered lessons in employment creation for the homeless
through solid waste recycling co-operatives, and self-managed
construction of high-density, multi-storey, low-income housing.
Both of these initiatives represented innovative solutions
to pressing problems of low-income and marginalized groups,
but neither could muster adequate popular recognition during
the WP's administration. In the case of the recycling co-operative,
economic sustainability has been elusive because of the
absence of laws and administrative practices necessary to
make consumers bear the real cost of non-recyclable solid
waste. Thus there is little incentive to recycle anything,
and the co-operative designed to reintegrate homeless people
into the labour market as collectors of recyclable materials
languishes. The case of self-managed construction of low-income
housing has evolved more positively, albeit long after the
WP was voted out of office. In part this is due to the visible
(Two kinds of "visibility" made for the
success of the Apuaña scheme, and neither existed during
the Erundina administration. First, the physical structures
were not complete until 1995; and second, wide public debate
about their role in public housing did not occur until 1996.)
success of the model: the Apuaña apartments have turned
out to be an attractive, land-saving, low-cost alternative
to other social housing schemes in São Paulo, a fact acknowledged
both in Brazil by conservative and progressive politicians
alike, and by the Habitat II meeting in Istanbul in 1996.
The 'Non-Core' Cities: East St. Louis, Ho Chi Minh City
and Jinja
The
three non-core cities differed from the five core cities
in the initial conditions of the collaborations reported
on. Most importantly, from the perspective of the project
the principal characteristic of the non-core cities was
that the collaboration with governments and civil society
was indirect, in each case mediated if not largely promoted
by university-based researchers and technicians. Second,
in each of the three cities no strong evidence of community-local
authority collaboration presented itself to the researchers.
Indeed, none of the researchers involved in the project
had reported collaborations on the order of those defined
in the initial section of this paper. Rather, this being
the case, the researchers hoped that through long-term,
broad-based interaction with both community organizations
and local authorities, they would help promote both the
will to and the capacity for partnership/collaboration between
two crucial protagonists in local level development. Third,
in these cities, the research teams prepared a single report.
This profiled the socio-economic conditions in each city,
the principles and methods underlying their interventions
and the progress made as of 1996.
The
largest and longest of these interventions took place in
East St. Louis (ESL). Beginning in 1990, a multidisciplinary
team of researchers and graduate students from a public
university located some 300 KM from ESL began making contacts
within the city and community organizations. Their aim was
to understand how the University might assist a turnaround
in the social and economic conditions of the city, the poorest
in the USA at that time. The university put most of its
efforts into strengthening the capacity of existing community
organizations (and helping set up new ones) to: (a) identify
neighborhood concerns; (b) build a consensus about the kinds
of actions that could be undertaken by citizens (either
independently or with the assistance of the Project); and
(c) organize such actions.
The ESL Action Research Project (ESLARP) then helped identify
possible allies within agencies and government bodies operating
within the boundaries of ESL that could be accessed by community
organizations to accomplish discrete community driven projects.
The next major effort was to lobby local agencies and political
officials to do their jobs better, and create conditions
for more thoroughgoing reform of local government. More
recently, housing and economic development activities of
ESLARP have begun to involve local authorities, in part
due to the high level of organization among local residents.
In
1996 in both Ho Chi Minh City and Jinja, the government
- university - community collaborations were in the early
stage of implementation, with all participants in a fact-finding
and mutual familiarization process. In both cases, pressing
environmental problems affecting the physical health and
income generating prospects of large numbers of urban poor
were the focus of the planned collaborations. In Jinja,
the agreement of the municipal government to implement Local
Agenda 21 recognized officially the importance of bringing
civil society organizations, local authorities and business
together to solve the problems at hand. In Ho Chi Minh City,
water and sanitation issues in densely inhabited informal
settlements were the foci of scientific, sociological and
economic analysis that was to eventually lay the groundwork
for a series of interventions. Among these were to be actions
undertaken by and for the residents themselves, others in
cooperation with municipal agencies and yet others at the
policy level reflecting the analysis of the partners in
the action research component. A major difference between
the ESLARP and the Jinja and Ho Chi Minh projects lay in
the fact that foreign aid was the source of many of the
resources available to the latter two projects. On the other
hand, an important similarity among the three cities existed:
the commitment of the external promoters to use participatory
action research methods as a tool for planning, implementing
and evaluating their interventions.
Despite the incipient nature of the collaborations in the
'non-core' cities in 1996, the researchers established important
baselines of socio-economic conditions against which the
impact of developing collaborations can be measured.
Shanghai
In the year following Habitat II, new research took place
in China, culminating in a meeting in Shanghai, October
1997, "Comparative Perspectives on Decentralized Governance
in a Globalizing World".
The
purpose of the Shanghai meeting was twofold: to disseminate
the results of the studies completed earlier in the project;
and to better understand how Chinese cities are attempting
to come to grips with the stresses and strains caused by
rapid rural-urban migration and other compound effects of
deepening economic and administrative reforms. The meeting
brought together urban planners, officials and scholars
from six large and medium-sized Chinese cities, researchers
involved in the VALD project, and observers from foundations,
international NGOs and multilateral development agencies
for three days of discussion and site visits. Participants
sought to identify the extent to which Chinese cities had
begun responding to pressures on physical and social infrastructure
by opening up new channels of participation in decision-making
processes, and to gauge whether such changes had begun to
affect the living and working conditions of residents.
From
the preliminary discussion of the case studies written by
Chinese planners (Beihai chengshi guihua
gongzhong canyude shijian tansuo (The Experience of Public
Participation in City Planning: The Case of Beihai City),
Beihai City Planning Bureau, mimeo, 1997. Zhuanjia guwenzu
canyu chengshi guihua de shijian yanjiu (Research on the
Experience of Specialized Consultants in City Planning)
Wuhan City Urban Planning and Design Academy, mimeo, 1997.
Liuzhu zuotian, fengfu jintian, zaizao mingtian: gongzhong
dui ningbo lishi wenhua mingcheng baohu guihua he shijian
de canyu (Protect Yesterday, Enrich Today, Create Tomorrow:
Public Participation in Planning for the Preservation of
Historic Ningbo), Rongguang XIA and Guoqing ZHANG, mimeo,
1997. Chengshi guihua bianzhizhong de gongzhong canyu: yi
Shenzhenshi wei lie (Public Participation in City Planning:
The Case of Shenzhen), Shenzhen Municipal Institute of City
Planning and Urban Design, Huasheng SUN and Fuhai WANG,
mimeo, 1997. Tingwei Zhang, The Transition of the Decision-Making
Process: Participation in Urban Development in China, mimeo,
1997. )and a study commissioned by UNRISD,(
Tingwei Zhang, The Transition of the Decision-Making Process:
Participation in Urban Development in China, mimeo, 1997.
) it became evident that community participation
in planning and decision making remains extremely limited.
In contrast to many rural Chinese communities where residents
select their leaders by plebiscite, mayors and other high
city officials are still appointed by provincial and, sometimes,
central government administrators.
Planners
and city officials in six cities prepared case studies exploring
their understanding of "public participation". The case
studies also relate actual experiences with public participation
in Chinese cities to efforts at designing more effective
responses to social problems accompanying the rapid urbanization
and economic and social policy reforms in the People's Republic
of China. Chinese participants compared and contrasted their
studies with a selected group of cases presented by members
of the project's research team from other cities, and from
a sampling of other international research projects with
similar concerns. International cases were selected to highlight
alternative strategies for participation in decision-making.
Case studies suggest that the urban planning apparatus of
Chinese cities remains strongly top-down and closed, as
it was during the pre-reform era, despite wide-ranging deregulation
in social and economic spheres. These case studies reflect,
nonetheless, an openness to new planning techniques and
some small efforts at experimentation in public participation.
Participation in urban governance in Chinese cities has
been largely passive: planners may undertake opinion surveys,
hold exhibitions where plans are unveiled and citizens invited
to comment and, in some cases, solicit the input of groups
of experts from different fields when plans are on the verge
of completion. Municipal legislatures (People's Consultative
Congresses) are empowered to recommend legislation to the
local government. However, the high proportion of Communist
Party members in the congress ensures that it will not veer
from decisions established by the municipal government,
whose leading members are also the leading members of the
Communist Party in the municipality. With power concentrated
in a small group of high party officials at each level of
government, decisions in cities still tend to flow from
top to bottom, with very little accountability to lower
levels of government or communities.
On
the third day of the meeting, participants reflected on
the state of and prospects for participation in planning
and decision making in Chinese cities. Almost all agreed
that simply informing residents of plans or taking opinion
surveys did not constitute participation. Residents should
have an active role in decision making and implementation
of policies, through either their neighbourhood or street
committees or other organized bodies. Participants felt
that it would be useful to experiment with some of the participatory
techniques that cities in other countries are using and
especially to understand the roles and potential of true
("True" NGOs are rare in China. Organizations
that have typically been touted as NGOs often receive their
operating budget directly from the government, and employ
staff that are either seconded from government agencies
or holding dual appointments.) NGOs in building the
capacity of community groups and local authorities to undertake
bottom-up community development initiatives.
But
building political and practical support for such experimentation
and research would first require awareness raising and training
at different levels of urban government. Mayors and high-level
officials will need to understand the value and methods
of participatory decision-making; officials in the basic-level
(submunicipal/district) governments, who number some 480,000,
must be encouraged to function more effectively with market
rather than administrative mechanisms in providing services;
and residents' committees, which suffer from low levels
of legitimacy because of past involvement in repressive
functions and/or because of the limited abilities of their
cadres, must invigorate themselves by attracting younger
and more capable people. Finally, participants recognized
the importance of institutionalizing participation in planning
by incorporating appropriate legal mechanisms in planning
statutes. Additional details of the discussions are found
in the workshop report. (Quanqiuhua de Shijiezhong
Jinxing Fenquan Guihuaguanli de Zhanwang: Guoji Taolunhui
Zongjie Baogao(Report of the International Conference on
Prospects for Decentralized Governance in a Globalizing
World), UNRISD mimeo, February 1998.)
The
following section elaborates a typology of factors that
tend to hinder the growth of effective collaborations between
local authorities and community organizations. These include:
1. External Social/Political/Cultural Environment
2. Conditions and Attitudes of Local Authorities
3. Structure of Collaborations
4. Roles, Functions and Attitudes of Intermediary Organizations
5. Capacity of Volunteer Organizations
6. Capacity of Individuals (Volunteers)
Factors
Hindering Effective Volunteer Efforts in Collaborations
with Local Authorities
None
of the individual collaborations studied were affected by
all of these factors, nor were all characteristic of the
project cities. But multiple constraints were the rule for
all collaborations and cities. This should not be surprising.
If it were otherwise, there would be few challenges to improving
governance at the local level. The project suggests, however,
that the challenges are many and occur at a variety of levels,
from the individual to the macro-society.
The
factors 'hindering' collaborations are not matched by a
list of those 'enhancing'. The positive scenario is easy
to imagine, and is also readily available in many forms,
including the action agendas of the major UN Summits, international
covenants and the charters of numerous international bodies
promoting good governance, the numerous guides to partnership
and participation in development projects and programmes
produced by international agencies, etc.
This
list is provided to help organizations engaged in grassroots
interventions in low-income urban settings. Its chief use
is as a check-list when considering the feasibility of intervention,
and at what level. The list should also encourage the development
of indicators of progress for intervention in urban areas.
Over time, has the environment changed to be more or less
hospitable to collaborations between local authorities and
community organizations? In what way? What do the key actors
need to do to promote such change?
External Social/Political/Cultural Environment
A
fractious party-political environment, resulting in frequent
changes of leadership in municipalities, can retard the
evolution of positive interaction between community groups
and local authorities. On the one hand, policies encouraging
genuine participation in grassroots level decision making
can be easily undone, or on the other, civic (volunteer)
impulses can be diverted to serving clients (particularistic
interests) versus those of the larger vulnerable community.
(Chicago, SP)
Traditions
of clientelism die hard, even in formally democratic states
and cities. Political leaders and non-elected members of
urban authorities still derive popular support from such
practices. These, of course, work against truly civic volunteer
contributions because their chief aim is to maintain the
power of an individual and system that supports her/him
rather than to promote well-being of the larger group. (SP,
Mumbai, Johannesburg).
Macro-economic policies and/or administrative reforms that
radically increase the role of market forces in daily life
can expand or contract opportunities for volunteer action
in urban communities. The imposition of structural adjustment
policies were seen to stimulate some forms of organizing
for survival that in the short run accomplished the purpose.
But there is also evidence that too much competition between
individuals and groups can have negative impacts in the
long run. Organizations of survival have neither the resources
nor the outlook to create, plan and organize activities
that change inequitable social structures. (Lima)
The
lack of administrative rules and legislation protecting
and promoting collaborations with volunteer groups and other
civil society organizations are a major hindrance to effective
participation of grassroots actors in urban decision-making.
In only one of the cities studied was such legislation on
the books. However, the implementation of the legislation
remains stalled 5 years after promulgation. Authorities
are therefore able to treat civic participation as a discretionary,
rather than mandatory, area of governance. (Chicago, Lima,
Johannesburg, Mumbai & SP)
Decentralization
is expanding the latitude of cities to adopt policies to
enhance social integration in the local space. This occurs
primarily by leaving to the local authorities the setting
of social policy and, to an even larger extent, its implementation.
While the capacity to implement such policy is in question
because the resources needed to implement them may not accompany
decision making autonomy, the city allocate certain economic
activities to enhance the status of poor and/or marginal
groups. Opportunities for this were found in solid waste
collection, environmental protection and housing provision.
Unfortunately, the authorities were unwilling to explore
these possibilities to their logical extension and important
advantages to the poor were lost. (Chicago, Lima and SP).
In
all the cities of the study, there appears to be a willingness
(at the level of action, if not rhetoric) to back away from
the role of mediator of the public good. Market mechanisms
are given much greater sway than would be expected from
the recent history and politics of the city.
The
rapid expansion and differentiation within the NGO sector,
coupled with the increasing 'marketisation' of their roles,
especially as service contractors, has created among local
authorities great confusion about and solid resistance to
working with NGOs. Local authorities have expressed legitimate
concerns about the representativeness, accountability, governance
structures and ambitions of many NGOs, CBOs and other CSOs.
(Chicago, Mumbai)
Communities with a strong tradition of mutual assistance
have a better chance of developing the local organizations
that can effectively interact with local authorities in
efforts to improve urban living conditions. Conversely,
urban communities comprising large numbers of migrants of
diverse origins have more difficulties organizing themselves,
or being organized with the help of external agents (e.g.
NGOs, religious groups, municipal agencies, etc.) (Lima,
Sao Paulo [SP])
Violence and insecurity stemming from the increasing prevalence
of extra-legal force and intimidation tactics diminish the
capacity of communities to organize and pursue collective
social goals. Public institutions, churches and all manner
of volunteer organizations suffer the threat of arms. Individuals
who would otherwise participate in public-spirited activities
resist the impulse in order to unnecessarily sacrifice their
lives and their families' wellbeing. (Lima, Johannesburg,
Mumbai)
Conditions and Attitudes of Local Authorities
In
none of the cities studied did there exist a strong tradition
of incorporating community and volunteer groups in significant
decision-making processes. In practice, ignoring grassroots
actors was closer to the rule.
The relative impoverishment of local authorities (as compared
with central and intermediate governing bodies) appears
to exacerbate sentiments of envy and distrust toward civil
society groups, who are often seen as competing from resources
that would otherwise go to the local authority.
Non-transparent behaviour and restricted information flows
characterize most of the local authorities - even those
considered open to community participation - in the study.
This continues to disempower volunteer action across the
spectrum of urban governance.
Corruption and/or lack of internal accountability within
local authorities (Lima, SP, Mumbai) permits positive action
taken by one branch of local authorities to stymie or block
positive change brought about by other branches in collaboration
with community groups.
Local authorities are inclined to take an instrumental view
of participation, i.e. to welcome it when the community
and volunteer groups provide labour, material inputs or,
simply, the façade of democratic decision-making that allows
an otherwise top-down project to go forward. Even the most
'participatory' local authorities fear too much genuine
participation.
The exceedingly low level of fiscal and administrative capacity
of local authorities often prevents them from being able
to join as effective partners with community and volunteer
groups. They may neither know how to interact or work with
community groups nor have any significant material resources
they can bring to the collaboration. (Johannesburg, Mumbai)
Decentralization in new democracies or newly democratised
municipal entities, when combined with weak local government
capacity and a willingness by the local authority to back
away from its role as mediator of the public good, can result
in highly undemocratic governance. (Lima, Johannesburg)
Despite
the high-level of women's contribution to the collaborations
studied and women's dominant role in the management of low-income
communities, traditional forms of sexism and class bias
were evident in the local authorities and, were likely to
have reduced the positive impact that women could have been
having in their communities.
Structure of Collaborations
Partnerships - relationships in which the partners take
genuine responsibility for achieving one another's objectives
-- were absent in the study. All cases selected for analysis
were chosen because they were perceived to represent partnerships.
None, however, came close to this ideal.
Related to the previous point, power imbalances usually
favour local authorities and/or, secondarily, intermediaries
such as NGOs. In no cases have the community organizations
been able to 'drive' the agenda. Some instances did exist
where community and volunteer groups were able to block
a proposed action for some time, but none could do so permanently.
(Chicago, Mumbai)
Local authorities are often less stable 'players' than community
participants. This results from changes of political leadership,
administrative transfers of important decision makers, internal
reorganizations or major shifts in policy. Mutual trust
and established collaborations are often sacrificed when
key contacts in local government are lost. This has a high
cost to volunteer organizations because they must continually
convince and persuade new functionaries of the value of
collaboration and joint decision-making.
Collaborations
are too often based on relations with a sympathetic politician
or bureaucrat. Such personalized interaction/collaborations
are fragile, at best, and clientilistic, at worst. (Lima,
Mumbai, SP).
None of the collaborations studied contained formal procedures
for record keeping, monitoring or evaluation. As a result,
data on the conduct of the collaborations had to be acquired
from a variety of non-systematic sources. This lack of formal
institutional memory not only makes the analysis of the
collaborations more difficult and tenuous but also results
in lost opportunities for building on past experience.
Roles, Functions and Attitudes of Intermediary Organizations
(The observations concerning intermediary
organizations are largely based on the project coordinator's
discussions with the intermediary organizations participating
in the project as well as analysis contained in the overview
reports. These perceptions are not based on case studies,
however. )
Intermediary
organizations such as Nongovernmental Development Organizations,
grassroots support organizations, voluntary agencies associated
with church groups or international NGOs and certain collectives
of academic and professionals are crucial actors in all
of the cities in this study. They often serve as conduits
of information and/or mediators between local authorities
and grassroots urban organizations. These institutions also
provide training, contacts and, sometimes, direct financial
support to the community level organizations. At present,
it appears difficult to conceive of CBOs and other grassroots
volunteer organizations of vulnerable groups carrying out
effective collaborations without the support of such intermediaries.
At the same time, the following observations can be offered
about the roles of such organizations:
As mentioned above in the section on the general environment
for CSO-local authority collaborations, the rapid expansion
of NGOs in development work has also given rise to some
doubt about their motivations, competence and commitment
to civic action. Many NGOs have become service providers
or social sector consultants, leaving behind - if they ever
had them - orientations toward empowerment or advocacy for
the poor. This is not entirely surprising as in many cases,
especially in formerly authoritarian countries, funding
for the opposition groups dried up when democratic governments
came in. (Johannesburg and to a lesser extent, SP). These
organizations either dissolve or find ways to survive, the
latter often by selling services. Some of these same NGOs
lost their top cadres to the newly democratic governments,
putting further at risk the ideals these organizations professed
in the era of opposition.
Some intermediaries are more successful than others in promoting
and accompanying institutional development and autonomy
in urban grassroots organizations (Johannesburg, SP).
Unfortunately,
there are simply too few intermediary organizations capable
of undertaking large scale organizing and capacity building
of autonomous volunteer organizations in the vast slums
and bidonvilles of many of the world's megacities. (Mumbai)
Capacity of Volunteer Organizations
Volunteer
organizations, such as neighbourhood associations, community
based organizations, mother's clubs, housing cooperatives,
etc. typically draw their strength and material resources
from within, i.e. their members. Thus an organization's
strength has much to do with the capacity of its individual
members (see next section), its access to information and
capacity building (see previous section) and the possibility
to exist and develop in a democratic way (i.e. without stifling
regulation or repression from the government or inhospitable
local forces). In all the cities studied this last condition
was met. The grassroots organizations also typically had
access to strong, civic-minded intermediaries. The capacity
of the members was a problem, however, especially the individual's
ability to remain in a state of mobilization over the long
term. The constraints acting at this level are described
in the next section.
Internal democracy is an acknowledged ideal for both NGOs
and CBOs. For many of the grassroots organizations covered
in the case studies, such ideals were sometimes more honoured
in their breach (Chicago, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Lima, SP).
This does not mean that the organizations did not have democratic
impulses or goals, rather that adverse conditions - such
as changes in leadership, external political forces or internal
corruption - did at times divert the organization's trajectory.
The urban poor are rarely a homogenous lot. They can be
highly stratified even in their vulnerability. This shows
itself in the attitudes of different groups and in the community
organizations that serve separate subsets of the poor. Among
groups with different 'vulnerability profiles' residing
side by side, the most vulnerable will not necessarily benefit
from the efforts of the groups representing the less vulnerable.
In practice, relations between the groups can be highly
conflictual. Such circumstances reduce the possibility of
effective approaches to resolution of problems affecting
both groups. (Mumbai, Johannesburg)
In
politically fractious environments, and even when party
politics across the spectrum have been completely discredited,
volunteer organizations may become targets for capture by
'political bosses' or leaders with political ambitions.
(Johannesburg, Lima, SP)
Community organizations of the urban poor can rarely access
by themselves information needed to protect themselves and/or
their neighbourhood. Nor are they adequately prepared to
interact publicly or in private with local authorities or
to develop independently the kinds of analysis of the urban
economy that will sway private developers or city agencies
to protect the rights and interests of members of the low
income community. In these situations it is crucial for
grassroots organizations to have access to reliable information
and analysis from NGO or research institutes.
The internal strength of community and volunteer organizations
can be enhanced effectively if, in addition to access to
strong intermediaries and information, they learn to 'organize
themselves to learn'. This means, among other things, becoming
participants in action research, whereby they collect and
analyse in progressively sophisticated ways the information
needed to become effective advocates for change both within
their community and in the larger society.
Capacity of Individuals (Volunteers)
Individuals
in low-income communities who because of the objective conditions
of their lives have highly restricted mobility, chronic
health problems or extremely limited mental functions will
not be able to take an active role in public life. This
is not unexpected. Nevertheless, this is a burden imposed
unequally on the poorest populations. To this must be added
the burden of violent or disaffected youth, criminal elements
and others who have been excluded from more positive social
intercourse. A higher incidence of persons in these categories
increases the number of 'non-participants' in civic activities,
as well as the burdens on those who might otherwise want
to contribute, or contribute more.
Related
to the previous point, women who are often the primary managers
of 'informal' urban settlements share this burden disproportionately.
This is a limiting factor on their ability to participate
as fully as they would want, and to acquire special skills
that may advance overall volunteer contributions of women.
In many low-income settlements, existing efforts by women
to contribute have been undermined by the attitudes of their
male partners/spouses and fellow community members. Women
are still, in general, not granted equal status as civic
actors in the community. The persistence of men's unemancipated
attitudes negatively affects the volunteer contribution
in many communities.
Youth have proven to be invaluable volunteers and civic
actors when structures (organizations and activities) exist
to channel their efforts. They are also among the most vulnerable
members of society. Longstanding precarious economic and
social conditions are clearly alienating many young people
from taking up civic action. (Lima, Johannesburg)
Recommendations to Local Authorities for Enhancing the
Effectiveness of Collaborations with Community Organizations
The
previous section offers a litany of factors that impede
the establishment of fruitful collaborations between local
authorities and community organizations. To improve the
impact of such collaborations, all of the actors and institutions
cited could usefully change certain aspects of their attitudes,
behaviour and capacities. The full responsibility for promoting
and compelling such changes cannot be placed entirely on
local authorities. They can, only with great difficulty,
bring about changes at the macro-level, despite their increasing
influence on social and economic conditions within their
sub-national regions. It may also be argued that it is not
inherently the responsibility of local authorities to redress
the weaknesses of community organizations within their geographical
purview. Nor would it be wise to suggest that the local
authority must improve the basic element of the community
organizations -- the individual -- by intervening inside
the family to change patterns of relations or cultural practices
that disproportionately benefit some members to the detriment
of others. But there are areas in which local authorities
can make important contributions, and these are the focus
of this final section.
These
recommendations are those of the author, based on his understanding
of the case studies, overview materials and interaction
with the main participants in the project over the past
several years. The recommendations are, in effect, based
on comparing and contrasting the conditions, achievements
and challenges that have been reported on in total. As such,
these recommendations are generic, and hence apply everywhere
and nowhere. Any attempt to apply them should be accompanied
by a review of the individual studies in which recommendations
are set clearly within local contexts. Limitations of space
prevent further discussion of how international organizations,
national governments, community organizations, international
NGOs can support the kinds of changes needed to bring about
more fruitful collaborations between community organizations
and local authorities.
One
of the main conclusions of this study is that local authorities
play the determining role in urban grassroots development,
or more correctly, in fostering social cohesion and development
in cities and towns. But to be successful in these efforts
they must ally themselves with community and city-wide institutions
of civil society. Cities willing to do this may begin by
examining the extent to which they:
Ø
Make publicly available in timely and easily accessible
forms information concerning public budget decisions; investment
and urban development plans; records of internal discussions
on infrastructure locations, designs and technologies, and
administrative and political boundary changes.
Ø Allow substantive participation of community organizations
in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of policies and investments that significantly and differentially
affect groups within the city.
Ø Support open dialogue between local authorities
and civil society organizations (and among the latter) on
these issues.
Ø Provide a competent, motivated and politically
independent liaison service within the urban administration
to respond to and inform CSOs on issues of concern to the
public.
Ø Promulgate and implement legislation and administrative
regulations that institutionalise these characteristics
of openness to CSOs, regardless of the change of important
political or executive personnel within the local authority.
Ø Promote awareness of the concerns of CSOs and a
capacity for working with CSOs among employees at different
levels of the urban administration.
Ø Train CSO liaison personnel to be 'women-friendly',
as many of the most important grassroots managers of low-income
urban communities are wives and mothers.
Ø Commit to acting as mediators of the public good,
in which promoting and protecting the dignity of life for
all residents is the first priority in decision-making.
Implementing
even this short list of recommendations, which will necessarily
have to be adapted to widely varying local conditions and
histories, will require additional resources, new ways of
thinking, and more autonomy for local authorities. This
is happening in many cities, but not nearly enough. And
the threats to progress already made loom ever-larger: political
and ethnic conflict, environmental collapse, increasing
disease burdens, the scourge of drugs, disintegrating local
economies, etc. It is therefore necessary to bolster reforms
within local authorities with external support - not just
monetary but moral, intellectual and legislative. National
governments, other local authorities, international cooperation
and local and international civil society, citizens and
business all have a part to play in this effort.
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