Istanbul + 5

Parallel Events Report

HABITAT Professionals Forum
'Discussion of the Global Campaign for Urban Governance'

Rapporteurs : Aydan Erim and Christina Delius

A. Introduction

Thursday, June 7th, 2001, 1pm to 3pm, Conference Room C, UN

Dr. Demetrios Argyriades, United Nations, Advisor on governance and capacity-building provided a brief presentation, followed by a discussion with all participants facilitated by Dina Rachewsky, Director General of the Planning Administration of Israel, member of the Israeli delegation to Istanbul +5, and Bureau Member of the IFHP.

The event was the second of a series of three lunchtime discussions organized by the Habitat Professionals Forum to exchange professional views concerning key aspects of the Habitat Agenda. Each session featured one resource person who was asked to make a brief presentation; a discussion with all participants followed. About 40 participants attended the panel discussion.

The Habitat Professionals Forum was established in 1999 at the initiative of the International Federation of Housing and Planning (IFHP), the International Society of City and Regional Planners (IsoCaRP), the International Union of Architects (UIA), the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), the Centre for African Settlement Studies and Development (CASSAD) and the Arab Urban Development Institute (AUDI). The Forum was organized under the auspices of UNCHS (Habitat) with the enthusiastic support of Dr. Klaus Töpfer, then Ag. Executive Director of UNCHS and presently United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi and is now supported by Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, the new Executive Director of UNCHS (Habitat).

B. Discussion

Presentation

While meetings of professionals, such as the conferences of IFHP and ISOCARP have generally dealt with the physical aspects of planning, the question of good governance arose at the ISOCARP 1994 Congress in Prague, during a session on the 'expanding demands on planning'. That session emphasized four critical actors in the planning process: politicians, experts, entrepreneurs, and citizens.

These themes were revisited at the IFHP 2000 Congress in Rotterdam, entitled 'Urban Networks'. That conference stressed the beneficial outcome of functional, physical and governmental cooperation. Mr. Akin Mabogunies (NG) in his thought-provoking presentation noted that the multiplicity of opinions among the urban population challenges the traditional role of the government. As a result, the government should instead act as a mediator, negotiator and monitor.

In the fall of 1999, the World Bank published the results of a survey about poverty in 60 countries. The report concluded that the causes of financial crisis and poverty are fundamentally the same. These interrelated causes are threefold:

• lack of enforced regulations, including planning regulations,
• an inadequate fight against corruption, and
• an ineffectual justice system.

If these root causes are not addressed, any attempt at economic development is unlikely to be significant or sustainable. Effective planning is therefore one of the key virtues of good governance.

Dr. Demetrios Argyriades, United Nations, Advisor on governance and capacity-building as the resource person for the event was asked to make a short presentation.

Dr. Argyriades has worked at the United Nations for over 25 years in various capacities. He continues to serve as a consultant to several UN as well as EU projects. Dr. Argyriades has taught at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands, the University of Edmonton, Canada, the University of Athens, Greece and has served as an adjunct professor at the Wagner School since 1975. His areas of specialization include capacity building, institutional reinforcement and human resources development in the public service, public service professionalism and ethics, civil society reinforcement, NGO's, administrative reform.

Preliminary Remarks

• The term "Governance" is not new;
• It has been "reinvented" partly as a corrective for past approaches to government, and partly to highlight some major concerns;
• The term "governance" is intended to overcome the drawbacks of past limitations of "government" to essentially political functions and "public administration" to technocratic pursuits. Since "governance", moreover, is a term widely used in connection with private sector management, it reminds us of the fact that there are commonalities between the two sectors, in this respect.

What does "governance" highlight

• Need for a holistic as opposed to the past fragmented approaches to the conduct of public business;
• The close interpenetration and interface between politics and administration;
• The interface that must exist between the public and the private sectors, the government and civil society.

The political ideology of "sound governance"

• It is not accidental that "sound governance" became a household term soon after the demise of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. These events removed self-imposed restrictions, which in the past had limited United Nations programmes to ostensibly "technical" purposes (e.g. training, accounting techniques);
• Not only the World Bank, but also the UN could now design their programmes with a view to promoting the prevalent ideology.

Contents of the ideology of "Good Governance"

• The two pillars are "democracy" and the "free market system";
• Democracy is understood to mean:
  • Political pluralism;
  • Free and fair elections at regular intervals;
  • Effective legislatures; and
  • An independent judiciary and administration of justice;
• Adherence to "free markets" has been understood to mean "rolling back" the sphere of government action, removal of the state from production activities, and according priority to governments creating and maintaining an "enabling environment" for civil society.

Governance and Civil Society

• Civil Society is seen as an essential pillar of sound governance;
• In spite of much confusion around the term, civil society should be understood to include the private sector, as well as PVOs, and NGOs;
• The stress has been on "partnerships" between government and Civil Society as a means of addressing social issues but, more generally, promoting shared objectives.

The 4 Ds of Democracy

• The 4 Ds are:
  • Decentralization
  • Deconcentration
  • Debureaucratization
  • Deregulation;
• Of these, decentralization and deconcentration have been pursued with the objective of:
  • Empowering the citizen
  • Bringing the administration closer to the "end user"
• The principle applied has been that of "subsidiarity". Too often, however, the principle has been applied with little concern for the context. Functions have been devolved to lower-level actors without corresponding resources;
• A similar remark might also be applied to deregulation, which has gone hand in hand with privatization. In several parts of the world where market institutions were weak, this led to an increase in "informality" and the rise of "kleptocracies".

Professionalism in Government

• The spread of informality, corruption and organized crime during the past decade has reached pandemic proportions;
• Concern by Western Governments opened the way to an "anti-corruption" drive. Initially championed by the OECD, this has now come to involve most major international organizations, Conferences, publications and international agreements on this issue are legion;
• At the United Nations, a beginning in this area was made in the wake of the landmark resolution of the General Assembly on Public Administration and Development (50/225). However, the position of the United Nations has favoured a much broader, holistic approach to the problem, emphasizing the need for administrative reform and measures to enhance the role, prestige, performance and professionalism of the public service. It has been emphasized that something must be done to improve terms and conditions of service in the public sector.

Need for "capacity-building"

• The need faces two-ways:
  • Mending fences and undoing damage inflicted in the past decades; but also
  • Reinforcing capacity, mostly of government agents, to cope with the demands and challenges of globalization and technological progress;
• The meaning of "capacity-building" is seen as the coefficient of:
  • Institutional reinforcement
  • Human resources development
  • Building technological adequacy (ICT, in particular)
• All of the above three elements are important and complementary.

Implications for Technical Cooperation Programmes

• We must face up to the errors of past ways and avoid them in the future;
• Technical cooperation programmes must be demand- and government-driven, not externally imposed.

Nationals must be in the driver's seat. Advice is just advice. Decisions on reforms should not be "outsourced". The impression that governments are losing control of events creates the risk of turning "democracy into an empty ritual" exacerbating cynicism and alienation in the public at large.

Priorities in capacity-building

• Reinforcing policy-making capacities;
• Reinforcing resource management (human, material and information);
• Reinforcing performance measurement, monitoring and evaluations;
• Enhancing professionals in government at large;
• Enhancing the effectiveness, autonomy and accountability of civil society organizations;
• Making democracy meaningful;
• Enhancing accountability, transparency and integrity in public life.

Discussion

Dr. Argyriades suggsted that the discussion should focus on the following four questions:

• What does good governance mean?
• How is good governance connected to urban planning?
• Do planners have a role in campaigning for good governance?
• By what means can planners promote good governance?

Points made in the discussion:

• Experience from Arab Cities: basic information (indicators) are missing from the good governance debate. Once the data is available, the local governments need help to use it effectively.
  
• Cities should compete for budget-allocations. A program in Israel that requires this has proven to be very successful.
  
• The fours 'D's of Democratization mentioned in Dr. Argyriades presentation are helpful. Decentralization is very important in Africa and the challenges are great. The citizens (as 'end users') will be able to tell the difference when decentralization is successful. Within the Drafting Committee it's been very hard to agree on this issue.
  
• A local governance program in Jamaica is not working as well as it should, partly because the level of competence isn't there on the local level. The funds and political will are also missing. Corruption and accountability of politicians is a problem. True involvement of citizens is crucial.
  
• A representative of the Habitat Forum of Researchers introduced the group to the audience. The mission of the Forum of Researchers (a group of about 300 researchers) is to link science and research to reality and to help devise policies.
  
• Several questions were raised:

• Why is good governance being talked about now?
• How do planners and economists work together with other professionals?
• What's the role of the private sector? Does it perform for the people, or just for profits?
• How can partnerships be established between central ad local governments?
• How can knowledge be shared better? What's the role of academia?

• A representative of the Habitat Young Professionals League briefly introduced this group. There are two man issues:
  • social inclusion
  • responsive policy planning
    
• Young people (children, teenagers, young professionals, young unemployed) need to be part of the policy-making process and of any good governance effort.
  
• An old fresco in Siena, Italy depicts illustrations of 'good governance' and 'bad governance'.

C. Conclusion

The subject of the panel discussion was the global campaign for governance. In his summary Dr. Agryiades suggested that it is probably more accurate to speak of 'better governance', than of 'good governance'. The understanding of what 'good governance' means and should entail will differ around the world and even within a country. Any definition should be results- / process-driven. Professionals as well as laypeople, young and old, everyone should be included in the process - according to Dr. Argyriades this is a tall order.

There was agreement that producing the data is important and that structures and indicators are needed to use the data.

Dr. Argyriades pointed out the need for awareness of the difference between ritual and reality. He said that decentralization is not possible without a strong center. The 'middle way' might be the best.

In her summary, Aydan Erim, Rapporteur of the discussion panel pointed out several issues that were made. She mentioned the Best Practices that are being described in the thematic committee and said that instead of just being described, these need to be applied.

The collection of data is a pre-requisite and competence is crucial in order to successfully use the data. Capacity-building on the local level therefore is important, as is wide participation and compassion. In some cases competition among local municipalities for state funds can be helpful. Academics need to go 'to the field'. Ms. Erim said that the role for planners is still not really defined. Within the context of Habitat, two points are especially important: scale and politics. The implementation and dissemination of 'best practices' ultimately depends on politics. The problem of 'elected politics' has so far been avoided in the discussion. It's important to see what happens politically to the 'best practices' after a few years.

Dina Rachewsky, Moderator of the discussion panel provided some concluding remarks:

These thoughts and insights are essential to improving the role of planning in good governance. In order to turn those ideas into actions that will promote better governance, we encourage every actor in the planning field to increase their efforts:

• politicians: provide clarity of message and process, as well as a top-down vision for improved urban life
• experts: stress the socio-cultural aspects of planning, as well as including more partners
• entrepreneurs: consider the long-term result of a project, as well as its social effects
• citizens: better and more sophisticated mode of participation, new communication technologies offer opportunities for a wide involvement of the public, but it's important to remember, that not everyone has access to the new technologies.

More information about the Habitat Professionals Forum at Istanbul + 5

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