REGIONAL UPDATES

REGIONAL OFFICE FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

In September, an agreement was signed by the Office of the First Lady of Ecuador, UNDP, OPS-OMS Ecuador, The Santo Domingo Foundation, the Institute for the Child and Family (INNFA) and UMP-LAC, formalising the implementation of the Ecuadorian Chapter of the project “Youth Taking Care of the Environment” (Oct 2002-Oct. 2003). UMP-LAC will undertake the implementation and follow-up activities. The project will be implemented in 5 Ecuadorian cities to strengthen income generation and environmental management activities for youth.

The City Consultation on Solid Waste Management in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, gathered momentum in October 2002. The draft Baseline Study has now been completed, as have community action plans for the three pilot locations in East Port of Spain. A key recommendation is for institutional and legal reforms to facilitate the creation of solid waste micro enterprises. Activities in November and December aim to gain the approval of local stakeholders for the baseline study and the East Port of Spain Action Plan and confirm an inter-actor agreement between stakeholders for the development and implementation of detailed Priority Action Programmes.

IPES/UMP-LAC and the Municipality of Ibarra signed an agreement for the development of a municipal programme on Urban Agriculture (UA) and participatory budgeting for UA. The Municipality will finance staff time of one IPES/UMP-LAC staff member to support capacity building and implementation of a local City Consultation on the subject.

There has been progress in upscaling of the urban agriculture and micro credit city consultation in Quito, Ecuador in the development of a strategy to sell UA produce. With the local partners and producers, and using a participatory methodology designed by UMP-LAC, an overall product label and name is being developed that will be presented in November. An agreement has been signed between UMP, IPES and a marketing group that aims to capture private funds for a social marketing and promotion campaign. IPES/UMP, with support from students from the Venice University and the University of Sorbonnne (Paris), have continued to support the Quito Zonal administrations in capacity building on identifying market opportunities and micro-credit systems.

The CDS in Rio Grande do Sul is progressing well. The thematic commissions are working to elaborate the Action Plan through various commissions. One is the Informal Economy commission, which led to the establishment of a micro-credit institution. A “Local Governments as Development Promoters commission” has initiated a process of capacity building through a workshop held in July in São Luiz Gonzaga. This workshop was attended by 73 people from thirteen municipalities from the region and two from other regions. The thematic commissions are working on the elaboration of the Action Plan. The Gender Equity commission has led to collaboration between the Cities Alliance and the People's Legal Promoters project, and gender is being integrated into the other commissions. Through the Formal Economy commission, a seminar on agro-industrial networks was conducted. The regional government and the thematic commissions are currentlypreparing a seminar to validate the Action Plan.

With support of Luisa Recchia from the University of Venetia in Italy, UMP-LAC is supporting the formation of a “Network on local economic development and strengthening of the informal sector”, with participation of more than 20 local organisations. Several pilot projects are being prepared (such as a Fair Trade Market- linking consumers and producers directly) and other project proposals are formulated.

In the Dominican Republic, the Third Regional Contest on Affirmative Actions to Promote the Participation of Women in Local Decision Making was launched on September 27. This was done during the IULA's global meeting “The Status of Women in Local Decision Making: Where we are, where we want to be.” The Contest is organised by UMP-LAC /UN-HABITAT, UNIFEM-ALC and the Latin American Federation of Women in Local Government FEMUM-ALC. A lot of work has been done to disseminate the Contest, through different communication means to reach a significant proportion of the 16,000 Latino American local governments. Posters, web sites and spots and radio clips in Spanish, English and Portuguese are on air until the end of December 2002.

In the 2nd International meeting on Participatory Budgeting (PB), held from August 19 to 21 in Villa El Salvador, Perú, UMP/LAC strengthened its links with municipalities in the region around the subject of participatory budgeting. In September, UMP-LAC participated in an evaluation seminar of the local Peruvian municipality participatory budgeting process. UMP/LAC also implemented a workshop in which new criteria of distribution of resources of investment were defined. From October 11 to 16, UMP-LAC implemented the first Provincial meeting on PB in Cañete, Peru, in which more than 130 citizens were trained on the subject. The central focus of the meeting was a simulation of a PB process. At the end of the meeting a committee was elected charged to organise the implementation of PB in Cañete.

UMP-LAC was invited by a network of Bolivian stakeholders (National Network for Citizen Partnership and Social Control) to co-promote and participate in the first national seminar on participatory budgeting in Bolivia. A Speech on "Conceptualization of Participatory Budgeting (PB) drawing from Latin American experiences" was presented. Some suggestions for the implementation of PB at local level were made by UMP and touched upon the various dimension of the PB: participatory, physical, financial, legal and multi-cultural. UMP LAC was formally requested by various institutions to support their implementation of the Participatory Budgeting experiences and a network on PB.

For more information please contact: pgu@impsat.net.ec / pgu@pgu-ecu.org; Website: www.pgualc.org

REGIONAL OFFICE FOR THE ARAB STATES

The Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) is in the process of finalising and implementing knowledge management activities in the Arab States region as a major activity of Phase 4. The work will centre around information and knowledge consolidation and inventory, making materials readily available on the web, and supporting the knowledge management efforts of the AMFED and NENA Urban Forums as structures to continue urban management work in the region. A Regional AMFED meeting will take place from 25 – 27 February in Beirut with a key objective the development of a regional action plan for the ongoing involvement of AMFED in sustainable development activities. This meeting will take place with ESCWA and links between Urban Governance Campaign activities in the region will also be explored.

Planning for the CDS activity in Tetouan Region in Morocco is moving forward. This activity will be the vehicle to launch the discussion about the linkages among municipalities in the metropolitan region to reduce poverty through regional cooperation and economic development. The CDS process will also help substantiate decentralisation in Morocco by preparing locally elected authorities to better represent their constituency in dialogue with national and regional government officials. The objectives are to build the capacity of municipal government officials to manage their city and the metropolitan region through a more inclusive and consultative process, to support the decentralisation of administrative and financial authority to municipal governments and to disseminate the CDS learning process to other Moroccan cities and introduce the CDS as a governance tool in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region. It is being implemented by the NENA Urban Forum.

A Regional Training of Trainers on “Training for Elected Leadership” is being organised by UN-HABITAT and the Ismailia Sustainable Development Training Centre - (ISDTC) in Egypt in March 2003 (dates to be confirmed). All UMP Anchor Institutions will participate. This activity will both train trainers in the Elected Leadership series training methodology and will result in the adaptation of the generic materials to the Teluga context. This exercise will allow the implementation of training sessions using the adapted version for the benefit of the elected councillors as well as the municipal technicians countrywide. The main objective is to provide the necessary training on leadership and management to local authorities in the municipalities with the aim of improving leadership and management skills of councillors, local authorities and municipal technicians, thus securing a smooth transfer towards decentralised government administration.

For more information please contact: <rfouad@eqi.com.eg> or <mohamed.el-sioufi@unhabitat.org>

REGIONAL OFFICE FOR ASIA

UMP is exploring possible links with the ADB project on Urban Infrastructure and Services Project in Vientiane, Lao PDR, for its follow-up work on gender-sensitive participatory planning process and to institutionalize the process into the development process.

Following a successful consultation during Phase 3, the Semarang City Authority in Indonesia, with the assistance of UMP LPI, Pt. Wiswakharman, has indicated commitment to institutionalize the consultative participatory process in the development of Semarang City 2003 Poverty Reduction Programmes, particularly on pro-poor policy, capacity building on micro-credit and self-help rehabilitation. A city consultation in Balikpapan on participatory planning and community development for poverty reduction will be a replication of the city consultation in Semarang. It is part of the scaling- up multi-stakeholder participatory planning processes to other cities in Indonesia. The City of Balikpapan is committed to mobilizing resources from within the City budget for this project.

Urbnet-Vietnam has proposed follow-up activities to UMP the city consultations on multi-sectoral investment planning (MSIP) in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City by strengthening the capacity of local officials in adapting MSIP in their localities, starting with Danang City. UMP is exploring possible links with ADB’s on-going project in Danang for this purpose.

UMP will continue to follow-up the city consultation in Phnom Penh on building the capacity of municipality and civil society on gender-sensitive approaches for pro-poor policy development. Specific follow-up support will be in informal sector policy development and links are being explored with ILO.

A workplan for replication of the Pasig Bayanihan Paluwagan (community savings for mutual-help) Programme in the Philippines involving 5 cities has been developed by VEDCOR, the UMP LPI in Pasig, following a national consultation on UMP Phase 4 in Pasig in August 2002. UMP has initiated the integration of this proposal with a nation-wide local economic development program of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) within the broader context of the Secure Tenure and Good Urban Governance campaigns in the Philippines.

An action plan for an HIV/AIDS city consultation in Phnom Penh Cambodia have been developed by representatives of the city and an NGO during a workshop organized by Citynet, TUGI and others partners in Kuala Lumpur in 2001. UMP, with UNDP funding, will take this a step further and adopt a multi-stakeholders participatory approach in developing more detailed action plans. In Mumbai, India, a city with serious problem of HIV/AIDS, a similar approach will be adopted.

A proposal on Capacity Building for Gender Responsiveness in Local Governance in Philippines Cities and Municipalities was jointly developed with Senator Loren Legarda’s Office in August 2002. The main objective of this project is to assist local government units of selected cities and municipalities in gender-mainstreaming and pro-poor governance. This capacity building programme will involve a series of gender-responsive consultative workshops leading-up to the preparation of action plans. Sixteen cities have been identified for the project.

The Maharashtra Consultations in India are being upscaled to all Class I towns in the State. With technical support from the UMPSA, the AI (AIILSG) has set up an SWM cell which is currently in the process of studying the SWM aspects of Class I towns. Several divisional consultations in this regard have been undertaken.

The DFID-funded poverty project in Colombo, Sri Lanka, is currently in its second year. Field surveys have been undertaken by Sevanatha (the LPI) and slum communities have been identified for grass roots activities. As part of knowledge management, Sevanatha has been holding meetings to facilitate the dissemination of the experiences learnt during the preparation of the poverty profile for Colombo and has also translated the profile into the vernacular (Sinhalese). Activities in Matale, Sri Lanka, will be a replication of the work Colombo, and the focus of the consultation will be on poverty reduction.

The city consultation on poverty in Delhi, India, has been concentrating on the empowerment of women in slum communities of Delhi. Micro-credit and thrift societies are being formed in 6 slum communities. The current focus of the activities is on institutionalizing women’s Solidarity Groups within the slum settlements, leading to a holistic view on empowerment. The UMP CC in Indore, India, focuses on revenue mobilization and environmental management. Action plans on the above core issues are being finalised, and efforts are currently on to co-opt these action plans within the planning framework of the local government.

Attempts are being made by the Municipal Association of Nepal (MuAN) to work towards launching the Good Urban Governance Campaign (GUGC) in Nepal with the assistance of the AI (AIILSG) and UMPSA. Efforts are being made to involve various international and multilateral agencies in the launch activities for the National Campaign.

For more information, contact: <ump@ait.ac.th> or <umpsa@vsnl.com>; <http://www.serd.ait.ac.th/ump/>

REGIONAL OFFICE FOR AFRICA

The Malindi Youth Consultative Council (MYCC) was launched on the 28th September 2002 in Kenya, with the aim of improving the integration of youth issues in municipal decision-making processes. Following the launch and after a series of negotiations with the Town Council of Malindi, MYCC was provided with a municipal office to host the MYCC Secretariat. The key to the secretariat was officially handed over by the Municipality on Friday the 1st November and ITDG also handed over 2 computers and a printer to equip the secretariat. Following this ceremony, a consultation workshop was held to discuss the youth profile report for Malindi and develop operating systems and procedures for the MYCC secretariat.

The youth profile exercise reached 3000 youth through a questionnaire process and another 1000 through focus groups discussions, transect walks and livelihood mapping exercises. The survey showed that youth had very little understanding of the municipal decision-making process and limited participation. The overall problem facing the youth was unemployment and lack of marketable skills (77%), constrained by a poor and unsafe enabling environment - the youth mentioned lack of access to credit and continued harassment by police and municipal officials - and a lack of information on opportunities. The youth identified the need to create a space for their views as crucial to boosting their low self confidence and banishing apathy and criminal temptations. The consultation developed a six month work plan to start addressing these issues and a number of partners present committed their support to the implementation of the work plan. This process is an exciting development as it is the first youth and governance activity to be supported by UMP-ROA. It is hoped that MYCC will prove an example for initiatives elsewhere in Kenya and the region. A case study of the Malindi process will appear in the UMP-ROA Youth and Governance Occasional Paper which is currently under preparation.

UMP-ROA plans to hold a regional resource mobilisation capacity building workshop for Anchor Institutions in January 2002. The workshop will focus on developing structures and modalities to effectively support resource mobilisation during UMP Phase IV and beyond.
UMP-MDP plans to translate the UMP-ROA Occasional Paper on HIV/AIDS and Local Governance into Portuguese for local governments in Mozambique and other Lusophone speaking countries in Africa.

The Bureau national d’Etudes Techniques et de Développement (BNETD) in Abidjan has undertaken strategic development activities for the district of Bamako in Mali and cities of Côte d’Ivoire, with the objective of identifing the social, economic and cultural development to reduce poverty through governance. In Guinea, BNETD has led a survey on taxation system in the city of Conakry. Work in the region has also included a recent study on governance in Côte d’Ivoire to assess the improvement related to governance issues in the country and to set indicators for the follow-up of this activity. The launch for this work took place in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. BNETD has also elaborated an action plan to fight HIV/AIDS in the district of Abidjan.

For more information, contact: Ramsey.F@mgmt.wits.ac.za or wagui.siby@unhabitat.org