"The White Building," Phnom Penh. Author's photo
In her concluding remarks for the Better City/Better Life: South-North Initiative symposium, Cecilia Martinez, director of UN-HABITAT’s New York Office, two issues can be highlighted: (1) many technological innovations that are needed to address urban sustainability already exist; (2) politics and culture are vital to sustainability.
During the symposium, ten speakers from a variety of fields spoke about uses of technology to improve conditions in less developed countries. Topics cover GIS mapping on the U.S.-Mexico broader; poverty mapping of slums in Pune, India; blogging by citizen journalists in Rio de Janeiro, etc. So Ms. Martinez’s concluding comments might be considered a bombshell as politics and culture received limited attention during the entire day (only two speakers, Robert Buckley and Teddy Cruz, specifically mentioned politics/political economy).
As a shorthand, politics might be characterized as power structure and how individuals/groups jockey to shift the odds against them. In the context of the symposium, one might consider politics through the lens of governance. While the dictionary definition of “governance” is limited to governmental systems, the international development community defines governance with additional components consisting of “the mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences.” (UNDP)
Philos Health’s project in Jagna, Philippines is the perfect example of how good governance provided a favorable environment for the “upstreaming” of community demands. Since 1991, the Philippines has enacted the Local Government Code, which radically decentralized national and municipal decision-making processes and budgets. While the code could not solve problems by itself, decentralization enables civil society groups to leverage government resources — as the mayor of Jagna was able to do with the assistance of local health providers and a foreign NGO.
A number of other projects presented in the symposium have the potential to tip the balance of power to the less fortunate. However, most speakers have not given very compelling evidence of short-term or long-term impact. This is one of the most vexing problems in the development field as most projects began with very little baseline information, making it difficult for monitoring and evaluation. Another issue that seems glaring was that most of the cases and strategies presented originate from the North.
Yes, I’m setting the bar very high here. We need to admit that the field of South-to-North transfer is in its nascent stage. We already know that technological innovation is no panacea, so AIA New York’s leadership should be applauded for opening up a dialogue about the wicked urban problems in the Global South as well as the North.
Last but not least, a participant brought up the issue of follow up. Many such symposium bring together some of the smartest people and well-funded institutions in the field. Being all too aware of the pitfall of not having a sequel to the symposium, the most concrete suggestion brought up was an online exchange platform. Does the field need another online platform? We already have many, e.g. UNDP’s Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme, a multi-agency platform Task Team for South-South Cooperation, not to mention development knowledge gateways such as Eldis. Only last month, Abha Joshi-Ghani of the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network proposed a new online knowledge base to connect municipal managers, thinkers, and practitioners. What we need, it seems, is the analytical framework, operational guidelines, and rigorous monitoring and evaluations that could, borrowing a buzzword from the symposium, leapfrog sustainable development practices.
What about culture? I don’t think I heard the word mentioned during the day until Ms. Martinez said the word. Though if cued, some presenters might substitute the word design for culture when describing their projects. What Ms. Martinez was referring to might be characterized as social customs and ways of learning between/within individuals/communities. Culture should also include institutional culture, as in ways of doing things that enables/prevents institutions to learn and adapt. (Institutions’ immunity to change is all too real.)
Culture may be one of the most intangible and unquantifiable aspects of the urban sustainability equation. It is everywhere and thus nowhere. Most international agencies pay lip service to addressing culture. UNESCO admits that it is a conceptual minefield. Eschewing the non-committal term “culture and development”, UNESCO recently changed the term into “culture for development” and released a Culture for Development Indicators Suite. This represents an attempt to quantify the full spectrum of drivers of development that could go under the umbrella of culture. The dimensions are:
- Economy
- Education
- Heritage
- Communication
- Governance
- Social
- Gender Equality
I am anxious to see the results of this indicators suite. UNESCO is testing it this year in six countries. Could urban sustainability folks learn from these indicators? How might they use similar quantifiers to leverage resources to tip the balance for more equitable development?
Cultural Capitalists 