Workshops

3.3 Workshop C - Cities' Needs that Could be Adressed by the Alliance and Its Programme of Activities

This workshop examined the broad lines of a programme of activities for the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty for the years ahead. The activities are to be based on the needs of member cities to which the Alliance can respond as a means for a continuous sharing of experiences, for promoting mutual assistance to reduce poverty, for informing municipal staff about poverty-related issues, for raising public awareness, and for mobilising the international community.

The workshop focused on bringing out the priority needs of cities that the Alliance must address, as well as on its own information and awareness-raising tasks. As a consequence, the workshop proposed both a calendar of activities and the most appropriate forms of organisation and operation for ensuring its implementation, taking into account that the Alliance is a network and not an institution.

For that purpose, a number of proposals were made during the workshop in the form of presentations. Three of them concerned communication-related topics, whereas the remaining two touched on human resources and on the establishment of a world fund for cities. In the debate, participants expressed their views on these suggestions and made amendments and elaborations. The last part of the workshop was dedicated to concrete suggestions on the future functioning of the Alliance.

3.3.1 Communication - A Global Mass Media Campaign, an Internet Forum for Local Communities, and a Participatory Urban Information System Against Poverty

The three presentations highlighted three different levels of communication: those of the international general public, of local communities as a whole, and of a particular city or quarter.

A global mass media campaign

Mr. Jean Fabre, Deputy Director of the UNDP European Office in Geneva, presented the outlines of a global campaign. This campaign was launched for the general public by UNDP, in order to mobilise energies in favour of all initiatives against poverty. Confided to an advertising agency which is working on it for free, the campaign is sponsored by some forty celebrities from sports and show business, who are lending their names and images and who have offered to support one specific action each. It is planned that corporations will join them in this campaign.

An internet forum for local communities

In 1994, accompanied by scepticism, an electronic network on world trade was established under the aegis of the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD). The network links big companies and works well in the service of development issues. In his presentation, Mr. Peter Fröhler from UNCTAD in Geneva, suggested the establishment of an internet forum for local communities based on the same principle. By opening up this field to all possible actors (notably from the private enterprise sector), such a forum is capable of promoting the establishment of new partnerships. Just as does the project presented previously by Mr. Fabre, this suggestion takes into account the constant reduction of official development aid flows.

A participatory urban information system

If Mr. Fröhler described a concept for the exchange of information between local communities, Mr. Jocelyn Fenard and Mr. Christophe Nuttall, both from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva, presented a scheme for information exchange within a city or even a city quarter: The Participatory Urban Information Systems (PUIS). The context of this initiative is characterised, on the one hand, by emerging civil societies with strong associative structures, which take upon themselves the provision of basic urban services. On the other hand, a growing move towards democratisation and decentralisation brings about local representatives chosen by civil society and a transfer of competencies and responsibilities to local administrative structures.

At the same time as local initiatives multiply, aggravated urban poverty threatens to create a huge gap, splitting society. So to make use of the tremendous potential - and in particular the substantial informational capital - inherent in a great number of dynamic local initiatives, but also to satisfy the populations' needs and rights to know, new tools for information and communication must be provided.

For this purpose, the PUIS concept was developed by UNITAR. Its aims are to trigger a participatory process for social integration and poverty alleviation, to coordinate resources for better urban management, and to promote institutional collaboration for an improved information circulation within an evolving system.

The methodology of UNITAR is based on training methods adaptable to the specific context of every city. It includes institutional and technical support for the implementation of a PUIS through the realisation of an urban profile, organisation of round table gatherings of local actors, and direct assistance in the design of the PUIS. Furthermore, specific training on information and communication technologies is provided according to the needs of users, focusing, for instance, on internet services or geographical information systems. Finally, project follow-up can be carried out through long-distance monitoring.

So far, one shared Web site for a well-targeted audience has been set up in the community of Yoff in Dakar (Senegal) within the framework of the PUIS project. It provides:

· technical information for exchanges among local authorities, technical services, and service providers,
· an information service directed towards a large public audience, focusing on actions of the municipality for citizens,

The Web site of the community of Yoff in Dakar (Senegal), which can be visited under http://www1.ucad.sn/apecsy/

· and a facility for the flow of information from the population towards local leaders and authorities.

Future activities include a municipal governance on-line project for local communities in Senegal, which was discussed at the Forum of Senegalese Mayors held on 15-16 October, 1998. Also the extension of the PUIS project to other interested cities is planned. Finally, Mr. Fenard and Mr. Nuttall suggested that the PUIS concept could be integrated into the activity programme of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty.

3.3.2 Human resources - Volunteers Against Urban Poverty

Mr. Edmundo Werna, from the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) in Bonn presented the urban activities of that programme and some considerations for the support of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty through UNV. UNV was set up in 1970 and is administered under the aegis of UNDP. It mobilises professional personnel in support of the initiatives of governments, non-governmental and community-based organisations, and of the UN system itself.

Universality in selection and placement is a distinctive feature of the programme: Between 1971 and 1996, nearly 15,000 UN Volunteers from some 140 nations (70% from developing countries, 30% from industrialised countries) worked in an equal number of countries. At the end of 1996, some 4,000 candidates were on the UNV roster, in some 115 professional categories. UN Volunteers are recruited on the basis of qualifications, skills, and experiences sought. Their primary motivation is to be of service, and UNV does not offer career opportunities as such.

UN Volunteers carry out outreach and long-term assignments and work on a day-to-day basis in direct contact with local beneficiairies. A basic requirement both for national and international specialists working with UNV is a university degree. Whereas international specialists can contribute to the transfer of knowledge and technology, national specialists have the advantage of knowing well, and belonging to, the local culture. UNV field-workers are members of local communities and carry out grassroots work in their own or in other communities. In general, UNV promotes a `mixed team approach', i.e., the participation of different types of UN Volunteers in one given project, to take advantage of mutual complementarity. Through direct interaction with local beneficiairies, UN Volunteers are, moreover, able not only to implement technical assistance projects, but also to build local capacity and promote on-the-job training. They may even act as brokers between different types of beneficiairies.

If UNV has had only scattered involvement in urban-development-related activities, and urban poverty alleviation in particular, this picture is bound to change. Acknowledging the significance of the urbanisation process throughout the world, UNV is determined to intensify, expand, and systematise its activities in support of decentralised local structures and in the fight against urban poverty. Accordingly, urban development is one of three priority areas of action in its `Strategy 2000'.

Domains of urban development supported by UNV projects are:

· political/administrative - e.g., support to local authorities;
· social - e.g., support to street children, prevention of HIV/AIDS, combat against drug abuse;
· economic - e.g., training and demand-related information to low-income entrepreneurs;
· cultural - e.g., protection of heritage sites;
· physical - e.g., housing and infrastructure rehabilitation and construction.

Mr. Werna pointed out that on how UNV will support WACAP can be inferred from what he had presented previously. With its commitment to urban development, and through its capacity to meet the diversified needs of a wide variety of cities, UNV can, indeed, add significant value to the activities of the Alliance.

3.3.3 Financial tools - A World Solidarity Fund for Cities

Mr. Marcelo Nowersztern, Deputy Secretary General of the World Federation of United Cities (FMCU), presented a practical and concrete proposal for the results of the Forum to go beyond theoretical analysis, sharing of experiences, discussion and other general considerations. Necessary as all these aspects may be, they must not prevent each such meeting to take a concrete step. Mr. Nowersztern suggested that for the Forum in Lyon this concrete step consist of the constitution of a World Fund for Cities, the outline of which he presented subsequently.

Mr. Nowersztern made five statements that form the conceptual basis of his proposal:

· Poverty is a structural phenomenon linked both to the social and economic frameworks and to the implementation of given policies.
· Poverty situations are the result of a number of factors, which act as indicators of the phenomenon but are not its fundamental causes. Therefore, sectoral intervention cannot eradicate poverty, even though it may attenuate its most dire consequences.
· Poverty has transformed itself from a mainly rural phenomenon into an urban one.
· Poverty is a phenomenon which predominantly affects developing countries but has come to have an impact on cities in industrialised countries as well.
· Poverty threatens the entire structure and functioning of the cities. And while local authorities have to carry the burden of the responsibility for ensuring sustainable development of human settlements, the structural causes of poverty are not within their reach.

Within the framework outlined by these five points, local leaders find themselves in an extraordinarily difficult situation. As a result of decentralisation processes triggered by a strengthening of democracy in many parts of the world, local authorities are increasingly responsible for urban management. This transfer of responsibilities has not been accompanied by a transfer of financial, technical, administrative, and human resources that would allow them to function properly. In this situation, municipal authorities are often considered by the banking and finance sector to be incapable of providing guarantees against economic risks.

On the other hand, poverty is a de-structuring element: it not only characterises for a given social or economic situation, but has a direct impact on the territorial organisation and the way a city functions. It annihilates the progressive factors of the urban environment and creates social and physical gaps, increases the cost of providing basic services, restricts social and geographic mobility, threatens the environment, etc. Municipalities' financial weaknesses prevent them from motivating private players, NGOs, and providers of financing to coordinate their activities. Even though some emergency relief actions undertaken here and there may sometimes satisfy most urgent needs, they cannot solve the underlying problems, even less so in the context of diminishing availability of financing.

Mr. Nowersztern pointed out that the eradication of urban poverty is a long-term effort, which demands structural changes. To contribute to the triggering of such changes, Mr. Nowersztern suggested that the Forum adopt, as a concrete initiative, the establishment of an international solidarity fund for cities to fight against poverty. This fund shall aim at promoting and stimulating local authorities' initiatives to reduce poverty, and is therefore not meant to substitute for existing financing mechanisms. To become operational immediately, financial resources of the fund shall be modest on the order of several million US dollars. The fund should be based on the following principles:

I The triggering and support of innovative initiatives involving local authorities as central players.
II Complementarity with existing and future financing mechanisms.
III Cofinancing through a system of guarantees; the fund is to function as a system of guarantee, facilitating the obtaining of financing.
IV Support for lines of action integrated into municipalities' comprehensive programmes through specific, well defined projects.
V Utilisation as a leverage for national governments and international institutions to contribute to the financing of comprehensive programmes.
VI The involvement of local banking networks and the mobilisation of local savings.
VII The absence of all bureaucracy linked to management and technical support thanks to the use of existing structures (municipalities, UNDP, etc.).

The fund will promote the sharing of risks to enhance municipalities' scope of action. The initial endowment will be provided by cities, multilateral institutions, the United Nations, and/or UNDP. On this basis, the establishment of technical terms of reference for the fund should be straightforward, and the key political issue would be the raising of the initial endowment, in order for the fund to become operational within months rather than years. For this purpose, the Forum should adopt a plan of action, which should include the following points:

· The decision to establish a World Solidarity Fund for Cities to fight against extreme poverty.
· A campaign by the organising entities and all the participants of the Forum to establish its initial endowment and adopt its technical terms of reference.
· The decision to confer the responsibility for putting into practice this plan of action and the formulation of operational terms on UNDP and WACLAC, which will present a first report of activities within six months.
· The establishment of partnerships with providers of funding.

3.3.4 Debate and Conclusions

In general, the exchanges of ideas that followed the above summarised presentations confirmed the orientations of these, although some amendments were made. Incontestably, the topic of communication on the community level was the one that most strongly inspired the participants of the workshop.

The need for interactive communication was underlined repeatedly, for instance by Mr. Fall from Dakar, who pointed in particular to the general lack of understanding of communal decisions and taxation by the population.

However, does communal communication need electronic means? This was doubted by Mr. Mogase, the Mayor of Johannesburg. According to him, the population is not ready for the Web and keeps asking for direct contacts. Elected leaders have to reappear physically in front of their voters. This is certainly a salutary remark to avoid staking everything on the facilities provided by electronic communication.

Electronic or not, communication must step out of the strictly vertical pattern, as pointed out by Ms. Sanchez from Barcelona. Municipal services are diverse and in order to be well targeted, communication has to take place on a horizontal grid.

Several interventions confirmed the need to base communication on a community or quarter balance, and Ms. Rajandran from UNICEF underlined that such balances must be worked out together with the inhabitants, particularly in poor quarters. The establishment of urban workshops was suggested by Mr. Mechkat from the University Institute for Development Studies (IUED) in Geneva, as these could in addition serve as an environment that teaches to negotiate. Indeed, conflicts and contradicting aims must be taken into account, and corresponding projects already exist, for instance in Istanbul (Turkey) and in Beira (Mozambique). WACAP could designate some 'experimental cities' and evaluate subsequently the experiences, for instance at the occasion of the next Forum.

It was suggested by the Mayors of Nouakchott and Abidjan that WACAP could offer cities assistance in establishing their action plans. However, Mr. Biau from UNCHS reminded participants that UNCHS is already carrying out such activity in cooperation with UNDP, following an evaluation procedure including 'poverty profiles' and citizens' views.

Several interventions stressed the particular interest in communication between neighbouring communities, be it to share experiences or to establish partnerships. In this context the Mayor of Port-Bouët, Ms. Aka-Anghui, recalled the LIFE project presented in the first panel of this Forum.

Although Ms. Sanchez from Barcelona pointed out that city-to-city communication does not necessarily have to pass through WACAP, the importance of developing data bases, and of sharing experiences, 'best practices', and action plans was underlined by the Mayor of Abidjan, Mr. N'Koumo Mobio. In this context, Ms. Rajandran from UNICEF called for close cooperation between UN agencies to avoid doubling of efforts. Noting that in this field many activities are already being carried out, for instance by the World Bank, Mr. Biau from UNCHS suggested that WACAP could situate original action in the domaine of decentralised North-South cooperation. In support of this view, the example of the European Forum on Urban Violence was invoked: the experience gained from it subsequently was highly useful for a city like Johannesburg.

In order to give life to the concept of a World Solidarity Fund for Cities as it was previously presented by Mr. Nowersztern, Ms. Ferruci from Algiers suggested that the City of Lyon, as the host to this first Forum of WACAP, make an effort to establish around itself a 'hard core' of 'rich' cities for that purpose.

In response to this prospect, a useful observation was made on the relationship between the establishment of sources of financing and the elaboration of projects, by Mr. Tandjaoui from the 'Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations' in Paris. There is no need to separate them in time, he said; they can instead be carried out simultaneously, in complementarity.

As for the future activities and the functioning of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty, it was decided that a forum shall be held every two years. There was a broad consensus regarding the importance of ensuring a follow-up at the head of the Alliance in between each one of its fora. For this purpose, there must be a permanent forum body. Mr. Rahmani, Governor of Algiers, proposed that fora be held alternatively in a city of the South and a city of the North.

Mr. N'Koumo Mobio, Mayor of Abidjan, brought up the idea of establishing an executive office for the Alliance, with Mr. Barre, Mayor of Lyon, as its president.

Mr. Rahmani suggested that contests could be held between cities to select the best project, the best team, etc.

In his conclusion, the rapporteur of this workshop, Mr. Haeringer from ORSTOM-France, emphasised that the workshop was too short to lay the long-term foundations for the programme of the Alliance. For that it will be necessary to borrow from the results of the other workshops, plenary sessions, and the documents produced and distributed at the Forum. According to Mr. Haeringer, the need for a permanent executive body, drawing ideas and legitimacy from the fora, becomes obvious, at the same time as fora will be called to transform themselves into assemblies.

From democracy within the Alliance, one can move on to the democracy that is to be promoted in the urban environment. Communication was the key word of this workshop. If communication has been identified as a crucial condition for democracy, it cannot by itself guarantee a democratic debate, or even necessarily lead to better decisions. The urban environment is charged with conflict not only because of a lack of communication, but also because of the fact that it hosts multiple and contradictory interests. One will therefore always have to ask oneself with whom to communicate and how. This is particularly important if the most disadvantaged are to be targeted.

And just as communication is not sufficient to establish democracy, electronics are not sufficient to establish communication. In each of these binomials the first term favours access to the second, but there is no equivalence.

Finally, Mr. Haeringer made two observations on the work of the workshop. First, he took up the statement that the main problem of many developing countries was simply water. From this, he concluded that one may risk looking too far when trying to design projects and programmes against poverty. The second point was that, even though financial aspects may justify partnerships on a North-South grid, the Alliance should not be dominated by this dualism. The geography of cities is much more diverse and interesting, there is an East, a South-East, etc., and the South and the North themselves are multiple, even in the light of only the one criterion of poverty - or of wealth. In accordance with what was said by UNDP Adviser Mr. Ringrose on the reciprocity of city-to-city links, Mr. Haeringer pointed to the considerable wealth of the South that must not be overlooked. But above all, according to Mr. Haeringer, it must be kept in mind that financing is not everything, that there is understanding, and understanding is very largely shared.