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Introduction
• TAC Judging Process
• Selection Procedure for the 100
Best Practices
• The Short List
• After Istanbul: The Selection
Process
• After Istanbul: Transferring
the Experience
• Members of the Technical Advisory
Committee
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 It is not possible, within the dry confines of a formal report,
to begin to do justice to the vigour, imagination and simple humanity
that leap from the pages of so many of the submissions we have seen.
The members of the Technical Advisory Committee are united in recognising
the wealth of commitment and endeavour shown by so many people across
the world, who are taking their destinies in their own hands to
improve their and their families' lives and the well-being of their
communities. By the middle of the twenty-first century, within not
much more than a single generation, it is estimated that one person
in two throughout the world will be living in a city. For those
who are not by then urban dwellers, the combined onslaught of the
different forms of environmental degradation is likely by 2050 to
have imposed on most forms of human settlement strains and pressures
at which we cannot even guess. But people and societies are proving
not to be mere passive bystanders as this sombre prospect unfolds.
More than anything else, perhaps, the Best Practices Initiative
in Improving the Living Environment is a story of hope and achievement.
The TAC reviewed nearly six hundred submissions. It tried to be
as fair and objective as possible in reducing these to a list of
one hundred Best Practices, with a short-list of about forty going
forward for the Jury to decide on ten to twelve award-winning Best
Practices. Everyone who submitted a serious application should know
that we considered it seriously. Those which were not shortlisted
can remind themselves that they were up against the stiffest competition
in the world, and therefore to have failed to reach the final list
is no failure at all. And most of the submissions will be included
on the Good Practice database, so their experience and wisdom will
be shared as widely as possible.
1.2 The practices submitted vary considerably. Some are long-established,
with an impressive record of documented results. Some are very new,
with few results to show so far. This wide variation was not a problem
for the TAC, because it was looking less for a list of demonstrable
achievements than for pointers to the future -- initiatives, processes
and practices which will help to meet the challenges ahead. One
of the aims of the Best Practice Initiative is to facilitate the
exchange of experience. It does not seek to develop models, but
to derive principles for action. And in this context 'failure' can
be as instructive as 'success'. It is as important to learn what
to avoid as to learn what is transferable.
The TAC members did not approach their work as complete innocents.
We had been given a large part of our instructions at an earlier
stage in the preparations for Habitat II. That will concern itself
with seven major issues:
1. urban poverty reduction and job creation
2. urban environment and health
3. governance
4. disaster preparedness, mitigation, and redevelopment
5. access to shelter, land and finance
6. status of vulnerable groups
7. gender
At PrepCom III, those present from the TAC, in consultation with
delegations and major groups of actors, concluded that four broad
categories should be suitable for classifying all the submissions.
The four categories are:
1. shelter/urban infrastructure development, and neighbourhood regeneration,
including access to land, finance and small-scale economic and social
regeneration initiatives
2. sustainable human settlements development (including all initiatives
dealing with city-wide development processes, productive and consumptive
patterns, and policy and strategy development)
3. experimental and innovative practices, including research initiatives
natural and human disaster management and post-disaster reconstruction,
including ad hoc humanitarian investments.
4. These themes and categories served as, so to speak, the first
filters to enable the TAC to see where a submission stood. Once
case studies were analysed in these terms, they were considered
under a number of other headings. It was possible to fine-tune the
appraisal of the submissions by applying the initial nomination
criteria established by the Preparatory Committee for Habitat II
and additional considerations contained in the Dubai Declaration:
1.3 Criteria:
Tangible impact on improving the living environment
- does the practice have an impact, and one that can be measured
quantitatively?
Partnerships
- are at least two partners involved (e.g. central and/or local
government, NGOs/CBOs, the private sector, academic/training institutions?)
Sustainability
- does the practice have a sustainable impact on laws, decision-making
processes, resource allocation, management systems, or technology?
- is it funded on a sustainable basis?
Additional considerations:
Innovativeness
- is the practice a genuinely new initiative ?
- does it employ innovative processes, procedures, systems or technologies
?
Transferability
- is the practice being replicated elsewhere, or does it have the
potential to be replicated ?
Gender
- if the practice has gender-related impacts, or the potential for
them, are the issues addressed adequately ?
Subsidiary considerations which could be used to rank practices
included:
- capacity for scaling-up
- high demonstration value
- leadership in inspiring action and change
- accountability and transparency in decision-making processes
- empowerment of people, neighbourhoods and communities
- high impact in relation to resource allocation.
These themes, categories, and criteria provided a matrix to reach
objective judgements on widely differing practices. Every practice
submitted to us, from those we were not able to recommend to those
which we have sent forward to the Jury, has been judged by reference
to the same matrix.
2 THE TAC JUDGING PROCESS
2.1 The Best Practice Initiative is completely new. It would not
have been accomplished at all without massive organisational effort,
as it is a very ambitious undertaking. Valuable lessons for the
future can be learnt from this first year, and the TAC offers its
comments on the judging process in the light of the need which has
become apparent to make some minor refinements in the way it works.
2.2 The TAC members and several alternates met in Rotterdam from
Monday 26 February to Friday 1 March. Before arriving we had reviewed
slightly under two hundred submissions which had been sent to us
during January and early February. On arrival we found nearly three
hundred more practices which had not been circulated (we refer in
more detail to the problem this caused in section 5). It was clear
that in the five days available to us we should not be able to do
anything apart from reading the new submissions if we were all of
us to read every one of them. So, at the chair's suggestion, we
split into six geographical sub-groups: Africa; Asia and the Pacific;
Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; North America; and Middle
East and Arab states.
2.3 We spent Monday afternoon and most of Tuesday in these sub-groups,
both sharing our views on the submissions which had been circulated
in advance, and reaching decisions on those we had found in Rotterdam.
For all of us, this meant a period of intensive work, with limited
time for reflection, or for appraisal of the new submissions. If
our work shows a lack of thoroughness or objectivity, it is here.
There simply was not the time to do more.
2.4 Although we were aware that this was a less than ideal way
of working, we were very encouraged to find that the conclusions
we had reached before arriving at the meeting were remarkably consistent.
When members of the Asia sub-group, for instance, revealed their
thinking on the practices from Latin America, there was a high degree
of overlap between their choices and those of members of the Latin
American sub-group itself. This pattern was consistent across the
entire group.
2.5 To secure the greatest possible degree of consensus, the TAC
was then split into two groups, which worked independently of each
other. Both groups had at least one representative from each of
the regional sub-groups. Their task was to compile -- on the basis
of the sub-groups' recommendations -- a list of 100 Best Practices,
and a short list of about forty. Again, in most cases, there was
evidence of a consistent approach, resulting in rapid consensus
on almost all the recommendations.
3 THE SELECTION PROCEDURE FOR THE HUNDRED BEST
PRACTICES
3.1 The main list of Good Practices covers a multitude of practices,
some of fairly local or limited application, but all of which have
something to offer in different contexts. The assessment sheet suggested
by the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
in Rotterdam proposed that a submission would rate as a Good Practice
if it conformed with the criteria outlined in para 1.3.
3.2 Inclusion on the Good Practice list is important for a practice
because it then qualifies for entry on the Habitat Good Practice
database (discussed in more detail in section 6). As the Best Practice
Initiative is only the start of a process, the database will be
a critical tool in disseminating ideas, and in helping to form networks
and to inspire action.
3.3 The annexes to this report list submissions in one of two categories:
The 100 Best Practices List (selected from a larger list of Good
Practices).
A Short List of Best Practices selected from the hundred above which
are being recommended to the Jury. These are described in greater
detail in the annexe, with our reasons for choosing them. For convenience,
they are listed here in summary form below.
The TAC members took the liberty of grouping a few practices as
in our view, they represented local or national efforts which shared
similar objectives and strengthened one another in terms of impact,
partnership and/or sustainability.
4 THE SHORT LIST
CATEGORY ONE: Shelter/urban infrastructure and neighbourhood regeneration.
AFRICA
• Successful Institutionalisation
of Community-based Development in the commune of Adjamé,
Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
• Piped Supplies for Small Communities in Malawi Urban
Areas: Development & Impact of a Gender Strategy
ASIA-PACIFIC
• A Women's Self-help Organisation
for Poverty Alleviation in India: The SEWA Bank, India
'• Khuda-Ki-Basti' -- Innovation
and Success in Sheltering the Poor, Karachi, Pakistan
EUROPE
• Implementation of Collective Housing
Settlement Projects, Ankara, Turkey
• Action for Warm Houses, Glasgow,
Scotland
• Sustainable Rural Settlements
Development -- The Case of Keramitsa, Greece
LATIN AMERICA
• Project on Sites & Services
for Family Groups with Low Incomes Living in the north of Gran Buenos
Aires, Argentina
• A Nation-wide Low-cost Housing
Programme/The Architect of the Community: A Participative Designing
Method, Cuba
MIDDLE EAST
• Shelter Upgrading, Agadir, Morocco
NORTH AMERICA
• 'Don't Move, Improve', Community-owned
and -governed Urban Revitalisation Project, South Bronx, New York,
USA
CATEGORY TWO: Sustainable Human Settlements Development
AFRICA
• The Sustainable Dar es Salaam
Project, Tanzania
• Health through Sanitation &
Water (HESAWA) Programme,Tanzania
• Local Level Capacity Strengthening:
Improving Municipal Services & the Training of Municipal Officials
-- Jinja, Uganda, and Guelph, Canada
ASIA-PACIFIC
• Poverty Alleviation through Community
Co-operation: Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP), Delhi, India
• The Orangi Pilot Project, Pakistan
• Community Action Planning (CAP)
Methodology of Sri Lanka
• Slum Networking: An Engineering
Design and Participative Solution for Improving Slums and Cities
-- A Holistic Approach for the Improvement of Urban Infrastructure
& Environment through • Slum
Fabrics in Indore, Baroda and Ahmedabad, India
• Australian National Kerbside Taskforce,
Australia
• Naga Kaantabay Sa Kauswagan: An
Urban Poor Programme in Naga City, Philippines
EUROPE
• Improving Living Environments
through Comprehensive Local Policy in Gothenburg, Sweden
• City Management in Tilburg, the
Netherlands
• Urban Management of Structural
Transformation, An Integrated Approach: Duisburg, Germany
• Local Initiative Programme: Community
Planning Process and City/Neighbourhood Partnership in Lublin, Poland
• Revitalisation of a Contaminated
Industrial Urban Area, Nordhorn, Germany
LATIN AMERICA
• Association of Colombian Recicladores,
Colombia
• Selective Solid Waste Collection
& Recycling in Recife, Brazil
• Democratic & Popular Participation
in the Public Field: The Experience of the Participative Budget
in Porto Alegre, Brazil
MIDDLE EAST
• Planning & Participatory Strategies
for Sustainable Development & Capacity-building Approaches,
HUDC upgrading programmes in Amman and Aqaba, Jordan
NORTH AMERICA
• City of Chattanooga, Tennessee,
USA
• Creating a Sustainable Community:
Hamilton-Wentworth, Ontario, Canada
• Metro Toronto's Changing Communities:
Innovative Responses, Canada
CATEGORY THREE: Experimental and Innovative Practices
AFRICA
• Community Information Resource
Centre (CIRC), Alexandra, South Africa
• Tanzania-Bondeni Community Land
Trust Project
EUROPE
• The Big Issue, United Kingdom
• Citizens' Climate Initiative Tampere
21, Finland
LATIN AMERICA
• Tree Nursery & Orchard/Vegetable
Garden School -- Libre de Agroquimicos: 'An Approach to Sustainable
Development', Costa Rica
• Integration Council in the Favelas'
Rehabilitation Process, Fortaleza, Brazil
MIDDLE EAST
• The Small & Micro-Enterprises
Project, Alexandria Businessmen's Association, Egypt
NORTH AMERICA
• The Loading Dock, Baltimore, Maryland
CATEGORY FOUR: Diaster Management and Humanitarian Investments.
AFRICA
• Peri-Urban Upgrading Programme
in Sambizanga, Angola
ASIA-PACIFIC
• Post-calamity Reconstruction of
Anhui Province's Rural Areas, China
MIDDLE EAST
• Urban Community Development for
the Resettlement Area of Ein Helwan, Cairo, Egypt
5 AFTER ISTANBUL: THE SELECTION PROCESS
5.1 Habitat II marks the end of a long road of preparation. Much
more importantly, it marks the beginning of a far longer road --
of learning, training, networking and capacity building, all with
the aim of improving human settlements and human lives. We spent
some time in Rotterdam discussing how we believe the Best Practice
Initiative can be further developed.
5.2 We are convinced that this selection of Best Practices for
Istanbul should be only the first of an ongoing series. We strongly
endorse the strategy adopted by UNCHS and its partners of decentralising
the process of identifying, selecting, disseminating and analysing
practices. But whether regionally or globally, we are convinced
that the Initiative should continue and expand, as we believe it
meets a real need.
5.3 We referred earlier to the problem we had in trying to digest
a large number of new submissions during our week together in Rotterdam.
With an eye to the future, we recommend that subsequent TACs should
face as few problems as possible. UNCHS and IHS faced many obstacles
in bringing the BPI to fruition, and one of them was ensuring that
every participant met deadlines. Sending in a submission is fair
neither to that submission nor to those which were received in time,
and it impairs the ability of the TAC to reach objective judgements.
We strongly recommend therefore that in future years deadlines should
be respected rigorously.
5.4 Apart from that, we were broadly happy with the way the nomination
and submission process worked, and we do not wish to offer detailed
suggestions for change. In one general respect, though, we do feel
that the very proper concern of those who devised the reporting
format, that all submissions should be judged on an equal footing,
did make for some difficulties. We noticed that most initiatives
were criticised for shortcomings of one sort or another in their
submissions, and we believe that a reporting format which proves
so hard for initiatives to comply with probably needs to beadjusted,
together with the question of further support for those making submissions.
There is a risk that, in requiring very different initiatives to
fit themselves within the straitjacket of a stringent reporting
format, we may be obliging them to submit to a culturally-determined
formula which is familiar to a few, but by no means to all. We therefore
recommend that further thought be given to adjusting the format.
5.5 The TAC also thinks it worth recommending that UNCHS should
review its suggested shortlist before forwarding it to the Jury,
in order to ensure that it does not include initiatives which have
been previous recipients of UNCHS awards, or UNCHS-related awards.
It recommends that this review should become a routine part of the
BPI process in future years.
5.6 Finally, we mention two technical but not negligible points.
The first concerns language. It would be worth bearing in mind in
future that some TAC members may need translation facilities. The
other point is the length of some submissions. We think it would
be fairer in future to tell those submitting practices that they
will be allowed to send a set maximum quantity of supporting material
to accompany their formal submissions.
5.7 We are making these suggestions because of our conviction that
the Initiative is so good that it is worth fine-tuning it to make
it work as smoothly as possible in future years. We are unanimous
in acknowledging the tremendous amount of work put in by everyone
at UNCHS in Nairobi and at IHS in Rotterdam. It is a tribute to
them all -- and notably to Nicholas You and his team in Nairobi,
and to Ed Frank and Mayke Hoogbergen at IHS -- that we were able
to get through so much work, with so few upsets, and in such good
heart. In thanking them, we wish also to express our gratitude to
our chairperson, Mr Gerrit Brokx, and to our vice-chair, Dianne
Dillon-Ridgley, both of whom succeeded in steering us resolutely
but with a light touch through the week.
6 AFTER ISTANBUL: TRANSFERRING THE EXPERIENCE
6.1 Section 5 tried to address 'housekeeping' issues: how to make
sure the Best Practice Initiative works as well as it can in future.
This section, by contrast, is an attempt to sketch out some ways
in which the BPI can be of use to practitioners, which is the acid
test it now has to face.
6.2 The BPI is designed to do two things: to raise the standards
of all practitioners to the standards of the best, and to encourage
many more individuals and communities to become practitioners. So
the BPI will stand or fall according to how widely known it becomes.
6.3 The BPI data base will have an obvious application as a unique
education and training tool. It will allow dissemination of experience
and practice from the bottom up, and in doing so it will facilitate
a process of self-reflection on the part of hands-on practitioners.
They will be able to conceptualise, internalise and analyse their
experience, and then to share it -- and sharing experience is the
key to making it more sustainable.
6.4 The data base will contain details of the Good Practices, as
well as the Best Practices. It will be available as a storehouse
of knowledge, experience and expertise for those undertaking comparable
initiatives elsewhere. The use of key words and other search criteria
will enable users to identify the practice or practices of particular
interest to them, under a number of headings: thematic, geographical,
etc.
6.5 The data base will shortly be available in an inter-active
format on the Internet, providing rapid access to users throughout
the world. It should before long be linked with other data bases
sharing common interests. To operate the data base and to develop
it further, we recommend the establishment of a virtual instititute
responsible for sustaining the global Best Practice Initiative.
This institute, we propose, would be developed as a partnership
initiative, and would co-ordinate and provide support to the networks
building on and contributing to the data base.
6.6 The data base will be an invaluable tool for identifying common
problems and shared solutions, and its ability to pinpoint very
precisely problems and solutions on a regional basis should prove
one of its key features. It will provide a mechanism which allows
governments at all levels, donors and policy-makers to engage in
new and improved forms of technical co-operation, specifically decentralised
forms.
6.7 It is likely also to be an ideal way for breaking down isolation
and building networks between groups. One lesson that became apparent
time and time again in reading the submissions is the realisation
that so often dawns on practitioners: combined, they are more than
the sum of their parts. The data base can translate that realisation
to another plane.
6.8 The data base will clearly have great potential as a means
of financing the activities of the global Best Practice Initiative,
and we believe this potential should be explored, with the proviso
that the information it contains should always be available at concessionary
rates to those who need it most or can afford it least: that will
mean many of the practitioners themselves.
6.9 Notwithstanding the tremendous potential for exploiting the
data base by means of the most modern technology, we are convinced
that UNCHS and its partners should also exploit to the full the
more traditional methods of sharing experiences and building networks.
Not everybody yet has access to the Internet, and for those who
do not there are the tried and trusted routes provided by the more
familiar aural and visual media, including printed material. We
are happy to note that plans are already advanced for the production
of a printed catalogue, diskettes, and a video library.
6.10 All of this lies in the future, though not far ahead. Our
concern is to underline what we believe to be the great potential
offered by the Best Practice data base, however it is exploited.
We are convinced that the international community should continue
to allocate the proper means to develop the BPI and the data base,
and we note with pleasure that this will very often mean re-directing
existing resources, not having to find new ones. We believe strongly
that the two together hold out the prospect of an effective model
for the United Nations in the century ahead -- an organisation which
has found a new and powerful method of capacity-building.
6.11 The TAC recommends to the Jury the formal submission of the
following recommendations to the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul:
1. The Conference endorses the strategy of establishing a global
network of regional and thematic centres to continue the process
of identifying, disseminating and learning from best practices,
and recommends the establishment of a broad-based consultative mechanism,
including all major groups of actors and stakeholders, to guide
the further development of the Best Practices Initiative, and to
explore ways and means of promoting the transfer of best practices
through, inter alia, training, education, public awareness, policy
development, and innovative forms of co-operation, including North-North,
North-South, South-South, and decentralised forms of co-operation.
2. It further recommends that the Best Practices Initiative pursue
partnership arrangements and innovative means of financing its core
activities, and that governments continue to provide in-cash and
in-kind contributions for the continued development of the Best
Practices Initiative, particularly in supporting the work of regional
and thematic centres in developing countries.”
THE MEMBERS OF THE TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
CHAIR:
Mr Gerrit Brokx
Mayor of Tilburg, the Netherlands
VICE-CHAIR:
Ms Dianne Dillon-Ridgley
President's Council on Sustainable Development,
Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Ms Teolinda Bolivar
Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela/Fondation pour
le Progres de l'Homme,
Paris, France
Mr Bill Clarke
International Association of Public Transport
(UITP), Brussels, Belgium
Ms Janne Corneil
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Unit for Housing & Urbanisation, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, USA
Mr Diop Ousseynou Eddje
Institute Africain de Gestion Urbaine,
Dakar, Senegal
Mr David J Edelman
Institute for Housing & Urban Development Studies,
Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Mr Alex Kirby
British Broadcasting Corporation,
London, UK
Ms Reena Lazar
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives,
Toronto, Canada
Ms Caren Levy
Development Planning Unit
University College London, UK
Ms Lydia Nicollet
Fondation pour le Progres de l'Homme,
Paris, France
Mr Abdullah Ali al-Nuaim
Arab Urban Development Institute,
Riadh, Saudi Arabia
Ms Ileana Pascal
Federation of Municipalities,
Bucharest, Romania
Mr David Sayburn
International Association of Public Transport,
(UITP), Brussels, Belgium
Mrs Mona Serageldin
Harvard University Graduate School of Design,
Unit for Housing & Urbanisation, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, USA
Mr Yap Kioe Sheng
Asian Institute of Technology,
Bangkok, Thailand
Mr Ye Yaoxian
China Building Technology Development Centre,
Beijing, China
TAC SECRETARIAT
Mr Ed Frank
Institute for Housing & Urban Development Studies,
Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Mr Nicholas You
UN-Habitat,
Nairobi, Kenya
ASSISTANCE TO TAC SECRETARIAT
Ms Mayke Hoogbergen Institute for Housing & Urban Development
Studies,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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