Michaela Hordijk

Quality of Life and Alliances in Solid Waste Management - Contributions to Urban Sustainable Development

This paper examines the contributions that new alliances in urban solid waste management (SWM) systems can make to the quality of life by improving effective provision of this urban basic service, based on case studies of three multi-million cities in developing countries: Chennai, India; Manila, Philippines; and Lima, Peru. It starts with a systematic examination of the main types of alliances formed around SWM activities (including formal collection, transportation and disposal as well as informal collection, trade, re-use and recycling). These include public‐private, public‐community, community‐private and private‐private alliances. The main conclusion is that local authorities work together with large enterprises and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but refuse to deal directly with the informal trade and recycling enterprises which recover large fractions of waste ‐ linking to them only through NGO or community-based organisation (CBO) mediation. It goes on to examine the contributions different alliances can make to sustainable development in cities, utilising the multiple goals of sustainable development as developed by Satterthwaite in 1997 (Urban Studies 34 (1997) 1667). Using a nine-point indicator system, it shows that current contributions of alliances between local authorities and large enterprises lie mainly in the area of improved disposal, cleaner neighbourhoods and financial viability. In contrast, alliances between local authorities, NGOs or CBOs and through them informal trade and recycling enterprises contribute more heavily to financial viability, employment, and cleaner urban neighbourhoods, as well as greater reuse and recycling of waste fractions. ≈ 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Let us build cities for life: the national campaign of Local Agenda 21s in Peru

In March 1996, representatives from several Peruvian cities, grassroots organizations and NGOs, together with scientists and staff from universities and local government authorities, decided to establish a national forum to promote the development and implementation of Agenda 21 in cities in Peru. This came to be called the “Cities for Life” Forum which, today, brings together representatives from 41 institutions in 18 cities. This paper describes the origin and early development of the Forum -and its vision, strategies and work to date. It seeks to show how this Forum developed beyond what was initially a conventional project which depended upon technical assistance and the initiatives of a local NGO into a network of many different actors from many urban centres in Peru who, together, form an autonomous and independent entity. The Forum has encouraged and supported its members in developing and implementing local environmental action plans and in learning from each others experiences. The paper also outlines the main environmental problems in Perus urban areas and the unsupportive national framework within which urban authorities and other urban actors strive to address environmental problems.

Participatory governance in Peru: Exercising citizenship

This paper discusses participatory budgeting as a learning process, with an analysis of two cases of participatory budgeting in Lima, Peru. Peru is the only country in the world where it is legally required that local and provincial authorities should formulate comprehensive development plans and budgets in a participatory manner. The first case discussed is Villa El Salvador, one of the cities that set the example for the framework law on participatory budgeting. The second is the district of San Juan de Miraflores, where municipal officials and inhabitants are currently struggling to implement the new law. This paper suggests that despite obvious shortcomings and a wide variety of implementation problems, the new legal framework offers interesting opportunities for participatory governance.

Resilience, transition or transformation? A comparative analysis of changing water governance systems in four southern cities

Delegating state responsibilities for the management of water resources to regional bodies and the provision of drinking water and sanitation to local governments has led to new configurations in urban water governance. Drawing on case studies from four cities in the global South (Guarulhos, Arequipa, Lima and Durban), this article analyzes recent changes in these configurations, with particular attention to the role and power of the municipality in this process. This paper explores to what extent these new configurations reveal a move towards resilience, transition or even transformation. It concludes that there are clear indications of transition in all cases, and in Guarulhos and Durban even some signs of transformation. Given that transformative changes in the legal and institutional framework, and even in values and attitudes, have not yet affected the existing power structures, the question is to what extent these signs of transformation will reach their full potential.

Water and sanitation provision in eThekwini Municipality: a spatially differentiated approach

The rescaling of responsibilities in water governance in South Africa has enabled strong water services authorities, such as the eThekwini Water and Sanitation Unit (EWS) in eThekwini Municipality, to play a leading role in shaping water and sanitation policy in South Africa. Yet water governance in the city is complex, shaped by the interactions of multiple social, economic, political and environmental relations in a transforming, fast-growing city that still reflects the legacy of apartheid. This paper identifies and explores the four dominant water governance discourses evident at present in the municipality, namely “water as a human right”, “water as an economic good”, “the spatial differentiation of service provision” and finally, “experimental governance and incremental learning”, which frame the current approach adopted by EWS. These discourses provide the context for the reforms undertaken in water and sanitation provision post-apartheid in eThekwini Municipality.

A dream of green and water: community based formulation of a Local Agenda 21 in peri-urban Lima

This paper describes how an integrated environmental plan was developed by the inhabitants of informal settlements on the edge of Lima, Peru – and how this formed the basis both for local action and for negotiating support from external agencies. It discusses the measures taken to ensure real community participation and to avoid the imposition of professionally-driven “solutions”. It describes the different internal and external groups that were involved and considers the limitations of most international donor funding for such Local Agenda 21s because such funding is too “project cycle” oriented and too concerned with “outputs” that have to be identified at the outset to be able to support such participatory processes.

Living Between Multiple Sites: Transnational Family Relations from the Perspective of Elderly Non-Migrants in Junín, Peru

Transnationality—defined as maintaining a sense of familyhood across national borders—is a complex process. This article studies the complexities of transnationality by analysing remittance-sending and practices of connectivity between migrants and non-migrants from the Junín region in Peru, in order to disentangle the factors that influence transnational familyhood. This analysis shows how it is the kind of family relationship between migrant and non-migrant—rather than issues such as gender, class and years of separation—that informs the transnational family relations sustained. While this might seem obvious, few studies on transnational families have analysed this factor. The combination of the various (transnational) family relationships, together with the multi-sitedness and the ideas on family obligations, characterise a transnational family.

Decentralization, participation and deliberation in water governance: a case study of the implications for Guarulhos, Brazil

After the return to democracy in the late 1980s, Brazil developed a new system of water governance with a decentralization of responsibilities and the formation of participatory, deliberative institutions that characterized the governance reforms in general. Tripartite “water basin committees”, with an equal representation of state, municipal and civil society actors, are now responsible for water resource management in each basin and for decisions that affect urban water governance. However, state representatives come from entities established long before the reforms, raising the question of whether the new participatory bodies can change water management practices. This paper suggests that despite the process of transition in water governance, the underlying power inequalities have not been addressed and major decisions are still being taken outside the new deliberative bodies. Technocratic government actors maintain a claim on authority through their economic superiority and their use of expert knowledge, ultimately inhibiting the influence of other actors.

Inclusive Adaptation: Linking Participatory Learning and Knowledge Management to Urban Resilience

Uncertainty, unpredictability and change have become key characteristics of today’s interdependent world. Although risks, disasters and crises are inherent to human existence, the speed, frequency and scale at which they occur today are unprecedented. Natural disasters related to global warming have increased in the last decade. Although climate change is considered a global problem, its impacts are felt locally. Cities, then, must respond earlier and more effectively to risks and hazards. Although both ‘resilience thinking’ and ‘community based adaptation’ have made headway, they have been mainly applied to rural areas and natural resource management at regional levels within social–ecological systems. This paper applies the lessons of resilience thinking and experiences in community-based adaptation efforts to urban areas.

Improving flood risk governance through multi-stakeholder collaboration: a case study of Sweet Home informal settlement, Cape Town

Bringing a wider range of stakeholders together has become increasingly important in disaster risk reduction discourse, particularly in informal settlements located on marginal, flood-prone land in many cities of the global South. Attempts by the City of Cape Town (CCT) municipality, civil society organizations (CSOs) and affected residents to cope with floods, which impact about 88,000 households on the low-lying Cape Flats, reflect the ongoing political, social and technical constraints inherent in areas of informality. Using the flood-prone informal settlement of Sweet Home as a case study, a participatory, qualitative methodology was adopted to question the extent to which the CCT, CSOs and Sweet Home residents currently collaborate to address flood risk. Although the CCTs Flood and Storms Task Team is recognized as an innovative, collaborative and pro-active approach for addressing city-wide flood risk, shortcomings still remain. Focusing not only on ‘why collaboration is necessary’, but also on ‘how’ collaboration can be achieved in the highly politicized context of South African informal settlements, this research identifies some of the critical barriers faced by stakeholders in Cape Town to address flood risk collaboratively. It explores how these barriers can be overcome and highlights the role that academics can play in creating more politically neutral platforms for stakeholders to engage with each other.