The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide - Democrats Against UN ...

The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide
the ultimate product as a plan rather than institutional reform and action. A successful planning process must directly address the
practical requirements of implementation.
The successful implementation of a strategic Action Plan requires two primary activities. First, the stakeholders who researched and
developed the plan must transform the organizational structures that they used for planning into organizational structures that have
specific responsibilities and capabilities for implementation. Second, the local government must integrate the proposals and targets
of the stakeholders’ Action Plan into its own practices, including its budgetary priorities and investment decisions. Mobilizing the
institutional capacity of the local government may be essential to implementation, as it is typical for volunteer stakeholder
participants to reduce their time investment following an extensive community-based planning effort—just as the critical
implementation phase begins.
There are five key components to an effective joint implementation strategy between a local government and its external
stakeholders:
• the creation of new structures or the reform of existing structures to support implementation partnerships;
• the establishment of a working linkage between the stakeholders’ Action Plan and local statutory planning
requirements;
• the review of existing municipal policies, budgetary priorities, and internal practices and procedures to test their
compatibility with the Action Plan;
• the monitoring of new or future municipal policies, decisions, or actions to assure their consistency with the Action
Plan; and
• the documentation of actions taken, both by stakeholders and by the municipality, to implement the Plan.
5.1 Creating Effective Structures
An Action Plan is only as good as the structures put in place to implement it. In most communities, the existing governmental
structures that are used to manage local development and provide services are antiquated and fail to meet present-day challenges and
needs. For example, the formal jurisdictions of these structures may reflect old settlement boundaries; the major service problems
facing the community may now arise from development activities outside the local jurisdiction. Local government structures also
may be organized according to professional disciplines, whereas today’s problems can only be solved through interdisciplinary
approaches. In short, the fiscal, technological, and political constraints on governments may make it impossible for public sector
institutions to fulfill their traditional functions at all.
The first step in implementing an Action Plan should therefore be to ask the following questions:
• What reforms in jurisdiction or mechanisms for interjurisdictional cooperation are required to implement new
programs and to enforce the proposed policies?
• How must structures be decentralized so that they can focus on community needs and facilitate the continued
participation of stakeholders in the implementation of Action Plans?
• What structures must be put in place to assure that the responsible municipal staff from different departments can
coordinate their activities with one another?
• What new institutions, established outside the municipal corporation, are necessary to implement proposed
programs?
5.1.1 JURISDICTIONAL REFORM
Many development and service problems arise from the inflexibilities imposed by antiquated jurisdictional boundaries. Urban areas
now sprawl beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of the municipalities that are charged with managing urban growth, development,
and service provision. Furthermore, ecosystems themselves often extend across multiple jurisdictions, making protection efforts
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