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

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The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide The Local Agenda 21 planning process can be started on any scale—at the neighborhood, village, city, or metropolitan levels. Some local governments are implementing Local Agenda 21 throughout their entire region, covering several cities, towns and rural areas, while others have started it in only one or two municipal zones or wards. Whatever the scale, all efforts should incorporate the key guiding principles of sustainable development planning including multi-stakeholder partnerships, community based dialogue, systemic and holistic analysis, integration of social, environmental and economic considerations, and preparation of long-term strategies. The planning approaches and tools that are used should involve and empower people. The effectiveness of a Local Agenda 21 Action Plan will largely depend on the quality of the planning process used to create it. Therefore, it will help to periodically review and reflect on local planning efforts to ensure that Local Agenda 21 planning is: • systematically involving all major community groups such as different ethnic, gender, income and age groups, in all stages of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the local Action Plan; • creating awareness and commitment in households, neighborhoods and communities so that decisions and choices made at these levels do not contradict sustainability; • involving all relevant municipal departments and agencies in the process, and is creating linkages between the ongoing statutory planning activities and the local Action Plan; • creating a network of informed and committed partners to examine the systemic causes of problem issues from social, economic and environmental perspectives; • meeting immediate, priority needs in the short-term and is making steady progress to address the long-term threats to local sustainability; and • developing concrete targets and commitments to achieve measurable performance for sustainable development. Finally, the Local Agenda 21 process is a means for creating strong and self reliant communities that will collectively create a sustainable global community. To appreciate and recognize your individual contribution in making an impact at the global level, it also will be necessary to create local management and information systems to monitor and record your performance. As one of the main actors in the creation of Local Agenda 21 mandate, ICLEI continues to play an active role in promoting and facilitating implementation of Local Agenda 21 at the local level, and in reporting on local progress and performance at the global level through the United Nations and other international forums. We invite you to send us information on the status of your Local Agenda 21 process and on the performance and impact of your local Action Plan. Your individual performance reports will help us to document the cumulative impact of local initiatives at the global level. We hope that such reporting will help strengthen international support for local initiatives and, consequently, local governance. This Planning Guide provides a practical framework of action using various examples, cases, methods, tools and worksheets. We invite you to use this material in your work and to provide us with critical feed back on its usefulness and appropriateness to your local context. Based on the experiences and results we will be making suitable modifications to future editions of the Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide. Above all, good luck with your local efforts, which have inspired us tremendously while preparing this Guide and which, we believe, will ultimately reveal that sustainable development is within our grasp. http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/448-2/ (152 of 180)18/10/2010 12:47:23 AM
The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide Glossary of Selected Methods and Tools for Sustainable Development Planning This glossary contains brief descriptions of methods and tools that can be designed and adapted for sustainable development planning and implementation in local contexts. There are dozens of methods and tools available when undertaking planning and action. This glossary highlights a selection of these tools and methods, which are intended to provide the user of the Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide with key instruments that can be applied to achieve specific planning outcomes for sustainability. Some methods and tools are designed to achieve awareness building, information collection, and community participation. Others are useful for assessment, priority setting, monitoring, and evaluation. The glossary is organized in two sections: Group Planning Methods and Tools, and Assessment Methods and Tools. Many of these methods and tools have crossover capabilities. Group Planning Methods and Tools This section describes methods and tools used for group awareness building, problem diagnosis, and dialogue and participation in decision making. Generally, these methods and tools can be used from the pre-planning through to the evaluation stages of the sustainable development planning process. Brainstorming Brainstorming is a tool used in group settings to generate a large number of ideas. In its simplest form, a structured brainstorming session invites participants to: generate and record as many ideas as possible related to a specific question or issue; build on each others’ ideas; reserve criticism; and process ideas only after a full list has been generated. This tool is usefully applied in group settings to generate ideas related to problem identification, analysis, and problem solving. Community Meetings Community meetings differ in terms of size, composition, format, and purpose, but generally follow a set agenda and are facilitated or chaired by a designated person. Minutes are often kept to record discussion items and decisions. Community meetings should be carefully planned, well-timed, and advertised with prime consideration given to the convenience of the participants. With careful design and facilitation, meetings can encourage maximum participation, foster a two-way flow of information with a high degree of dialogue and exchange, and create consensus-building amongst stakeholders. Community meetings can be used in the pre-planning through to the evaluation stages of the sustainable development planning process to initiate, establish, and sustain collaboration. Specifically, meetings can provide a forum for communities to discuss issues, achieve consensus on issues, identify problems, solutions, opportunities, and constraints, plan activities, negotiate conflict, and validate interpretations of evaluation results. When multiple tools such as mapping, ranking, and focus groups have been used, community meetings are important venues for gaining feedback on analysis. Field Trips Field Trips are organized, instructional visits that stakeholders take to one or more sites. These sites can be selected to illustrate information related to local issues and conditions. Experts may be enlisted to provide on-site interpretations and engage in on-site discussion. Field trips are an excellent tool for initiating discussion and the development of a common understanding of a problem or set of problems. Photographic documentation of field trip events can provide an instrument for ongoing discussion and monitoring. When followed by a workshop, greater in-depth discussion and problem analysis can take place. Field trips can catalyze issue identification, provide information for auditing, analysis, and priority setting, and facilitate target setting and action planning. Media Campaigns Media campaigns involve the use of local radio, newspaper, and television coverage to generate public awareness on issues, to disseminate specific information items, and to influence and reflect public views. Media campaigns should consider the various media in a community, assess their coverage and credibility, and develop media coverage suitable to the task at hand. Some media forms lend themselves to public debate on a topic. For example, in some communities, call-in radio programs have been used to solicit public opinions on a particular problem. Television surveys are gaining popularity in some regions. Although limited to a yes/no response, these surveys can be used to poll public opinion on key problems faced by the city. Television polls can be http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/448-2/ (153 of 180)18/10/2010 12:47:23 AM
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