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

The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide
checked against each other. This approach also maximizes the public education benefits of assessment activities.
Within this context, the issue analysis process generally has four steps:
STEP 1.
Determine the scope of the issue analysis process.
STEP 2.
Identify the issues to be analyzed.
STEP 3.
Implement complementary participant and technical assessments of key issues.
STEP 4.
Complete the issue analysis.
3.1 Steps
In community-based issue analysis, technical assessments activities are designed and employed to inform the analysis of
issues by stakeholders. Popular knowledge and expert opinion are checked against each other to strengthen the final
analysis.
3.1.1 DETERMINE THE SCOPE OF THE ISSUE ANALYSIS PROCESS
Determining the Level of Participation
One of the first tasks of a Stakeholder Group or its Working Groups will be to determine the extent to which the public will be
engaged in issue analysis. This determination will be a function of:
• the scope and complexity of the issues to be addressed;
• the time and resources made available for planning;
• the size, composition, and diversity of the local population and its institutional community; and
• the need to evaluate and understand differences between public knowledge and perceptions and expert opinions.
The degree of participation in issue analysis will range from stakeholder representation to broad-based, direct participation.
The representative approach relies upon the members of the Stakeholder Group or a Working Group to consult with their
communities using commonly accepted methods such as public forums, direct interviews, or focus groups. Having consulted with
some sample of their constituencies, the stakeholder representatives then meet to analyze the information gathered from both
consultations and technical assessments in order to form a consensus on issues and priorities. This representative approach
ultimately relies upon the opinions and impressions of the stakeholder representatives and limits the scope and benefits of a
community-based approach. It specifically limits the educational benefits gained by involving residents in analyzing and defining
problems and solutions.
The participatory approach uses neighborhood surveys, community meetings, and public forums to directly engage the resident
population in identifying and analyzing issues. In large or very diverse municipalities it is unlikely that most residents could be
involved. Nevertheless, representative target groups and communities can be engaged to undertake their own issue analysis process
and directly report their conclusions to the Stakeholder Group. In this way, community opinions are less influenced by the individual
opinions of stakeholder representatives or outside experts, and the identified community constituencies are given direct
responsibility in the planning effort. This increases both the legitimacy and the ownership of the process in the community. Case #6
describes how the small, low-income Martha Bucaram neighborhood in Quito, Ecuador, used participatory issue analysis and
ranking to develop a neighborhood action strategy. Box A on the Prosnear Project in Brazil illustrates how a participatory issue
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