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

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The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide augment, but not to replace, people’s values, concerns, and judgments in setting priorities. Stakeholders are invited to set priorities based on both an analysis of risk and non-risk factors. Priorities may ultimately differ from the risk ranking, due to such non-risk factors as cost-effectiveness, technical feasibility, public perception, and resources available. Three activities are commonly used in risk-based priority setting: negotiated consensus, voting, and formulas. These tools range from being relatively unstructured to being very systematic. Negotiated consensus is the least-structured priority-setting method and involves open discussion to analyze and discuss data, values, and uncertainties. The following steps are generally followed: review data; solicit proposals for how individual problems should be prioritized; discuss objections or alternatives to proposals; discuss and debate unresolved objections; and establish final priorities. Voting to establish the majority’s will is the approach used if there are unresolved disagreements about problems or projects. The majority can be defined by the decision-making group (e.g., 51%, 66%, and so forth). There are at least three voting methods— secret ballots, open voting, and multi-voting. Formulas are used to break environmental problems into parts, evaluate each of these parts mathematically, and recombine the parts to produce an output. Priorities are determined based on resulting scores assigned to each problem. There is a wide variety of formulaic approaches to priority setting. Weighted scoring is commonly used in comparative risk and involves five steps: STEP 1. identify criteria for evaluating risk; STEP 2. score each problem for each criterion; STEP 3. assign weights to each criterion; STEP 4. multiply the criteria scores by the weights and add the results to produce a total score; and STEP 5. rank problems according to total scores. http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/448-2/ (68 of 180)18/10/2010 12:47:23 AM
The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide Conclusions Risk-based priority setting has demonstrated that effective environmental management emanates not from the technical and quantitative information generated, but from the application of this information in a consensual priority-setting process. Risk-based priority setting has some limitations. By focusing the analysis of problems on the identification of present problems, the method can overlook opportunities to prevent risk in the first place. In addition, in some contexts increased emphasis should be put on future risk. Trends in rates of population growth, land use, and natural resource depletion may be so severe that the scale and impact of a given environmental problem in the future may vary drastically from the current risks these pose. By systematically comparing and setting priorities in a limited set of problems, risk-based priority setting also does not promote a systemic analysis of problems and can result in short-term symptomatic treatment. Finally, risk-based priority setting does not explicitly analyze and promote institutional reform of structures that contribute to the perpetuation of fundamental problems. References US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A Guidebook to Comparative Risk and Setting Environmental Priorities. Washington, DC: EPA, 1993. Nicholas, Steve. Risk-Based Urban Environmental Planning: The Seattle Experience. Seattle, WA: Office of Management and Planning, City of Seattle,1995. 3.3 CASES 3.3.1 CASE #5 TROYAN, BULGARIA RISK-BASED PLANNING Program Name The Troyan Environmental Action Project (Troyan EAP) Background Troyan is a community of 46,000 people located 54 kilometers east of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, in the northern foothills of the Balkan Mountains. Troyan is located at the edge of a biosphere reserve and national park. Environmental problems have compromised Troyan’s natural beauty and economic prosperity. Severe shortages of potable water are common and it is rationed in the summer and fall. Water quality is poor and cases of dysentery are common. Troyan’s drinking water comes from an upriver intake on the Osam River, which flows through the city. Untreated and inadequately treated municipal, industrial, and agricultural http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/448-2/ (69 of 180)18/10/2010 12:47:23 AM
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