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

The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide
such issues as ozone depletion, also played a part in this changing awareness. The process of dialogue that led to the creation of
Kanagawa’s Local Agenda began from a realization that these modern environmental issues would have to be tackled through the
cooperative efforts of all sectors and citizens of the region and by taking a long-term and international perspective on the issue of the
environment and development.
In 1991, Kanagawa declared the year 1992 as “Earth Year Kanagawa: Year 1 for the Global Environment,” and undertook a wide
variety of events, campaigns, and policy-making efforts. Central to the Earth Year events was a series of meetings that took place
throughout the Prefecture, and aimed at the development of a set of action guidelines for global environmental protection. These
guidelines were designed to be Kanagawa’s own local version of Agenda 21. The guidelines were formally named Agenda 21
Kanagawa in January 1993, when the document was adopted by the Kanagawa Prefectural Government. The development of
Kanagawa’s action plan is described below.
Program Description
In 1992, the Prefecture established a Local Agenda 21 planning framework and process to establish Agenda 21 Kanagawa. Within
the Prefecture, the Prefectural Environmental Policy Section of the Environment Department served as the secretariat for the Local
Agenda 21 project. This department undertook the lead in the overall organization, planning, and preparation of various meetings,
and in the drafting of Agenda 21 Kanagawa. Under this department’s direction, Agenda 21 Kanagawa was prepared in consultation
with the community through what was called an “Agenda Building Process.”
The Agenda Building Process
The Prefecture first established an Agenda 21 Kanagawa Experts’ Advisory Panel comprising 10 eminent members of the scientific
and academic community to review the process and make recommendations on the final Local Agenda 21 document. This body met
a total of five times throughout the agenda-building period.
The Prefecture began hosting a series of meetings of key organizations in Kanagawa. Three sectoral “conferences,” or committees,
were subsequently established to represent prefectural citizens/nongovernmental organizations, local private enterprises, and local
municipalities in Kanagawa. Each of these bodies included representatives of key organizations in the Prefecture. The citizens’
body, for example, the Kanagawa Citizens’ Conference for Global Environmental Protection, comprised 43 key citizens’ groups and
NGOs. The private-enterprise committee consisted of six economic and trade associations in Kanagawa, such as the local Chamber
of Commerce. Finally, the local municipality committee was made up of representatives of all 37 city, town, and village authorities
within the Prefecture. Each of these committees met from five to seven times throughout the year to develop a set of concrete
proposals to input into the overall Local Agenda 21 building process. Mid-way through the process, “Unified Conferences,” or
round-table meetings, were also held, in which representatives of all three sectors gathered to report on their progress and exchange
views on common tasks and the potential for cooperative action.
Within the Prefecture an Interdepartmental Liaison and Coordination Committee, incorporating every department head within the
prefectural government, was established to ensure a coordinated response to the input and recommendations that arose from the
Local Agenda 21 process. This body met twice per year, and was chaired by the Vice Governor. Below this body, a working-level
committee made up of section chiefs from each department was also established; it met four times per year. The secretariat would
summarize the input from each of the three sectoral conferences, report on this progress internally to the Interdepartmental Liaison
Committee, and then provide feedback to the external dialogue process.
The secretariat took a variety of measures to ensure opportunities for broad-based input from other citizens and local organizations
of Kanagawa that were not involved directly in the partnership processes. These included the hosting of a number of neighborhood
consultative meetings at which prefectural representatives would explain the objectives and aims of Agenda 21 Kanagawa and listen
to proposals and input from the community. The Prefecture also conducted direct mail campaigns in which information on Agenda
21 Kanagawa was mailed out to thousands of households with return address postcards to allow community feedback. Finally, the
Prefecture took advantage of other Earth Year events and the mass media to build awareness of, and promote involvement in, the
Agenda 21 Kanagawa planning process. The Prefecture estimates that thousands of direct written responses were received as a result
of these efforts.
Institutionalizing Agenda 21 Kanagawa
The resulting Agenda for Action contains numerous action proposals specifically targeting citizens, business, and local government
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