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ОглавлениеCHAPTER IV. NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR DECENTRALISED PARTICIPATORY PLANNING
185. The Venezuelan and Kerala experiences have led us to conclude that the following conditions must exist in order to ensure full peoples’ participation in the planning process:
(1) Identification or creation of suitable planning units,
(2) Decentralization of competencies,
(3) Decentralization of material and human resources,
(4) Teams to help kick start the process,
(5) Explaining the process to the population and key actors involved in it,
(6) Training of participants,
(7) Prioritize according to capacities,
(8) Creation of a good database, and
(9) Information and transparency.
186. The existence of public policies like those in Kerala has been key to creating these conditions.
1) CREATION OF SUITABLE GEOGRAPHIC PLANNING UNITS
187. The first step that a municipal council must take if it wants to implement a process of participatory planning is to create suitable planning units within which this process can be carried out. In the next few paragraphs we discuss the problems inherited from past divisions of territories and administrative levels and areas.
188. This is one of the most serious problems that those in local government who advocate an increasingly participatory and protagonistic democracy face.
189. In many cases in Latin America, geographical and administrative subdivisions exist that date back to colonial times (such as parishes) that no longer correspond to any rational needs. There are numerous municipalities that have large populations, enormous barrios (neighborhoods), much bigger than many municipalities, side by side with extremely small municipalities. These distortions have negative repercussions on a just, equitable and efficient territorial distribution of resources and make it more difficult for the population to participate. That is why it is sometimes necessary to move towards a new political-administrative division of the national territory.
190. Small rural villages tend to be more suited to people’s participation. Existing sub-divisions in densely populated urban municipalities often need to be further sub-divided.
191. In many places, people have gone about establishing their own sub-divisions, using criteria such as demarcation of barrios, administrative zones and sub-zones, parishes, villages, electoral districts and other forms of municipal sub-division.
192. Each case needs to be analyzed on the basis of the experience and opinions of local residents. Some geographic and administrative spaces will need to be sub-divided while others will need to be merged.27 There will also be cases where it will be necessary to go beyond borders that have been established as part of the political-administrative sub-division of the country. This is what occurred in the experience headed by mayor Julio Chavez in the municipality of Torres, in the state of Lara in Venezuela, where in 2007, new communal areas were created by merging communal councils from two adjacent parishes.28 Some thing similar occurred in Libertador municipality, Carabobo, where Argenis Loreto, who was elected mayor in 2000, and his team worked on a subdivision of the municipality into what they denominated “social territories” that brought together various communities. In this case, some territories even extended into neighboring municipalities.29
193. Probably in the majority of municipalities in Latin America, the first step that a municipal government should take in initiating a process of PP is the establishment of territorial subdivisions that facilitate the decentralization of resources and brings government closer to the people. This process of geographic demarcation will only be necessary at the start of the process of municipal PP. For the ensuing years, geographic sub-divisions will already exist, even if it might be useful to periodically revise them and work out some modifications based on experience.
194. If a national prevailing procedure about how to divide the territory does not exist, the ideal scenario would involve the municipal government developing a proposal for how to geographically divide up the municipality as a prior step to starting the actual planning process. This task should be carried out by the municipal government with the support of its technical experts, but should be ratified by the respective assemblies of the different levels of the process.
2) DECENTRALISING COMPETENCIES
195. In cases where national policies aimed towards transferring competencies from municipalities to geographic and administrative subdivisions (parishes, communes, rural villages, etc.) do not exist, another step that municipal governments should take, one that is more complex than the first one, is the decentralization of competencies to the territorial sub-divisions, applying the principle of subsidiarity, which we referred to above in paragraphs 40, 132 and 148.
196. This implies transferring to lower levels all the responsibilities they can take on their hands, while reserving the rest for higher-up levels. It is probably possible to transfer competencies in resource management, tax collection, civil registry, administration of state companies, urban planning, surveillance and security, road asphalting, management of homes with elderly people and community soup kitchens, along with the general maintenance of infrastructure related to healthcare, education, culture and sports (See Appendix I: Diagram of the different levels of planning and their responsibilities).
197. This decentralization of responsibilities creates a framework for determining the type and amount of human and financial resources to transfer to each level of local government in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity that we introduced in paragraph 40.
198. A correct distribution of competencies among the different levels is a fundamental step towards avoiding the overlap of activities and many other problems such as lending excessive technical support to one level and not enough to another. Before transferring competencies, a study should be carried out, because it is only worth transferring competencies to a lower level if the conditions exist to successfully deal with them.
199. We have to be careful however to ensure that all transfers are well planned and agreed upon by the levels that these competencies will be transferred to. It is possible that territorial public entities might try to rid themselves of competencies that are problematic for them (for example, rubbish collection) and keep those they are most interested in.
200. It is not possible to set general criteria for decentralization of competencies as it depends on many factors. For example, while the centralized management of services such as sanitation and street cleaning might seem reasonable in a city due to economies of scale and the possibilities available for mechanization, it is obvious that in the case of a relatively isolated rural area with small communities, decentralized management would not only be possible but would in fact produce better results.
201. Another example is housing construction. It would seem that this should be a state or municipal responsibility, but in many cases it is more efficient to give communities the possibility of managing the construction of new houses that can replace existing substandard homes or improve them. Undoubtedly, they should receive technical support from the state or municipality, but they are the ones who know best their needs and priorities, and can contribute their voluntary labor. Moreover, there is much self-confidence to be gained when people solve problems for themselves.
202. Lastly, another example that can help clarify this issue is water management within a defined territory. This can vary depending on whether it is a rural or urban area. While small communities are best equipped to carry out this task and come to an agreement on how to distribute existing water supplies, in urban areas where piping systems exist to distribute water throughout the city, it may make no sense for one neighborhood to have control.
203. In any case, as we have already said, the essential principle that should be applied in decentralization is that everything that can be managed at a lower level should be managed at that level, and in order to make this possible the necessary resources and training in how best to manage those resources should be provided to the community.
3) DECENTRALIZING RESOURCES
204. The other fundamental premise of DPP is the decentralization of resources.
205. If resources are scarce and only a small portion is decentralized, then the territories and communities will lack the capacity to act.
206. Here we have to take into consideration material resources (financial, tools and equipment), as well as human resources (staff). This is the only way to carry out an effective decentralization.
a) Financial resources
207. Where existing regulations did not foresee the possibility of decentralization, the municipal government could take initiatives in this direction.
208. In the Venezuelan municipality of Torres, the municipal government transferred the resources it had for public works to the 17 parishes so that they could carry out the projects they wanted to prioritize.30 The fundamental criteria used to transfer monies were: size of territory (much of which was rural), number of inhabitants, population density and an index of interterritorial compensation that Venezuela uses when providing funds to lessen inequalities between territories.31
209. In our opinion, we should follow the example of Torres when it comes to determining the amount of money to transfer to each territory. It is very important to use criteria that enable us to share available resources in the most equitable way; criteria that favor the poorest territories that have until now been the most neglected by the state. This way, we can slowly begin to reduce the socio-economic inequalities among territories (We outline our proposal for the kind of criteria and methodology to employ in Appendix III).
b) Equipment and personnel
210. In addition to transferring financial resources, it is also necessary to transfer personnel, that is, to relocate civil servants by taking them out of the central apparatus and deploying them in the community. There is also a need to provide offices and equipment.
211. The people required to form technical planning teams in each territory should be included among the personnel that should be transferred.
212. In Kerala, the lowest level of self-government, the Grama Panchayats, not only involves representatives -elected and recallable by the population – in governing roles, but also civil servants that previously operated in the central apparatus of the state and who today - thanks to the process of decentralization –carry out duties at the level of the village in areas such as health, education, sanitation, production, etc. Local governments also have buildings suited to fulfilling the functions of local self-government and the necessary logistics so that their personnel can work and attend to the population’s needs.
213. In Venezuela, big strides have been made in terms of organization and popular participation, especially with the communal councils and communes (the lowest level of genuine self-government). To an extent, progress has been made in transferring funds. But there has been little advance made, except in a few cases,32 in transferring competencies and human resources. The communes remain a long way away from counting upon the personnel and physical resources they require in order to function.33
4) TECHNICAL TEAMS TO PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROCESS
214. Decentralized participatory planning is not a process that can be generated spontaneously. Preparatory work is needed to create the conditions that can ensure the success of the process and, above all, raise awareness and mobilize the population so that from a passive population that demands public works and services it becomes an active population that takes into their own hands the resolution of many of their own problems.
215. As well as this preparatory work, we also have all the technical and material support work that is needed to take the planning process forward, and the monitoring and control of the process itself.
216. Political will alone is not enough to take the process forward or simply decentralizing human resources. As we will see when we look at the actors involved in the process, a municipality or other higher level entity that decides to carry out a process of participatory planning needs to create different teams at each level (municipality, territorial area and community) made up of volunteer technical experts and activists willing to take up these tasks.
217. These teams should work closely with the population, without substituting for them. Their support function is essential to creating confidence among residents involved in the process. They contribute experience and technical know-how, but above all provide the encouragement needed to help overcome any initial doubts and hesitations, which will naturally appear when embarking on any project for the first time.
5) RAISING AWARENESS AMONG THE POPULATION AND KEY PARTICIPANTS
218. Another fundamental condition for the success of the participatory planning process is ensuring that the population understands and agrees with the importance of their active and direct participation in planning to improving their lives both materially and spiritually, and that they adopt an attitude of greater commitment to the process. It is important to use a variety of ways to explain to the population why their active participation would be very beneficial for their family and their community.
219. To achieve this it is crucial to touch peoples’ hearts. How do we do this given the current situation of generalized skepticism, where the dominant ideology leads people to believe in individual solutions, and where it appears as though there is no time to participate? We cannot go to the people and talk to them about a process they know nothing about and invite them to a meeting to “plan” in the abstract. We have to connect with them through their needs and most deeply felt desires, starting from the basis that every community, or sector within it, has its own characteristics and its own problems. A poor community could have problems with running water or electricity while a middle class community could have problems with crime and transit. As such, the desires of the residents in the first community are different to those of the second community. In the first, residents see obtaining access to water and electricity as the priority, while the problem of crime is not an issue. In the second, the fundamental desire is to see a police post installed and patrols undertaken in the community. The way we invite people to participate will therefore be different depending on the place. In each case, we should hold a meeting to examine how the community could obtain its dreams. When people see the value of the meeting, because they can relate to the issues that will be covered, they will attend.
a) Awareness raising days
220. Awareness raising days should be held, involving talks, forums and assemblies, to inform residents of the process. It would be very useful to hold meetings for women, as they tend to be the best activists.
221. Advertisements and informational updates should be run in newspapers, on radio and television. Alternative media outlets could play an important role here. It may also be useful to distribute leaflets, hold expositions, convene meetings with parties and mass organizations at the local level, organize events at schools, stage cultural activities (concerts, street theatre). Announcements should be put up in places that residents frequent: shops, bakeries, pharmacies, schools, sports centers, cultural spaces, train stations and bus stops, etc.
b) Door-to-door visits
223. We need to make sure that invitations to attend the assemblies are widely delivered and that an effort is made to ensure that those present truly represent the interests of all residents. Door-to-door visits can be important for this, together with a small brochure that pedagogically explains the main issues and upcoming activities.
223. When residents of a community are not willing to open their doors, due to existing crime levels or opposition to door-to-door salespersons, it is important to look for other means to reach them and win their confidence. Only after this will it be possible to carry out door-to-door work. Sometimes organizing meetings where women are invited for a particular activity can be a good way to make initial contact.
224. We should not forget the importance of inviting and involving all political parties active in the community, so that community planning can be as integral and inclusive as possible.
c) Raising awareness among key participants
225. Together with raising awareness more generally, special emphasis should be placed on raising awareness among key participants in the process, that is, those people who will be in charge of certain tasks throughout the process.
226. They should understand and agree with the importance of citizens’ participation for coming up with community plans, not only because this ensures that they reflect the most deeply felt aspirations of a community, but because it is through participation that people grow and develop.
227. Special care should be taken when transferring staff, especially from higher to lower planning units to ensure that it is not done in a mechanistic manner. Efforts need to be made to raise awareness among the public servants of the value of their new responsibilities for the development of their respective areas.
228. These participants should completely understand all the various steps involved in the planning process and their involvement in every activity.
229. It would be useful if the Team of Animators created a directory listing all those who make up the different social collectives that exist in the territory, the functionaries operating in all of the state entities at the various levels, and the institutions and people who may be able to lend their support to PP. Activist groups in the community should also do the same.
d) The Internet and its limitations
230. Although the Internet can be an important tool for convoking assemblies, we should never rely exclusively on this means. Often messages sent to groups or networks are not read precisely by those people that we are the most interested in inviting such as those who, because of their standout activism, tend to me bombarded with messages, or who because of their age or education level are not fully acquainted with the internet.
e) Meeting spaces
231. It is also important to choose a readily accessible meeting space to hold meetings that, where possible, is equidistant from the homes of all potential attendees.
232. The meeting space should accord with the plurality of views we want to be working with. It is not appropriate to; pick a particular religious hall knowing that there are people of different religions in the community; or the offices of a political party when people within the community are active in or support other parties; or a very luxurious place where people from a poorer background may feel out of place; or a place that is hard to access.
f) Meeting times
233. Furthermore, it is important to hold meetings and assemblies at an appropriate time. They should be held at a time that can facilitate maximum attendance. We should avoid work hours, those hours where women find it difficult to attend, or those that clash with television soap operas or sports telecasts that tend to be watched by many in the community.
6) TRAINING PARTICIPANTS
234. To ensure genuine participation in the planning process, it is not enough to simply have good attendance levels at the meetings. We need to be able to actively involve people in the process, thereby stimulating their interest at the same time as providing them with the basic theoretical and technical knowledge of planning that can allow them to participate effectively in the process.
235. It is not enough to simply transfer human resources and hope that citizens will participate to the maximum extent possible. It is also crucial to train technical personnel, elected representatives and the population itself, providing them with skills and experience that can help them to play meaningful roles in participatory planning.
236. We agree with Rafael Enciso, an economist who advised the Federal Council of the Venezuelan Government during 2013, who said that “transferring responsibilities without creating the minimum necessary capacities can mean that the medicine ends up being worse than the illness.”
237. To achieve this we should organize training days for the technical experts, the members of the promotion team and the people who sign up to participate in the different working groups set up during the process.
238. The less technical courses can be open to the general public.
239. Training programs should be held at the different levels and, ideally, there should be manuals that summarize the principle ideas.
240. These courses should be given by people with academic training or with a large amount of practical experience. They can be recruited from outside the community: from universities or technical colleges, as well as state institutions and organizations of retired professional and technical experts.
241. These people should function as “trainers.” In municipalities that are carrying out a process of participatory planning, the mayoral or district office should hold training days to train the trainers.
242. It is also useful to hold workshops to exchange experiences between communities or territorial areas that have initiated the process or between different neighborhood areas within the same community. It is also useful to analyze how the process is going with all the various participants with the aim of correcting in time any errors that may have been committed and detect weaknesses. This way, the people themselves become trainers, training other people in their community or territorial area.
243. Learning about other successful community experiences from other countries can also be very enriching.
244. An interesting pedagogical initiative could be to hold a series of video screenings in the neighborhood areas with documentaries made by the Centro de Investigaciones “Memoria Popular Latinoamericana” (MEPLA, “Popular Latin American Memory” Centre of Investigations). These documentaries present – in an attractive and pedagogical manner – various successful community experiences from different Latin American countries. Readers can find a concrete proposal for such a series online at http://videosmepla.wordpress.com/.34
245. These educational activities seek to break down the barrier between “those who know” (technical experts, public servants, politicians) and “those who don’t know”.
246. We should not forget however, that no training day could ever teach someone more than what they learn in practice by participating in the planning process.
247. Lastly, we want to point out that an important part of this training initiative should begin before the different participants assume their respective responsibilities.
7) PRIORITIZE ACCORDING ONE’S OWN RESOURCES
248. One of the most important factors for ensuring the success of any decentralized participatory planning process is making sure the participants understand that they should set goals that can be achieved within a short timeframe, using one’s own resources and the active involvement of the largest number of people possible. They should not simply wait for the state or other entities – governmental or otherwise – to assign them funds to begin carrying out tasks. Even if external resources do not arrive, there are many initiatives that can be undertaken immediately.
249. But setting achievable goals implies a new way of diagnosing the situation; one that prioritizes those initiatives that can be implemented with the resources the community, territorial area or municipality has at hand.
250. If the diagnosis is not carried out with this criterion in mind, what tends to happen is that, rather than stimulating participation, people tend to remain passive, waiting for a higher body to resolve their problems, or they become disillusioned with the participatory process because the desired results are not obtained.
251. To give any diagnosis such a focus, the people should know what potentialities and opportunities exist in their surroundings, such as available volunteer labor, and the possibility of using scrap materials, fundraising, and organizing activities that can help raise money, etc. They should also investigate what opportunities a particular industry in the territory could provide in terms of helping them with their activities.
252. By letting our imaginations run free; we might find that we have at our hands an infinite number of resources that we previously had not seen.
253. Prioritizing aspirations that can be implemented with one’s own resources means we can immediately begin executing priority public works, the results will be seen in the short term and, with that, the self-esteem of the people will rise, motivating them to participate with more enthusiasm in future tasks.
254. This prioritizing should not simply be the responsibility of the Planning Team or the Council; we should invite all neighbors to contribute to the diagnosis and provide ideas for solutions or possible alternatives.
255. This criterion is especially important at the community level. Ensuring that a community is capable of finding ways to self-finance all or part of its initial plan is a fundamental condition for the success of the process.
256. Moreover, the community dynamic that is awakened when people realize that problems can be resolved if everyone is willing to contribute their share tends to attract the attention of the state. Often, these communities are the first to benefit from state funds.
257. Readers can see for themselves what we are talking about in the aforementioned documentaries filmed by MEPLA.
258. Where the solution is too costly or complex and therefore out of the reach of the people, the communal, territorial or municipal council should present them as part of the participatory planning process to other government bodies.
5) GENERATING A USEFUL AND ACCURATE DATABASE
259. Another fundamental premise for DPP is the need to generate an accurate and up-to-date database in regards to the aspirations that the people have formulated.35
260. Some readers might be asking why are we restricting the database to a certain number of aspirations rather than talking about a database that covers all aspects of the community, territorial area or municipality.
261. Undoubtedly, the ideal situation would involve the most thorough database possible, but experience shows that often a lot of time is spent on building up a database, delaying the initiation of the planning process when, in fact, much of this data is not needed for coming up with the plan.
262. What sense does it make to investigate existing healthcare infrastructure, available healthcare workers, the most common diseases, how well pharmacies are functioning, the price of medicines, etc., if residents are happy with the healthcare they currently receive and are instead concerned with resolving aspirations to do with unemployment or school absenteeism, for example?
263. Is it not more logical to focus our efforts on obtaining data that can allow us to more deeply analyze these issues, rather than dispersing our efforts trying to build a thorough database, which implies a lot of effort for little short term return?
264. Of course, a basic minimum of general data is required, but we recommend only delving deeper once the most significant aspirations of the population have been collected.
265. In the second volume looking at methodology, readers will find information on what to investigate and how to present the information when trying to compile a thorough database. But, we reiterate, this should not be our starting point or a prerequisite for beginning the planning process. We nevertheless think it handy to have data that can provide us with a more objective vision of our reality, while obtaining more data as needed in order to advance the community planning process.
266. Often, at the different levels of various state institutions or NGOs, we can find particular data, but nowhere is this data organized in a single place, much less at the community level. And this data usually does not tend to refer to social actors, something that for us, with our humanist and pro-participation focus, is central.
267. It can be handy to rely on a group of activists to compile this data.
268. This group of activists should seek the support of people who are knowledgeable in the areas they are investigating (school directors, family doctors, priests, local police officers). They should also visit the offices of local governments and other state entities to find more technical data, such as land use, types of soil, available infrastructure and any other information that could be relevant to studying a particular aspiration. This last activity could be transformed into a popular audit of how these public services handle statistical data.
269. It can also be useful to work with the community in coming up with a map that notes the boundaries of the territory, its roads, its educational institutions, health clinics, workplaces, shopping centers, churches, sports facilities, meeting and recreational spaces (library, cinemas, theatre, Infocenters), green spaces, tourist attractions, etc. This map should include basic demographic data.
270. We know that there are complicated methodologies for coming up with different types of maps. What we are suggesting is something much simpler, something without grand scientific pretenses but that is pedagogically useful, and especially useful for illiterate residents. Moreover, the map can help those who find it hard to deal with figures. Once clearly outlined on a map, a certain issue can become less abstract.
271. Children have a lot to contribute to this. They frequently detect things that adults do not notice. Schools in the community could include children’s mapping into their curriculum. We should not forget that children are people with their own views and needs and that they have a right to be part of the process of shaping the reality they live in everyday and into the future.
9) INFORMATION AND TRANSPARENCY
272. Lastly, but not less important, a successful planning process requires that residents have the means to monitor its progress, ensuring transparency at all moments.
273. This means that all information relating to the process should be accessible to any interested citizen, during the development of plan as well as during its implementation. Debates in the different spaces should be public. Further below we will look at practical ways for achieving this.
27. Information taken from Rosa Pinto & Tomás Villasante, Democracia participativa en Kerala, 71-73.
28. See Marta Harnecker, Transfiriendo poder a la gente. Municipio Torres, Estado Lara Venezuela, (Caracas: Centro Internacional Miranda- Editorial Monte Ávila, 2008), paragraphs 165-166 & 199-212.
29. Marta Harnecker, Gobiernos comunitarios, Municipio Libertador, Estado Carabobo, Venezuela, Colección: Haciendo camino al andar, Nº1, Monte Ávila, Venezuela, 2006, Capítulo II: Buscando el espacio adecuado, párrafos 18 al 37. Digital version available at: http://www.rebelion.org/docs/97077.pdf
30. Marta Harnecker Transfiriendo poder a la gente. Municipio Torres, paragraphs 105-128.
31. These are the same criteria that the nation uses for determining its budget, and that the Intergovernmental Fund for Decentralisation (FIDES) and the Law for Special Economic Allocations (LAEE) set out. They also put aside set amounts of funding for each parish, among them one that they called an emergency fund and another destined to science and technology and for the construction of schools.
32. For example, the municipality of Torres, in the state of Lara, Libertador in the state of Carabobo.
33. It is worth pointing out that the Law of Transference of Competencies, Services and Other Attributions to Popular Power (November 2014) has still not been implemented.
34. They are available with English subtitles.
35. This important observation was made to us by Carlos García Pleyán.
