Designing Tomorrow's Cities. Eschborn Dialogue 2005

8/14/2019 Designing Tomorrow's Cities. Eschborn Dialogue 2005

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Deutsche Gesellschaft frTechnische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ ) GmbH

Focus Fascination Future:

Designing tomorrows cities

2005

Jahre GTZ. Partner fr Perspektiven. Weltweit. 30 Years GTZ. Partner for the Future. Worldwide. 30 Jahre GTZ. Partner fr Perspektiven. Weltweit. 30 Years GTZ. Partner for the Future.


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Contents

3 Preface

Eschborn Dia logue 2005

4 Anatomy of the city

8 Voice of the cityWorkshop 1

9 The power of cities the influence of networking

10 Heritage as an assetWorkshop 2

11 Development without culture or culture-driven urban development?

12 Balancing act between boom and povertyWorkshop 3

13 Poor rich city between economic growth and financial crisis

14 Matters of securityWorkshop 4

15 City worth living in security and rights for all

16 Governance by rulesWorkshop 5

17 Urban governance how do cities stay manageable?

18 Urban ecomodelsWorkshop 6

19 Ecocities the places of the future?

20 Transfer between city and hinterlandWorkshop 7

21 Town and country connections create benefits

22 Efficient cities for peopleWorkshop 8

23 Bringing the city close to the people through participation and transparency

24 The world as city

26 GTZ profile

27 Contacts

Published by: Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Dag-Hammarskjld-Weg 1-5, 65760 Eschborn, GermanyTelephone: +49 6196 790, fax: +49 6196 791115, email: [email protected], Internet: www.gtz.deEditorial staff: Jens Heine/[email protected] (responsible) and Georg Schuler/KonzeptTextRedaktion, MainzProofreader: Manhard Schtze, Frankfurt am Main | Design: Eva Hofmann, Frankfurt am MainPhotos: Dirk Ostermeier (event) and GTZ archive | Litho: Communications Albecker & Haupt GmbH, Frankfurt am MainPrinted by: Druckerei und Verlag Otto Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main | printed on 100% recycled paper | August 2005


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Urban development will have a decisive

influence on whether people 20 years

from now have an environment worth

living in. Can we avert climate collapse

and how can we live in a world without

oil? We can only find answers to these

questions if we include the city as a factor

in the scenario, as Volker Hauff, Chair-

person of the German Council for Sus-

tainable Development, said at the start of

the Eschborn Dialogue 2005. For two

days, the specialist conference under the

banner Focus Fascination Future:

Designing tomorrows cities took a closelook at all the facets of urban develop-

ment. As every year, many prominent

guests accepted GTZs invitation, this

time to discuss its spotlight theme of the

year tomorrows cities with develop-

ment experts.

Countries with high-growth economies

such as Brazil, India, China or South

Africa bear a great responsibility. The

consequences for people and the environ-

ment could be enormous if we chart the

wrong course, Hauff warned. The nations

of the North must set a good example

before they start telling others what to do.

He explained that a key problem was

rural exodus. Despite all the problems

this caused, cities were growing, particu-

larly in developing and more advanced

countries. A major reason for ongoing

migration lay in the economic resources

concentrated in the municipalities. As

GTZ Managing Director Bernd Eisen-

bltter pointed out, cities are engines of

growth and earn a major part of national

income. People see cities as the only

chance to escape poverty. In Asia alone,

the urban population has grown by 163

per cent since 1975. Eisenbltter: The

urban population in Africa grows by fiveper cent every year.

GTZ has been dealing with the prob-

lems of towns and cities and urban devel-

opment for 30 years, since it started. The

focus at the beginning was on such items

as developing infrastructure, the drinking

water supply and sewage and refuse dis-

posal, as GTZ Director General Cornelia

Richter explained. The political dimension

of urban development has since moved

to the forefront of attention. The Indian

social scientist Sheela Patel, Director of

the NGO SPARC, called for urban devel-

opment to include poverty alleviation. The

founder of SPARC, an advocate of the

rights of the urban poor, underpinned her

argument by citing the situation of the

poor in Mumbai.

At the EFTA opening event with the

theme Changing world focus on the

city Stuttgarts Mayor Wolfgang Schuster

pinpointed some trends in his city that

run counter to those in the South. As an

export-dedicated city, Stuttgart is one

of the winners of globalization, but the

population is shrinking: children and

youth live in only 19 per cent of house-

holds in the Stuttgart area and ten per

Eschborn Dialogue 2005

Anatomyof the cityFor two whole days, GTZEschborn talked about just onething: tomorrows cities. Inworkshops and panels at theEschborn Dialogue 2005,prominent guests and devel-opment experts discussed key

issues in urban development.

4

Wolfgang Schuster,Mayor of Stuttgart

Sheela Patel,Director SPARC

Steffen Seibert,chairperson from ZDF

Erich Stather, State Secretary at theGerman Federal Ministry for EconomicCooperation and Development (BMZ)


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5

cent of those are one-child households.

We have four times as many cars as

children", Schuster said. An important

countervailing factor in the trend towards

fewer children was migration, with mi-

grants accounting for thirty per cent of

the citys inhabitants, making it increas-

ingly international. What would things

look like without these children? the

mayor asked. Alluding to the use of re-

sources, he warned against taking urban

development in the industrialized coun-

tries as a precedent for the countries of

the South. Schuster: We cant globalizeour way of doing things.

Erich Stather stressed that develop-

ment policy must cater for the problems

of the megacities just as for those of

small towns. Our aim is to keep people

in the rural areas, the State Secretary

of BMZ (German Federal Ministry for

Economic Cooperation and Development)

added. In answer to moderator Steffen

Seiberts question of whether develop-

ment funds should be reallocated in

favour of urban development, Stather

said no, but pointed out that overall de-

velopment assistance was being raised

by a considerable margin, reaching the

0.3 per cent mark next year, 0.51 per

cent in 2010 and 0.7 per cent in 2015,

as agreed by all European countries.

InfotainmentAfter the opening statements to the

Eschborn Dialogue 2005, four workshops

took a close look at major facets of the

GTZ spotlight of the year, Designing to-

morrows cities. After a demanding after-

noon of discussions, the loudspeakers

in the GTZ buildings finally announced:

The shuttles for the evening event are

waiting. At the Commerzbank Plaza in

Frankfurt, the EFTA organizers provided

some infotainment before the second

round of workshops due to continue the

next day. Chairperson Steffen Seibert

from ZDF television invited the guests

to explore the Fascination of the city

between vision and reality, or the city of

hell as he added before going on to lead

the audience through the evening as an

informed and attentive guide.

With an entertaining spot, Lee Roy

the B Boy marked the divide between the

first obligatory EFTA day and the volun-

tary exercise. His street dance on stage

gave the audience a taste of the global

rap culture with its roots in the cities

of the USA. Could someone dance like

this on the streets of Kabul? Steffen

Seibert asked his first quest Qiamuddin

Djallalzada, who personifies a part of

modern Development Cooperation. An

Afghan by birth, he returned to his native

country as a CIM Integrated Expert

(Centrum fr internationale Migration und

Entwicklung) after 20 years in Germany

and now contributes to shaping its devel-

opment as Deputy Minister of Urban

Development and Housing. There were

no rappers in Kabul, he answered, but

the music and the lust for life, so long

taboo, were back.

Since his return in 2002 Qiamuddin

Djallalzada has himself witnessed how

Kabul has grown from 700,000 inhabitants

to 3.5 million. This rapid developmenthad overtaken the masterplans which

were originally conceived for 1.2 million

people at most, said the Afghan, who has

lived in the German town of Aachen and

returned to Kabul with a German pass-

port. The plans for the secondary cities

had also been superseded. The countrys

development planners were looking for

ways to stem the influx into Kabul and

other cities, by land allocation in the

provinces, for example. Under no circum-

stances, however, did the Afghan govern-

ment want to stop the ongoing exodus

from the provinces with state interven-

tions, which would run counter to its

liberal principles, Qiamuddin Djallalzada

explained. Though short of water and

housing, the people of Kabul would

muster the patience to thwart the plans

of political troublemakers, and what was

more, The mass migration to Kabul is

strengthening national unity.

Let people into the cities or keep

them out? This was also a key question

in Steffen Seiberts interview with Indias

Ashok Khosla. The answer the president

of the New Delhi NGO, Development

Alternatives, gave was, however, quite

different to that of the previous speaker

from Afghanistan. Ashok Khosla, who

with his international biography is for

many the personification of globalization,

answered with a categorical no to

keeping the cities open. We needed the

opposite approach to current mainstream

thinking. To save the cities, we have to

keep people in the country and send the

investors there, he said. Allocating 40

per cent of regional budgets to the urban

centres would only make everything

worse. Something had to be done for

the hinterland, he demanded. That wouldcertainly be cheaper and NGOs were

the decisive factor. Ashok Khosla: God

bless their hearts strike!

The urban problems at the beginning

of the 21st century are unprecedented

Volker Hauff, Chairperson of theCouncil for Sustainable Development


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6

in history, as GTZ Managing Director

Wolfgang Schmitt said at the opening of

the evening event, pointing to the limits

of development work. Despite all the great

competency and outstanding expertise,

he warned, many questions on cities

would have to remain unanswered. In

conversation with moderator Steffen

Seibert from Germanys ZDF television

channel he added another point: consid-

ering the host of urban problems, devel-

opment experts would do well to listen

first to the people and decision-makers

involved. GTZ was known for its listening

experts, but frequently also for insisting

on competencies when solving problems.

With its institutional bias, German Devel-

opment Cooperation would do well to

learn more from the Anglo-Saxons. In-

stead of looking at problems through in-

stitutional glasses all the time, it certainly

made sense to pick out the ten out of

100 mayors who were prepared to take

risks to change the status quo and could

otherwise spend a long time asking

the establishment for help to no avail.

On the idea of preparing todays

opposition for tomorrows government,

Wolfgang Schmitt then also reminded the

audience of GTZs limits. This is where

the political foundations came in at the

very latest, said the GTZ Managing Direc-

tor. Sharing tasks with the political foun-

dations was one of the great strengths

of German Development Cooperation.

Megacities as partners?Development policy is increasingly turn-

ing into urban policy. This prediction

was made by Peter Herrle, professor at

the Berlin Technical University, who intro-

duced the closing event of the Eschborn

Dialogue 2005 after the second round

of workshops with the theme Shaping

the future designing cities. Rapid popu-

lation growth in developing countries and

the strong attraction of urban centres were

the reasons why cities were growing and

new ones kept emerging. Peter Herrle is

firmly convinced that new megacities will

spring up, particularly in Asia, but urban-

ization is taking on a new shape. Tomor-

rows city with over a million inhabitants

will be an expansive conurbation, includ-

ing stretches of rural land, and have a

much lower population density than cities

in the 19th and 20th centuries. Develop-

ment cooperation should, he urged, ven-

ture into the big cities, because this was

where the central challenges of Develop-

ment Cooperation were most pressing:

poverty and social inequality, environmen-

tal pollution, the depletion of resources

and insufficient infrastructure. Herrle cau-

tioned, however, against simply exporting

Western methods of urban planning. They

needed to be tailored to local needs and

conditions, drawing on the experience of

Western urban planners and the advisory

Qiamuddin Djallalzada, Deputy Minister forUrban Development and Housing, Afghanistan

Steffen Seibert,moderator from ZDF

Wolfgang Schmitt,GTZ Managing Director

Ashok Khosla, President ofDevelopment Alternatives, India

Bernd Eisenbltter,GTZ Managing Director


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and mediating capacities of all institutions

in Development Cooperation.

In the following discussion, Stephan

Articus, Executive Director of the German

Association of Cities, was of the opinion

that German Development Cooperation

should concentrate on advising medium-

sized cities. This was where Germany

could best draw on its wealth of experi-

ence. Ursula Schfer-Preuss, in contrast,

argued that Development Cooperation

should definitely venture into cooperation

with megacities. The BMZ Director

General for Cooperation with Countriesand Regions, Peace-Building and the

United Nations advocated cooperation

in demarcated sectors and cited as best

practice the air-pollution control project

in Mexico City.

For Cornelia Richter, cooperation was

imperative with the metropolises and with

medium-sized cities alike, because the

municipalities are closest to the people,

said the GTZ Director General for Plan-

ning and Development. Microfinance pro-

grammes were also very successful at

this level. Hanns-Peter Neuhoff, Senior

Vice President for America, Africa and

the Middle East at the KfW Entwicklungs-

bank (KfW development bank), stressed

that poor populations were quite capable

of taking entrepreneurial initiative and

paying back loans. Urban development

must harness this potential.

Moderator Volker Angres from German

televisions ZDF environment magazine

then asked whether Development Coop-

eration was investing more in cities. The

final panel of the Eschborn Dialogue 2005

agreed on the need to avoid one-sided

development. Urban development must

always cater for rural areas because of

the mutual interdependencies. The Mali

North project was a showcase for how to

harness urban and rural resources for re-

gional reconstruction. In his final address,

GTZ Managing Director Bernd Eisenblt-

ter also contended that Technical Coop-

eration should seek partners in mega-

cities, in growing medium-sized cities and

in rural areas alike, depending on needs

and on task-sharing with other partners.

Development Cooperation must not lose

sight of its limits, however. It must always

build on what is already there, Eisenblt-

ter stressed. Like Peter Herrle before him,

the GTZ Managing Director urged closer

cooperation between GTZ and the univer-

sities.

His special thanks went to the politi-

cal foundations for their contribution

to the Eschborn Dialogue. Bernd Eisen-

bltter: The exchange with all of you,

the different views and the many good

practices we learn about make the

Eschborn Dialogue GTZs foremost

human resources development event.

7

Volker Angres,

moderator from ZDF

Cornelia Richter,GTZ Director General for Planningand Development

Ursula Schfer-Preuss,

BMZ Director General

Hanns-Peter Neuhoff, Senior Vice

President at the KfW development bank

Stephan Articus, Executive Directorof the German Association of Cities

Peter Herrle, Professor at theTechnical University Berlin


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Municipalities worldwide come together

to seek strategies for solving typical

common problems. The resulting city

networks have been making a name for

themselves for more than fifteen years.

The international community has

recognized the political dimension of

municipal problems, but all too often,

when it comes to drafting national policy

including the implementation of the

Millennium Declaration urban govern-

ments and their innovative ideas are left

out of the equation. So through these

networks GTZ contributes to giving cities

a say.

For the sake of Development Cooper-

ation it is important that cities and munic-

ipalities have a greater say as a dialogue

partner at international level. Urban

governments in particular are engaged in

the fight against rising poverty. This is

why Agenda 21 of 1992 and the Habitat

Agenda of 1996 are also concerned that

city networks learn from each other and

send messages beyond city precincts.

The more the economic and political sta-

tus of cities changes within countries and

in the international context, the more rele-

vant is their experience with water supply

and sewage disposal, waste management

and transport, environment and housing,

access to finance, economic develop-

ment and the fight against violence and

crime. Cities can develop strategies for

future economic and social life that can

prompt changes in other urban centres,but also across regions or even national

frontiers.

This has implications for the interac-

tion amongst political, administrative,

business and civic stakeholders at urban

level and for their relations with national

government. It also affects municipal

associations. Party-political differences

between urban and national governments

can yield new approaches and compro-

mises acceptable to everyone, or exacer-

bate conflicting interests. Clearly, a grow-

ing number of municipal policy lobbyists

are entering the national and international

political arena. Whether the city networks

can perform their role successfully in co-

shaping global development will depend

above all on the integration and partici-

pation of the poor urban population, who

are not usually organized. The achieve-

ment of the Millennium Development

Goals also depends to a great extent on

this.

Modern city networksA case in point of how German Develop-

ment Cooperation supports approaches

and exchange of experience in urban

poverty reduction is the Cities Alliance

founded in 1999. Its members now in-

clude the World Bank, UN-Habitat, the

UN Development Programme, twelve

states, the Asian Development Bank and

four municipal federations. Founded in

2004, the mission of the international

association, United Cities and Local

Governments (UCLG), is to represent the

interests of cities and municipalities and

contribute to co-shaping global develop-

ment.

GTZ has also gained experience inhelping to organize a development proj-

ect based on twinned cities. It advises

German municipalities on developmental

issues in their international activities and

offers practical assistance in projects.

Advisory services for inter-municipal

corporations and municipal associations

have been in keen demand in Technical

Cooperation for years.

An excellent example of municipal

development partnerships is the Cauca-

sus city network, which GTZ supports on

behalf of the German Federal Ministry for

Economic Cooperation and Development

(BMZ). The project builds on city twinning

arrangements between Tbilisi and Saar-

brcken, Telawi and Biberach-on-the-

Riss, and Sumgait and Ludwigshafen.

Knowledge and experience gained in

German cities is combined with strategic

developmental objectives, which facili-

tates regional know-how transfer and

joint learning between partners. Mutual

learning processes strengthen municipal

government capacities and promote par-

ticipation by the urban population. The

process also contributes to defusing

conflicts in the Caucasus region. One ex-

ample of vertical and horizontal network

expansion is provided by the institutional

partnerships between the Georgian Asso-

ciation of Local and Regional Authorities

and the German Association of Cities.

Cooperation with the municipal federa-

tions in Latin America is another. Collabo-

ration with the Municipios y Asociaciones

de Gobiernos Locales (FLACMA) in South

America and the Federacin Municipios

del Istmo Centroamericano (FEMICA)

in Central America aims at building up

knowledge management capacities in theregion and trying out new forms of inter-

municipal and international cooperation.

These approaches are in line with the

way cities see themselves. The municipal

development partnerships also attempt

Voice of the cityCities seek solutions tocommon problems by lookingto networks. Their resourcesand their political experiencelend weight to their nationaland international role. GTZpromotes exchange oninnovative approaches andinvolves municipalities aspartners in dialogue.

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9

new forms of international cooperation

in and with city associations and in direct

collaboration with city authorities. The

organizations in international cooperation

have recognized the importance of the

cities and make more use of networks,

partnerships and alliances in implement-

ing their projects. They bear co-responsi-

bility for internationally agreed develop-

ment goals and achieving sustainable

impacts.

Workshop 1The power of cities the influence of networking

"The political and economic role of cities

has changed." With these words, Nigel

Harris opened the specialist discussion

at the Eschborn Dialogue 2005 workshop,

Power of the cities the influence of net-

working, citing globalization and deindus-

trialization as the reasons. The emeritus

professor at the Development Planning

Unit of University College London also

pointed to a marked functional shift: For

many cities the connection to the global

economy is already more important than

relations with their own national govern-

ment."

Cities should exchange good prac-

tices in networks and develop their com-

parative advantages, the London econo-

mist advocated. Decentralization was an

important prerequisite for their economic

success. Worldwide trends in migration

were another factor in competitiveness.

Nigel Harris: International institutions

should help cities to integrate into the

world economy and facilitate immigra-

tion, particularly in large conurbations.

The question for GTZ Country Director

Chile, Jrg-Werner Haas, in conversation

with chairperson Annette Riedel from

Deutschland Radio Berlin, was how small

and medium-sized cities fitted into in this

picture. International cooperation must

engage more in large cities, but also

build on experience gained in small and

medium-sized urban centres. In municipal

networks, a distinction needed to be

drawn between temporary networks to

solve specific problems, and institutionaland municipal associations and the World

Association of Cities and Local Govern-

ments. Haas forecast that city networks

would be more involved in international

developments in future. Situational co-

operation and advice to meet needs was

the way to sustainable success for all

stakeholders.

Phase of possibilitiesA centralized state apparatus can be

more helpful than delegating power to

local government, as Zurab Chiaberashvili,

the mayor of the Georgian capital Tbilisi,

contended. He cited anticorruption as a

case in point. For me it is important to

build infrastructure, but it is all the more

important for citizens to learn to organize

themselves to tackle their problems

and to bear some of the costs, said

Chiaberashvili. The more the population

is involved, the sooner municipalities can

solve their problems. The twin towns

Tbilisi/Saarbrcken in the Caucasus city

network have now begun a phase of

possibilities to develop joint strategies in

administrative reform and local govern-

ance. Mark Hildebrand, head of the Cities

Alliance office in Washington, emphasized

the advantages of city networks: Cities

learn more effectively in networks than

from donors, he said. International

agreements had accorded them a central

role in drafting and implementing inter-

national conventions. After all, the cities

were the entities that had to do most to

achieve their objectives, as specified in

strategy papers on poverty reduction and

in the Millennium Development Goals.

Walter Leitermann, Deputy Secretary

General of the Council of European

Municipalities and Regions in the GermanAssociation of Cities, looked beyond

everyday political problems when he

pointed out at the end of the workshop:

Municipal self-governance is of value

in itself. This political good must be

supported, at national, international and

global level.

Jrg-Werner Haas,GTZ Chile

Zurab Tschiaberashvili,mayor of Tbilissi, Georgia

Mark Hildebrand,Cities Alliance

Nigel Harris,University College London

Walter Leitermann,German Association of Cities


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Culture plays a major role in the eco-

nomic and social development of a city.

Municipalities as various as Bangalore,

Barcelona and Weimar demonstrate what

numerous studies from previous years

have claimed: taking active cultural

measures and safeguarding the cultural

heritage can go a long way towards im-

proving locational quality and contribute

to economic growth, employment promo-

tion and social identity. With its integra-

tive approach, Technical Cooperation also

seeks to make culture a driving force in

urban development.

International specialists are following

with interest what is happening in Aleppo,

Shibam and Sibiu, formerly Hermann-

stadt, where GTZ and its local partners

have found a common denominator for

culture and development. The formula is

integrated urban and historic city devel-

opment. In the iridescent historic districts

in partner cities in Syria, Yemen and Ro-

mania, Technical Cooperation is seeking

to preserve the cultural heritage by doing

more than just restoring historical monu-

ments, as in the past. On behalf of the

Federal Ministry for Economic Coopera-

tion and Development, the integrated

project approach supports local partners

in renovating residential buildings and

infrastructure, while promoting crafts,

tourism, administration and the initiatives

of the residents. GTZ, then, sees culture

as a resource for economic and socialdevelopment. This is also the view the

World Bank and UNESCO have adopted

for several years in their efforts to high-

light the economic and social aspects of

cultural development. To be included in

the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list,

a project needs to submit a management

plan and ensure the active inclusion of

the local population.

Living identityGTZ Development Cooperation combines

modern urban development with safe-

guarding the cultural heritage to prevent

cities and urban-dwellers from losing their

sense of history and identity. Technical

Cooperation refurbishes and revitalizes

historic districts and fosters resilient

cultural traditions at the same time. This

gives the districts a sharper profile and

improves the quality of life for the resi-

dents, because the cultural heritage fig-

ures as an important element in today's

city-dwellers sense of identity and in

social and cultural cohesion. This holds

all the more at a time when standard

methods of construction and use, ruth-

less modernization, dilapidation or over-

exploitation threaten to deface or even

completely obliterate the cultural heritage.

Many historic cities also play an impor-

tant part in national identity.

The integrative project approach

also takes account of tourism, which

often promotes local, regional and even

national economic development in turn.

Because renovating old buildings is far

more labour-intensive than building new

houses, it contributes to employment.

Small and medium-sized local enterprisesbenefit in particular from the demand

generated in the building sector.

By European standards, Germany

has the best record in rehabilitating and

revitalizing historic cities. Nowhere else

have more old cities and residential

districts been professionally renovated

to preserve their historical character since

the end of the nineties than in the new

German federal states. Combined with

the project approach of integrated urban

and historic city development devised

by GTZ, this experience provides useful

input for urban renewal projects. GTZ

has taken a pioneering role here, as

confirmed by UNESCO. The experience

gained will be harnessed for future

projects in urban and historic city devel-

opment.

Parallel institutionsDespite these successful projects, city

managers and development experts

have still not fully grasped the connection

between culture and development. In

institutional terms, these two aspects are

also still leading parallel lives in interna-

tional cooperation. In Germany too, where

the cultural sector in the conventional

sense is an intervention prerogative of the

Federal Foreign Office, the activity area

of harnessing cultural heritage for urban

development and the related project

types such as sustainable urban renewal

or historic city renovation are new in

Development Cooperation, and the notion

of culture is also acquiring broader

connotations in German development

assistance. Treating culture as an asset

transcends the so-called socioculturalframework in the partner countries, which

we have so far tried to understand, cater

for and possibly change.

With a better understanding of the

role of culture and through new partner-

Dealing with the cultural identityof our partners in a professionalway has long been acknowl-edged as an important factor inDevelopment Cooperation.Upholding tradition in combinationwith necessary modernization isan innovative way of addressingthe issue of culture in urban

development.

Heritageas an asset

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11

ships, culture can be assimilated more

in urban development. Culture should be

integrated more closely into project work

even if the culture sector is still not a

classic GTZ activity area. A more profes-

sional approach to the cultural identity

of partners in project work has long been

a called for. Specifically strengthening

this cultural identity can help to combine

the desire to keep traditions alive with the

need for modernization in urban develop-

ment. This is just what Christina Weiss,

the German Minister of State for Culture

and Media thinks: We cannot base ourlives solely on what we think is efficient.

Workshop 2Development withoutculture or culture-drivenurban development?We breathe more easily in the city. Just

a clich? Not at all. The city embodies

lifestyle, emancipation, democracy and

participation, said Christoph Beier, GTZ

Director General for the Mediterranean

Region, Europe and Central Asian Coun-

tries, at the start of the workshop Cul-

ture-driven urban development at the

Eschborn Dialogue, adding that the hall-

marks of the urban lifestyle were also

developmental goals. There was a link

between good cultural synergies and

good development paths.

The workshop panel discussion asked

what priorities the Federal Foreign Office

(AA) in Berlin, which is responsible for

cultural cooperation, and GTZ should set

and how culture could advance urban

development. The resources for cultural

development abroad are meagre, less

than two million euros a year, said Hans

Jochen Schmidt, Head of the Culture and

Education Division at the AA. Support so

far, he said, had included a symposium

on urban development in Kenya and a

cultural heritage event in St. Petersburg.

The cooperation envisaged with the

German Academic Exchange Service

and the Goethe Institutes would harness

synergies in cultural activities, given the

shortage of funds. The AA wanted toenlist the support of the private sector

as a cultural partner too. Schmidt also

advocated stepping up cooperation with

the State Minister for Culture and Media

and the cultural foundations for Eastern

Europe.

Everyday life in a monumentFinally, Steffen Mildner made a link from

the mother of all GTZs urban projects

in Bhaktapur/Nepal, which aimed solely

at preserving historical monuments, to

integrated urban and historic city devel-

opment. Thanks to many parallels, this

approach had been able to learn from

the upgrading projects for marginal urban

districts, which the World Bank describes

as one of its most successful project

types, said the head of the GTZ team

in the project to redevelop the historic

Romanian city of Sibiu/Hermannstadt.

The integrated historic city and urban

development project sought to harness

the cultural heritage of the old part of the

city and the lifestyle of the residents as

a development factor. Renewing historic

cities went hand in hand with revitalizing

economic and social life. Mildner: Pre-

serving historic cities is not a luxury, it is

about income generation and economic

development.

However, life in historic cities is

only one of many cultural messages a

city communicates, said the internation-

ally renowned cultural expert Charles

Landry. The many urban elements taught

us to see the city as a living synthesis

of the arts. The urban milieu coloured

the emotional life of the residents who

identified themselves with it and then

translated this feeling into creative

activity. Drawing on his project experi-

ence in Egypt, Omar Akbar, Director

of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation,

added: Alliances of culture, business

and tourism fit into this scenario.

The panel then suggested finding

a pragmatic way for AA as a cultural

partner and BMZ as a development part-

ner to work together, because as the

workshop revealed, culture and urban

development were inseparable from each

other. Competencies for culture and

Development Cooperation should there-

fore be merged. More room should be

given in projects and programmes to

experiments with urban subculture. GTZ

Director General Christoph Beier: We

must be more receptive and look for

interconnections now and in the future.

Hans-Jochen Schmidt, Head of

Culture and Education Divisionat the Federal Foreign Office

Steffen Mildner, GTZ staffmember in Romania

Cornelia Dmcke, Managing

Director of Culture Concepts

Christoph Beier, GTZ DirectorGeneral for the MediterraneanRegion, Europe and Central

Asian Countries

Omar Akbar, Director of theBauhaus Dessau Foundation

Irene Wiese-von Ofen,IFHP


12/28

Cities are pillars of economic growth and

at the same time battlefields in the war

against poverty. They play a pivotal role

in both: for the economic development

of entire countries and for the reduction

of poverty at home. Achieving the Millen-

nium Development Goals set by the inter-

national community therefore depends

on whether populous cities meet their

great economic and social responsibility.

Development Cooperation supports the

municipalities on the way to viable and

sustainable development and helps close

the gap between rich and poor.

The most challenging task is to pro-

vide the population with public services

and involve poor people in economic life.

This is compounded by the enormous

attraction that cities exert on people,

despite all the municipal problems. So

cities will have to perform a balancing

act. They have to improve their locational

advantages to attract new businesses

and at the same time they need a pro-

poor economic development policy to

offer income opportunities and services

to the poor. The job of Technical Cooper-

ation on behalf of BMZ is therefore to

bring together the urban stakeholders

with their different interests in a strategy

that aims at harnessing the strengths of

public and private partners. This strategy,

however, cannot be implemented like a

blueprint. Each city has different, oftenparallel, economic and employment

cycles.

Another aim in many developing

countries must be to use the resources of

the informal economy and integrate these

in formal economic activities. It is very

important for the cities to succeed here.

Local policy must also promote the inter-

national competitiveness of the local

economy. Effective incentives are needed

to get international companies to invest.

Small and medium-sized enterprises also

have specific needs that the city must

cater for. To improve the competitiveness

of cities through joint efforts, functional

mechanisms for dialogue and coordina-

tion are required. These have to be put

into place. When doing this, care must be

taken to ensure that underprivileged sec-

tions of the population also have a say

in municipal decision-making processes.

For Technical Cooperation, it is important

that as many people as possible can

participate in the opportunities afforded

by urban development.

Development Cooperation assists the

municipalities in setting the right frame-

work to meet all the different demands

as the basis for broad economic develop-

ment. The GTZ advisers contribute to

improving the business and investment

climate, administrative procedures and

regulations. They develop institutional

and operational capacities, improve quali-

fications and help micro and small enter-

prises gain access to credit. As the GTZ

portfolio shows, policy strategies to

promote economic growth in cities must

cover a very broad range of concerns andbe carefully planned. This is the only way

to ensure that cities develop with the par-

ticipation of underprivileged groups and

do not lag behind international develop-

ments. Technical Cooperation also takes

account of globalization in this. Efficient

city managers can build bridges between

global players and their municipalities.

Different starting conditions inevitably

lead to disparities in and between cities

of different sizes. Economic and social

life diversifies. Municipalities must also be

able to keep pace with these processes

to remain effective.

Private sector as partnerThere are more questions to answer. How

can cities supply drinking water, transport

infrastructure, educational facilities or

hospitals in view of rapid population

growth and the shortage of public funds?

How can they meet the growing demand

for investments, innovations and know-

how? For a long time, privatization was

regarded as the universal remedy for fi-

nancing urban infrastructure and services.

The wave of privatizations in the 1990s

showed, however, that trickle-down

effects and getting the prices right

are not enough to meet the challenges.

Current experience in urban development

approaches in different regional settings

enable us to give more discriminate

answers to these questions. On account

of efficiency gains and capital resources,

privatization approaches still figure in

development strategies.

GTZ is committed to the vision of

sustainable urban development. To putthis vision into practice, a systemic pro-

cedure is needed that includes different

stakeholders, and economic, ecological

and social negotiating processes that

give shape to the local future and institu-

Balancing actbetween boomand poverty

12

The cities in the partner countrieshave to perform a balancing act.Keen locational competition andeconomic development that tack-les poverty must be reconciled ina joint development strategy. GTZmakes its contribution to placing

the alliance on as broad a footingas possible.


13/28

tionalize innovations. To this end, the GTZ

teams and their project partners cooper-

ate with public, private-sector and civil

society players and promote municipal

self-administration capabilities in keeping

with the principles of good governance.

Workshop 3Poor rich city betweeneconomic growth andfinancial crisisWhen experts talk about involving the

private sector in municipal services, water

inevitably takes centre stage. This is also

what happened at the Eschborn Dialogue

2005 workshop Poor rich city, where

this issue dominated the first part of the

session. The second part turned its atten-

tion to urban economic development be-

tween poverty reduction and international

competition. The rsum by Oliver Haas

on GTZ's work in the activity area initia-

tive Urban Development Asia holds for

both theme clusters: Our advisers must

help municipalities to create a conducive

business climate to induce enterprises

to locate and invest in infrastructure and

new jobs.

Reporting on experience gained by

RWE Thames Water in Jakarta, Ulrike

Ebert made a statement that ran like a

continuing theme through the discussion:

Unmanageable risks deter investors.

Manfred Konukiewitz, Head of the BMZ

Water, Energy and Urban Development

Division, assessed the disastrous situa-

tion as a clear case of government failure,

because 97 per cent of the water supply

in developing countries was organized by

the public sector a clear indicator of the

unattractive climate for private participa-

tion. Through efficient management and

commercial finance, private-sector partic-

ipation could contribute to affordable and

efficient supply.

In the debate, the speakers pointed

to the need for cooperation between

public, private and civic agencies. Citing

experience gained by the GTZ Regional

Team for South America, Barbara Hess

added that the security situation played

a role in the business climate, but shealso pointed to affirmative examples.

Bogot had succeeded in organizing fi-

nances, redeveloping districts and setting

up supervisory authorities, resulting in a

distinct rise in private investments. When

a city lacks credit standing, GTZ can

liaise as an honest broker between the

municipal authority, industry and banks,

said Herwig Mayer, GTZ adviser in Manila

Metro, and Florian Steinberg from ADB

Housing and Urban Development added:

National financial sector development is

essential for the water supply.

A balancing actThe second big question in the workshop

was: how can cities manage the balancing

act between local and pro-poor economic

development and global competition for

international enterprises? Mattias Bhle

provided some insights into economic

development and locational policy in theHanover region. The head of the GTZ

Economic and Employment Promotion

Division dealt in particular detail with the

role of cluster management in setting

up businesses. Stephan Weiss from the

German Centre for Industry and Trade

in Singapore gave an account of how

Singapore, Shanghai, Bangkok and Seoul

were vying for international investors.

In response to competition, Singapore

had cut capital gains tax and set up three

institutes for economic development.

Finally, there was the question of

what role Development Cooperation

could play in framing competitive urban

locational policy. The prime aim here

must be to create a favourable investment

climate through a pro-business institu-

tional environment. This could also con-tribute a lot to poverty reduction in the

view of Manfred Konukiewitz, not least

when bringing informal enterprises into

the formal sector.

13

Florian Steinberg,Asian Development Bank

Gnter Dresrsse, GTZ

Ulrike Ebert,RWE Thames Water

Manfred Konukiewitz, BMZ


14/28

14

The cities are growing fast and so is the

everyday insecurity of their residents in all

walks of life. The needier sections of the

population are afflicted by job insecurity,

ill health, anxieties about their children's

future, domestic violence and the danger

of sliding into absolute poverty. The slums

and illegal settlements on the outskirts

lack electricity, water, sewage systems

and basic social services. The social

security facilities cannot be built fast

enough to keep pace with the speed of

urban growth. Fatalism, conflicts, violence

and crime are on the increase. Those who

can, afford to live in fortified enclaves

and pay for their own security them-

selves, because it hardly exists any more

as a public good. Municipalities seeking

to cope with the myriad of insecurity

factors cannot manage without integrated

approaches.

Thanks to their experience in various

disciplines, Technical Cooperation per-

sonnel can contribute towards making life

safer in the large cities. TC has a versatile

portfolio. In the view of GTZ advisers,

the sustainable promotion of a culture of

human security means taking the physi-

cal, psychosocial and socio-economic

dimensions into account.

A culture of human dignityThe international goal, then, is to create

political, social, ecological, economic, se-

curity and cultural systems that together

form the basis for survival and a liveli-hood in dignity. Approaches to making

life less unpredictable and insecure must

therefore address both security forces

in a city and access to basic social ser-

vices, for instance education and health

care. Basic security guards against city-

dwellers succumbing to desperation.

Maximum attention must be given to im-

proving the situation of the most vulnera-

ble sections of the population. This is the

only way to ensure sustainable security

for all city-dwellers.

Security is also unthinkable without

liberty. The urge to be free of fear is as

real as the desire to be free from priva-

tion. Another important facet of security

is the freedom to stand up for ones own

interests. So a feeling of security can

only thrive in a city when participation

and empowerment are accorded their

due place in public life. People must be

enabled to uphold their interests in social

conflicts and take part in decisions. This

is why GTZ promotes democratic institu-

tions to involve urban citizens in munici-

pal processes.

Integrated approachesGTZ teams promote integrated and inter-

disciplinary approaches applying the

principle of participation in many bilateral

development projects worldwide. Devel-

opment experts in South Africa combine

conflict management in urban centres

with youth promotion. As community

peace workers, young unemployed men

and women cooperate with the police to

curb violence in the townships. An inte-

gral component of this project is promot-

ing training and employment to improve

the job prospects of the communitypeace workers. This has a dual effect:

more security and social stability in low-

income districts.

The keystone in Mozambique was

basic security. GTZ advised its partners

on setting up a social welfare system

for poor households whose employment

prospects were so bleak as to threaten

their survival. As part of a World Bank

project, the development organization

explored the proposition that regular cash

payments to poor households could

make a decisive, broad and sustainable

contribution to poverty reduction.

Disaster risk management is the cen-

tral security concern in Indonesia. With

a programme for decentralization and im-

proving urban services, GTZ contributes

to enabling the municipalities to cope

with extreme natural disasters on their

own in future. The findings of a risk

analysis are discussed with all decision-

makers at local level. GTZ helps the local

authorities to integrate aspects of disaster

risk management into development plan-

ning. Risk maps contribute to protecting

people through appropriate regional

planning and preventing damage to infra-

structure. This too is an aspect of sus-

tainable security in cities, where earth-

quakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides

and floods usually cause most harm to

poor people.

Prevention is also the maxim in Latin

America and in New Delhi. With support

from GTZ, city and municipal authorities

in four countries of the continent of South

America are drawing up their own local

security agendas. For two years now, a

multisectoral round table in New Delhi

has been working on integrated addictionprevention. In the New Delhi City Action

Plan on Drugs, city policymakers have

now developed a strategy to give particu-

larly underprivileged poor sections of the

population more protection and security.

Mattersof securitySecurity in many cities is nolonger a public good. The lackof structures coupled withviolence born of desperation,are plunging urban areas intocrisis. Municipalities seekingto cope with this insecurity can-not manage without integratedapproaches.


15/28

In the face of the many different urban

problems, GTZs contribution may seem

modest. Nevertheless, these projects and

programme components represent good

practices for dealing with the problem

of insecurity in cities. They provide proto-

type solutions which are then available

for broader application.

Workshop 4

City worth living in security and rights for all

Security means everything in peoples

conditions of life that enables them to

make use of the goods and services of

a city. This is how Peter Herrle, Head of

the Habitat Unit at the Technical Univer-

sity Berlin, summed up the core theme

of the Eschborn Dialogue 2005 workshop

City worth living in security and rights

for all. As the workshop revealed, secu-

rity as a development factor cannot be

viewed on its own, but only as part of the

total process of reshaping social relations.

The quality of the district and the

work situation affected security as much

as access to basic services did, said GTZ

staff member Rdiger Krech in his wel-

coming address to the workshop partici-

pants. Chairperson Jrg Calliess added

at the opening: The lack of prospects

and basic social security leads to socialdisparities, poverty and crime. In the

opinion of the sociologist, architect and

urban planner Peter Herrle, urban security

is based on three interconnected security

pillars: resilient core communities, a legiti-

mate monopoly over the use of force, and

a working civil society. Combining these

is the paramount concern of urban secu-

rity. This in turn presupposes the social

participation of marginalized sections of

the population as a legal right. Equal

rights exist formally in many countries but

many people lack access to them.

In his paper on social risk manage-

ment, Ronald Wiman showed that mental

needs are very high up in the pyramid

of human needs. As the Deputy Director

of the Health and Social Services Depart-

ment in STAKES and adviser to theFinnish Foreign Office observed: People

do not live to eat, they eat to live. The

idea behind modern social security was

not charity, but empowerment. Managing

social risks called for participation, but

above all a vision of a society and a city

that was there for everyone. This scenario

also included disaster risk management.

Disasters usually strike cities harder than

rural regions, said Thomas Loster, Man-

aging Director of the Munich Re Founda-

tion. GTZ could use the knowledge of the

insurance sector in public-private partner-

ships to conduct risk analyses and iden-

tify the hot spots in the cities. Strategic

dialogue amongst politicians, the private

sector, civil society and city authorities

was still far too rare.

Feeling safeIn addition to the two expert speakers,

two interviews conducted by chairpersonJrg Calliess provided food for thought

in the workshop. In one interview, Klaus-

Peter Stender, the Coordinator of the

German Healthy Cities Network, ex-

plained the security factor in municipal

health promotion in the city of Hamburg.

Municipalities worldwide could learn

from the network initiated by WHO in the

mid-eighties, as Klemens Hubert, GTZ

Country Director South Africa explained

with reference to the peace and develop-

ment projects in the townships of Preto-

ria. In cooperation with the police, groups

of young peace workers prevent conflicts

and arbitrate in disputes. Dovetailed with

social security, housing construction and

health, this community policing approach

could definitely be applied in other

cities as well, because to be successful,security projects must always be social

projects, as the workshop established.

15

Klemens Hubert,GTZ South Africa

Jrg Callie, ModeratorEvang. Akademie Loccum

Ronald Wiman,Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Klaus-Peter Stender,Healthy Cities Network

Peter Herrle, TU Berlin


16/28

16

A new era has dawned in many city and

municipal halls in our partner countries.

Greater democracy, political pluralism and

deregulation call for a new notion of gov-

ernance and administration at local level.

Local decision-makers need to learn good

urban governance. To apply these princi-

ples, though, cities, business and industry

and citizens must often familiarize them-

selves with their new roles. GTZ supports

municipalities in this difficult process.

In the last 15 years, cities in the transi-

tion and developing countries have ac-

quired increasing powers to run their own

affairs in an economical, efficient, trans-

parent, accountable and participatory way.

Many governments have delegated politi-

cal decision-making powers and allocated

financial resources from the national to

the local and regional level and introduced

institutional reforms, new laws and new

forms of participation. New social and

civic movements have gained a voice,

women's associations, and environmental

and human rights groups, for example.

To be able to provide the services formerly

rendered by the public sector, there is a

general search for new ways to involve the

private sector and civil society. Many cities

are engaged in global competition for in-

vestors and highly qualified personnel. At

the same time, cities are having to cooper-

ate more closely and build up networks

worldwide to be able to cope with their

pressing problems: economic ties are being

severed, the social fabric is breaking down,broad strata are excluded from social and

political participation, there is mounting

insecurity and crime is on the rise.

To keep cities manageable and worth

living in under these difficult conditions,

those responsible in cities and munici-

palities must learn to steer developments,

reconcile divergent interests and settle

conflicts. This is not just about good will;

it is also about power and how to use it.

Many stakeholders are vying to gain

advantages and influence in the urban

development arena, established organi-

zations, informal institutions or loose

alliances in politics, administration, civil

society and industry. Government authori-

ties, societies, associations, NGOs, enter-

prises, trade unions and religious groups

pursue specific interests, stand in different

power relations to each other, and want

to have a say in decisions on allocating

resources. All these, however, must play

a part in the political consensus and take

on responsibility for their municipalities at

the same time. Their participation can mo-

bilize additional resources, provided that

knowledge, finances and competencies

are activated and harnessed for a purpose.

Urban governance also means reor-

ganizing the way services are provided

to citizens. The redevelopment of informal

settlements, municipal services in water,

energy, wastes and security, and partici-

patory development planning, land

management, integrated environmental

management and local economic devel-

opment will only work in the long run if

they are institutionalized. City authorities

and administrations are not the only ones

that have to enhance their capacities.

Administrative bodies, residents' associa-tions, committees and operator organiza-

tions also need to take on responsibility

and prepare to perform new tasks, be-

cause their capabilities are crucial to

finding lasting solutions to the problems.

Political managementGTZ provides advisory services for indi-

vidual fields of activity in municipal and

urban development and also for general

policy management. Its experts assist

local politicians, administrative personnel

and municipal associations in drafting

policy guidelines for development in and

around cities, modernizing administration

and raising their efficiency and trans-

parency. They motivate urban stakehold-

ers to cooperate, to broker processes of

consensus and civic participation, to help

in finding constructive ways of settling

conflicts of interest and to promote new

forms of public-private partnerships.

Good urban governance in the field,

however, can only reach its full potential

if competencies in the municipalities

are demarcated and sufficient financial

resources are made available. All this

must be organized at national level, with

a democratic, decentralized government

apparatus, a fair tax system, dependable

legal provisions and professional and

adequately paid public servants. GTZ

provides advice for this as well.

A hallmark of cities is the concen-

tration of power and decision-making

authority, which stretches even beyond

city boundaries. The impetus for nation-

wide reforms often comes from the

cities. Good urban governance cannot

be practised in one city alone, so cities

are catalysts of social change. GTZ

therefore sees urban governance as acontribution to political and social reform

and as a path to democracy.

Governanceby rulesThe problems in cities are asmultifarious as urban life itself.Many politicians and citizensstill need to learn how to applythe yardsticks of good urbangovernance to developing theirmunicipalities. This is not justabout good will; it is also aboutpower and how to use it.


17/28

Workshop 5Urban governance howdo cities stay manageable?

Entitled Urban governance, this EFTA

workshop addressed a theme with many

different facets. That is why Bernd Hoff-

mann, GTZ Director for Governance and

Democracy, was looking for a definition

at the start. The transparent interaction

of government, business and industry

and civil society coupled with integrity,

efficiency and the responsible exerciseof power is the mix his guest experts

thought defined good urban governance.

A key paper, two panels and numerous

contributions from the plenum closed in

on each facet through the lens of Devel-

opment Cooperation.

Major developments are already tak-

ing place at the local level, said Marga

Prhl, Head of the Directorate General

for Administrative Modernization at the

Federal German Ministry of the Interior,

in her opening paper, and posed the

question of what nation states can do at

all for urban development. Modernizing

individual administrations was not

enough to do justice to the role of the

cities. All municipal stakeholders needed

to interact to achieve sustainable urban

development, she said, and outlined a

management scenario for good local gov-

ernance (GLG). A very lively discussion

then ensued on how to initiate and pro-

mote GLG.

Local dialoguesCan urban development be effectively

linked with national poverty reduction

strategies? was one of the questions

chairperson Bernd Hoffmann then posed

to Sheela Patel. In her answer, the NGO

representative and member of the Policy

Advisory Board at Cities Alliance pin-

pointed the deficits. Consultants from

the North usually lack the urban focus

for poverty reduction, she said, based

on her experience as a member of the

NGO SPARC for social justice in Mumbai,

India. Development cooperation could

help NGOs to enter into dialogue with

urban authorities and bring people into

contact with public agencies and politi-

cians. GTZ staff member Hans ChristianVoigt stressed the importance of knowl-

edge exchange and described the role

of urban governance in Africa. The GTZ

saw its job as liaising between municipal

office-holders and those without power.

There was clear agreement in South

Africa on the need for government to in-

volve civil society, according to GTZ staff

member Franois Mengul, referring

to the South African government pro-

gramme Urban Renewal. GTZ consult-

ants helped to develop overarching

strategies for urban development. Men-

gul: National strategies must be given

a local face.

For Hela Hinrichs, a representative

of the multinational real estate company

Jones Lang LaSalle, integrity, efficiency

and transparency were the criteria for

measuring sustainable urban manage-

ment. In her view one of the best places

to find so-called winning cities was in

China. Cities in this country had their

own budgetary powers, sought out pri-

vate development partners and mobilized

private capital for urban development,

she said. Investors should be able to

co-shape the profile of a city. Hans Dem-

bowski, Chief Editor of the magazine

Development and Cooperation (D+C),

concentrated on access to information

and agreed with the workshop's con-

clusion that Development Cooperation

can contribute to establishing local

responsibility and a municipal consensus

by promoting dialogue amongst all urban

stakeholders at a horizontal and vertical

level.

17

Hans Dembowski,Chief Editor of D+C

Hela Hinrichs,Jones Lang LaSalle

Marga Prhl, Deputy Director GeneralGerman Federal Ministry of the Interior

Francois-Nestor Mengul,GTZ staff member in South

Africa

Hans-Christian Voigt,GTZ staff member in Cairo


18/28

18

A city is an organism and, like any living

creature, it cannot survive without a

metabolism. In many places, though, this

process is veering off-balance. Unbridled

growth, air pollution, waste heaps, traffic

gridlock, slums and lack of access to

the services of an urban infrastructure

are all symptoms indicating that the city

organism is seriously ill in many places.

The treatment for cities and their resi-

dents is socially, economically and eco-

logically balanced and efficiently organ-

ized urbanization. The ecocity strategy

supports efforts for ecological and sus-

tainable urban development.

To be able to carry the prefix eco,

a city must improve the conditions of life

for its residents particularly the poor

and protect the environment. Waste is

controlled, and transport and air pollution

is reduced with an ecological mobility

scheme. The enterprises in the ecological

model city must use technologies that

protect the environment and conservenatural resources. Ecocities also have

a political component: the residents

are involved in urban development, the

surrounding countryside is included and

land use is planned.

Small and big solutions

GTZ advisers in urban ecology want tokeep the metabolism between cities and

their environments healthy in the long

term and make the cities worth living in.

Their integrated approaches in urban

development work on both a small scale

and a large scale. Technical Cooperation

promotes sustainable land use, infra-

structure planning and management,

and the organization of environmental

processes. Along with solid waste dis-

posal, air-pollution control and transport,

this also includes the energy and water

supply, sewage disposal, water pollution

control, energy-saving building methods

and municipal trade supervision. GTZ of-

fers concepts, implementation strategies,

methods and instruments for the whole

city and its sectors that also meet ecocity

standards. The development agency's

integrated municipal environmental

management comprises environmental

information systems, environmental moni-

toring and ecobudgeting. GTZ advice

in ecological construction and housing

takes account of building materials and

technologies, supply systems and user

behaviour.

Another important item in the Techni-

cal Cooperation portfolio is the interaction

between municipal and industrial environ-

mental management. Development ex-

perts can draw on extensive experience

in managing industrial estates. They

support their partners in installing supply

and disposal systems, using resources

efficiently, reducing emissions and im-

proving accident management. The urbanauthorities and administrations benefit

from GTZ's experience in building func-

tional infrastructure and learn how to

provide the related municipal services to

all sections of the population in keeping

with their economic, ecological and social

responsibility.Policy and legal provisions as well as

the institutional and regulatory framework

also play an important role in the ecocity

approach. Based on them, GTZ advisers

apply their management instruments,

provide technical advice for appropriate

technologies and strengthen operational

competency. Technical Cooperation at-

taches great importance to enlisting the

support of the private sector for ecocity

objectives, animating citizens to con-

tribute to their city's future and initiating

cooperation with the private sector, with

chambers, associations, educational

establishments and NGOs. Including the

informal sector is a strategic factor in

urban development.

Chinas experienceThe ecocity approach has now taken

practical shape in two-million-strong

cities in the East Chinese coastal

province of Jinagsu: Yangzhou and

Changzhou. On the way to becoming

ecocities, both metropolises want to

reduce environmental pollution, introduce

better environmental management and

cater more for ecological concerns in

their municipal development plans. On

behalf of BMZ, GTZ advisers support

these cities' efforts and those of the

Chinese Ministry of the Environment

in implementing a suitable programme.

The project teams work directly in the

municipal authorities.

One of their tasks is to find ways to

modernize building structure in line withenvironmental standards to preserve the

organic social fabric. With its one million

inhabitants, Yangzhou has taken a differ-

ent path from many other booming cities

in China, where entire historic districts

UrbanecomodelsUrban centres often pollutethe environment badly andoverexploit resources. Moreand more metropolises aredoing something about this byapplying the ecocity principle.GTZ process advisers arehelping them. The prototypeswill then be transferred toother regions.


19/28

have been ruthlessly demolished. It is

national policy to observe old architectural

styles and standards but shopping cen-

tres and gigantic tower flats are sprouting

up everywhere. Yangzhou was, in con-

trast, one of the first cities in China to

draw up a plan with scientists for the

ecocity scheme drafted by the national

environment authority at the end of the

nineties. Within three years, the public

parks had already expanded by around

two-thirds to cover an area equivalent to

about 750 football fields. Production is

becoming cleaner all the time. Enterprisessubscribe to the precepts of corporate

environmental management.

The prototypes developed by the

ecocity projects will then be transferred

to other regions.

Workshop 6Ecocities

the places of the future?Bogot before and after. The presentation

showed how it had changed: the ecocity.

In Bogot, public places have been

replanned for the benefit of residents,

pedestrians, children and public transport

passengers, but the ecocity is not just

a single idea, it embraces many visions

which share outcomes, as Ulrike Weiland

from the University of Leipzig pointed out,

providing a lucid definition of the kind of

city the EFTA workshop, Ecocities the

places of the future, envisaged.

The specialist discussion did not look

like agreeing on a common definition at

first, however. What Ashok Khosla from

India had to say about tomorrow's cities

sounded more like a plea for the country.

Citing the billion people living in slums,

the President of the New Delhi NGO,

Development Alternatives, advocated

reversing rural-urban migration. Planning

for the future meant developing the

hinterland of the cities. A possible city

of the future could be a conglomerateof settlements linked by transport routes.

Khosla called this development trans-

forming villages into a social city. Two

major steps in this direction were plan-

ning in advance and changing ecological

footprints. So Khosla's idea of the future

city turned out to have lot in common

with the way Konrad Otto-Zimmermann

sees the ecocity. It is not a high-tech

idea, it is an ecosystem, said the Secre-

tary General of Local Governments for

Sustainability in Canada. In conversation

with chairperson Stephan Paulus, both

experts then discussed the ecobudget

approach. Pilot projects in India and in

the Philippines had already applied this

method, which turned mayors and man-

agers into custodians of natural resources

and kept a permanent eye on the environ-ment. The ecobudget module could be

tailored to the needs of any developing

country, Zimmermann said.

Practical approachesEcocities in this sense did not yet exist in

the PR China, said Rusong Wang of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences. The head

of the Chinese think tank described his

homeland as a country where the econ-

omy is the predominating driving force.

This is why we must make special efforts

to promote environmental protection,

he argued. Only the megacities Yangzhou

and Changzhou wanted to develop as

ecocities. Traffic planner Karin Rossmark,

GTZ staff member Detlev Ullrich and

Raghu Babu of the GTZ-ASEM project

presented three more ecocity approaches

promoted by Technical Cooperation in the

workshop: traffic abatement in the his-

toric city of Sibiu in Romania, sustainableurban development in Brazil by recycling

unused areas and the ecocity programme

in India. A video showing Brazilian chil-

dren talking about their dream city of the

future and a photo exhibition about life

on a refuse dump in Cuernavaca Mexico

left a vivid impression.

Promoting and exchanging experi-

ence and knowledge of the ecocity idea

and showing the world how it works.

This is how the Brazilian GTZ staff mem-

ber Francisco Alarcn summarized the

tasks of Development Cooperation for

ecocities. To be successful, this process

required measures to build the confidence

of stakeholders, transparency and the

resolve to put the idea into practice. All

the experts agreed: It's all about govern-

ance, about putting people in charge.

19

Stephan Paulus,GTZ Deputy Director, Environmentand Infrastructure

Konrad Otto-Zimmermann,Secretary-General ICLEI

Rusong Wang, ChineseAcademy of Sciences

Ashok Khosla,Development Alternatives


20/28

20

The connection between town and

country is very important at a time when

almost half of the worlds population

already lives in cities and towns. A good

connection is useful for both sides, for

the urban and for the rural population.

Municipal decision-makers have recog-

nized that the urban periphery is inter-

secting more with the centre. Poor house-

holds in particular earn a livelihood by

commuting. Policymakers must secure

their diverse livelihoods. Poor people's

mobility and willingness to migrate should

bring them more advantages than disad-

vantages. To support the municipalities,

Development Cooperation must not di-

vorce urban from rural sectoral strategies.

There are many ways for Technical

Cooperation to support urban-rural

interaction. GTZ promotes infrastructure,

strengthens institutions and service

providers and secures the transfer of

resources. Development experts also

help to cement the social fabric and

advise on developing and extending

shared capacity.

Urban infrastructure depends on rural

resources, particularly for water supply

and settlement areas. Conversely, rural

infrastructure development benefits from

the electricity generated in cities and

towns, from the markets and transport

facilities. Institutions are very important

for expediting development activities.

If they are planned separately for urbanand rural areas, there is a danger of them

hindering each others policies. Services,

particularly modern ones, often start

developing in urban regions. Most service

companies, banks for example, soon

expand into rural areas to increase

business.

The urban and rural populations

also support each other via markets and

other exchange relations, ranging from

seasonal workers to goods and services.

Improved income opportunities through

urban growth result in remittances to

relatives in the country. This raises the

standard of living of the population in

rural areas, which serve as social and

ecological refuges, especially in times of

economic hardship. The transfer of funds

is also an indication of where newcomers

to the city see their social and cultural

home and of their desire to retain their

social and family ties in the country.

Development Cooperation contributes

to organizing these interrelations so as

to promote development.

Shared basic needsThe main good, however, that connects

urban and rural areas is food. Low-in-

come households spend a major part of

their income on food, but how can food

prices be kept low for city dwellers with-

out detriment to the livelihoods of rural

producers? A strategic element that ben-

efits both sides is improving access to

the urban food markets. A more effective

linkage between urban food demand and

production in the surrounding countryside

improves the incomes of the farmers and

affords poor people in urban centres anopportunity to find work processing and

trading locally produced food.

One factor disrupting the continuous

flow between town and country lies in

the changing preferences of urban con-

sumers over time. Globalized markets

underpin this trend. Supermarkets put

rural producers at a disadvantage. Be-

cause smallholders cannot meet the strict

quality standards for food, goods are

imported, which in turn breaks the tradi-

tional links between town and country.

This is why GTZ supports input suppliers,

traders, processors and exporters in

complying with the new quality standards

on national and international markets.

Stable local supply chains restore the

broken urban-rural link.

Development strategies must also

account for the international deregulation

of trade and new production locations

that are redefining urban-rural relations

in some regions. That is why integrating

local development strategies in national

planning is so important. The interventions

must be tailored to local requirements.

Both geographical and sectoral devel-

opment strategies must fit. Synergies

between urban enterprises and rural

producers are key for speeding up local

economic development and poverty

reduction. These local economic devel-

opment strategies are gaining increasing

acceptance amongst decision-makers.

The successful implementation of

programmes depends on a careful analy-

sis of the strengths and weaknesses of

the locality and the actors. A suitable

instrument for this is the analytical frame-

work, Rural and Economic EnterpriseDevelopment (REED) developed by GTZ

with other development institutions. It is

the culmination of 20 years of experience

from a large number of projects in sectoral

and regional development strategies.

Transferbetween cityand hinterlandThe trend is towards the city,but this does not mean severingties with the country. Peopledepend on each other on bothsides. The urban-rural connectionis of mutual benefit. GTZ appliestranslocal and multisectoral

strategies for this.


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Workshop 7Town and country connections create benefits

What is urban? What is rural? Those who

came to the workshop Town and country

connections create benefits with a

pretty clear idea about this soon learnt

that rural is impossible to define exactly.

The closest we can get, according to

Peter Conze, GTZ Director General for

Africa, in his opening speech, is that in

rural areas settlements and infrastructuretake up a small area and fields, meadows,

woods, water, mountains and deserts

predominate. Where do such distinctions

get us, though, considering the many hy-

brid forms of urban and rural? The answer

given by James Garrett, an expert from

the International Food Policy Research

Institute, was: A strict separation makes

no sense, if employment and social ties

in the whole area shape the lives of the

people in it.

In his opinion, a systemic look at the

livelihoods system told us far more about

how things developed. In Mozambique

for example, half of the urban activities

had a bearing on agriculture. The corol-

lary was that Sustainable development

in urban areas depends on the connec-

tion with rural areas. Relations of ex-

change therefore need to be promoted.

Heino von Bassewitz thought that devel-

oping marketing chains for farm productsalso afforded development opportunities

for both regions. Now that guaranteed

prices and purchasing systems through

government regulation had been rolled

back, producers would have to be able

to meet the various needs of urban con-

sumers, said the manager of Biopark,

one of the leading suppliers of eco-certi-

fied food in Germany. A suitable instru-

ment for promoting regional economic

ties based on locally produced products

was the value-added chain approach.

Balancing interestsGladys Maingi, the representative of the

Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya, explained

what must be done so that urban and

rural areas both benefit. An example of

diverging interests that she cited was thaturban consumers were looking for quality

at a reasonable price and producers

wanted an adequate income. Farmers

should be able to serve the market under

reliable conditions. The influence of car-

tels at the wholesale level was harmful

to competition. Small producers should

organize and train themselves to be able

to cope with the logistics of urban markets

and meet quality standards. Gerhard Mai

then pinpointed an impediment for joint

urban and regional planning. Urban

planners care mainly about infrastructure

and neglect economic relations. Rural

area planners, in contrast, often ignore

urban markets, was the GTZ policy

advisers criticism. He then gave an

account of how things could be done

differently, as in Ethiopia. The poor need

to be supported in putting their produc-

tive resources to use on the market

instead of letting them go to waste, saidStefan Helming, GTZ Director General

for Planning and Development. National

development strategies ought not to treat

rural areas as a leftover in the equation.

What was needed besides investments

in infrastructure, health and educationwere land reforms and better access to

technologies and research.

At the end, the workshop agreed

that GTZ must promote strategies for a

bal

Designing Tomorrow's Cities. Eschborn Dialogue 2005

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