Funding Agency
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, Canadian Partnership Branch), with counterpart funding from the Urban Management Program (UMP) Asia-Pacific.
Timeframe
1998
Geographic Focus
The project focused on two of India’s fastest growing cities, Surat ( Gujarat State) and Bangalore ( Karnataka State).
Project Partners
During 1997, the Canadian Urban Institute signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for cooperation with the Urban Management Program (UMP) Asia-Pacific. UMP is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS-Habitat) to improve urban management practices in the region and support sustainable development in urban areas. The intent of this MOA was to explore ways in which CUI/CIDA and UMP could work together on strategic urban management programs in the region, thereby finding synergies and increasing effectiveness/impact through collaboration.
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Background
The problem common to both cities of Surat and Bangalore is coping with rapid growth with limited resources. Surat has been one of India’s fastest growing industrial centres with textiles, chemical and diamond cutting as the basis of growth. The pressures arising from growth had a number of unfortunate consequences – riots in the winter of 1992-93 and an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1994. The attention resulting from these “alleged” cases of plague (there were disputes about the diagnosis and the media attention given to the topic over-exaggerated the problem) led to the city being cleaned up significantly. But many problems remained. Bangalore is a state capital and transportation hub. The city has had meteoric industrial growth since the 1980s and has been called India’s “silicon valley,” because its growth is based on the computer software industry. At one point during the past decade, the urban area was growing by as much as 600,000 people per year. The infrastructure has not kept pace with growth, resulting in water pollution, flooding and frequent power cuts.
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Project Description
The aim of the project was to initiate the process of participatory governance in both cities. The results of the work in each of these cities were different. The workshop in Surat exceeded all expectations with the City Manager, business leaders and prominent NGOs working well together to craft a program of follow-up activities. The crisis this community faced four years earlier with the plague, the entrepreneurial nature of the businesses and some recent success in addressing problems had created an environment where stakeholders were practical and cooperative. The program was agreed upon and put in place. A commitment was made by the UMP representative from New Delhi to develop a community-based strategy with priorities for action and infrastructure investment. A robust and dynamic multi-stakeholder steering committee was established to guide the development of a community-based strategic plan.
The situation in Bangalore was more complex. The workshop helped the city make progress, but government, business and NGO stakeholders could not reach agreement on a forward plan. It was therefore recommended that further efforts be made to conduct additional workshops that were broader based and that were better attended by key stakeholders, so that a process of understanding, discussion and agreement could be worked through.
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Approach
A workshop was organized in both cities. Each workshop brought together a cross section of stakeholders from all sectors of the community: city government, the business community, NGOs and the academic community. The workshops began with a discussion of the long term objectives of strengthening participatory governance and an introduction of the concept of community-based strategic planning. Different stakeholder groups then made presentations on the issues facing the city and the assembled stakeholders discussed what was necessary to address the issues. The workshop in Surat concluded with an agreed action plan for follow-up, but in Bangalore the stakeholders could not agree on the strategies. Follow-up to the workshops was provided by the UMP.
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