Global change as a behavioral problem – “Bottom-up” approaches – LOCALAGENDA21 initiatives – Par-ticipation culture – Public parPar-ticipation at local com-munity level – Potentials and barriers of LOCAL
AGENDA21
3.1
Importance of local-level political processes for sustainable development
Global change, as the Council has repeatedly em-phasized in its Annual Reports, is ultimately a behav-ioral problem, and the crisis of the environment is a crisis of society. Behavior relevant to global change occurs at various levels of society, from the individu-al through the family, the place of work and the locindividu-al community to national and international organiza-tions. People always act in local contexts that are spa-tially and temporally specific, and are influenced by these in turn. This applies to the causes of global change problems, as well as eradication of or adapta-tion to them. It is therefore essential to integrate measures for sustainable development into local so-ciocultural contexts and to shape them according to the specific problems and target groups concerned.
Local and regional initiatives for achieving sus-tainable development are therefore of utmost impor-tance, particularly since the top-down policymaking approach (multilateral negotiations on conventions and protocols at global level) is proving to be a stren-uous and protracted process with uncertain out-comes. Activities involving local authorities and/or local communities are particularly appropriate, be-cause at this level there is a kind of “hinge” between politicians and community interests. On the one hand, people are most likely at the community level to have opportunities to bring their interests into the policymaking process, while, on the other, it is here that they can best be shown the positive and negative impacts of their activities. Furthermore, local author-ities can play a key role in sensitizing people to sus-tainability issues. Society’s acceptance of far-reaching national and international decisions on sustainable
development is critically dependent, in turn, on such sensitization.
3.2
The Local Agenda 21 concept
AGENDA 21 stresses the importance of social groups for sustainable development. Chapter 28 re-quires local authorities to undertake a consultative process with their populations in order to reach con-sensus on a LOCALAGENDA21 for the community.
Each local authority should enter into a dialogue with its citizens, local organizations and private en-terprises in order to specify and implement a LOCAL
AGENDA21.
AGENDA21 is thus adopting a perspective that is new in international policymaking: multilateral poli-cies for sustainable development (top-down process-es such as negotiations on global conventions) must be accompanied by bottom-up approaches that ad-dress specific local problems and which actively in-volve the local community in the formulation and im-plementation of local government policies (“think globally, act locally”).A LOCALAGENDA21 (LA21) is therefore to be understood as a “participatory, multi-sectoral process to achieve the goals of AGENDA21 at the local level through the preparation and imple-mentation of a long-term, strategic action plan that addresses priority local sustainable development concerns” (ICLEI, 1997).
Many municipalities and communities setting out to implement AGENDA21 at local level, in particular the goals relating to the environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainable development, al-ready have programs in place on which they can base such activities. However, there are some differences between this process and traditional local govern-ment policymaking on environgovern-mental, economic, de-velopmental and social welfare issues that make the adoption of an LA21 program a daunting political task. The most important difference concerns the in-tegration of what are often competing policy areas to develop a cross-cutting action program guided by the
37 Local government participation in the LA21 process C 3.2.1
sustainability principle. As well as this integration of different policy fields, it is essential to involve all lo-cal stakeholders and groups with their different interests, concerns and know-how into the LA21 pro-cess, in both target-setting and the implementation of activities. The concept of communication and partici-pation at the heart of AGENDA21 goes much further in this context than traditional models for public par-ticipation in local government planning. Citizens should not only be informed and consulted, but should take an active part themselves in political de-cision-making. This requires the creation of suitable forms of consultation and consensus building. The principle of sustainable development also implies new, long-term time frames for local authority plan-ning, which runs counter to the prevailing focus on electoral periods or on short-term economic think-ing.
3.2.1
Local government participation in the LA21 process
Developing a LOCALAGENDA21 is a long-term process involving activities that are often slow to get off the ground and which have to cope with a diver-sity of problems. This explains the failure to meet the schedule laid down in AGENDA 21, according to which most local authorities in each country should have achieved a consensus on a LOCALAGENDA21 by 1996.
There is no agreement on criteria for LA21s, due not least to their specifically local character. It is proving difficult, despite the efforts of various institu-tions (ICLEI, 1996; Kuby, 1996, for the Council of Eu-ropean Municipalities and Regions; Rösler, 1996, for the German Association of Municipalities), to arrive at a clear assessment of progress in implementing Chapter 28 of AGENDA21. According to a survey car-ried out by the World Secretariat of the Internation-al Council for LocInternation-al EnvironmentInternation-al Initiatives (ICLEI), approximately 1,800 local governments in 64 countries were involved in LOCALAGENDA21 ac-tivities in 1996 (ICLEI, 1997; as a comparison, around 170 countries signed AGENDA 21). European LA21 initiatives are mostly concentrated in Great Britain, The Netherlands and Scandinavia. In Sweden, for ex-ample, virtually all local governments are in the pro-cess of developing their own LA21s, thanks to active support from the environment ministry.
Many of the local authorities working on LA21s are members of international networks. After the Rio Conference, ICLEI centered its activities on the worldwide promotion of LA21. ICLEI was also a key player in setting up the European Sustainable Cities
and Towns Campaign in 1994, an association of around 290 cities, towns and counties in Europe that have committed themselves, by signing the Aalborg Charter, to engage in LOCALAGENDA21 processes.
Towns & Development (T & D), the international North-South network of local authorities and NGOs that has led to around 2,000 partnerships based on the Berlin Charterbetween local authorities through-out the world, is similarly involved in LA21 activities.
3.2.2
LA21 activities – an international comparison Local government activities aimed at developing and implementing LA21s can utilize the specific so-ciopolitical contexts in the respective country – e.g.
the presence of a local environment authority or a
“participatory culture”. The political, legal, economic and social frameworks for LA21 processes in the var-ious countries display considerable variation. It therefore makes little sense to perform an tional comparative assessment. However, an interna-tional comparison of LA21 activities brings to light the enormous range of structures, methods and strat-egies deployed by local governments.
Almost all local authorities active in this area con-sider a policy resolution on LA21 to be an essential first step towards establishing political commitment.
The various forms of commitment range (with as-cending binding and motivational force) from the signing of the Aalborg Charter, to adoption of a LO
-CALAGENDA21 and provision of adequate funds, to the designing of a local development concept includ-ing key targets and a program of activities.
Most towns and cities assign responsibility for im-plementing LA21 to the local environment authority.
While this means a contact address within local gov-ernment, often well-motivated at that, this type of ap-proach fails to appreciate the real aim of the LA21 process, namely the integration of different issues and sectors for the preparation and implementation of an overall strategic concept. It is interesting in this context that wherever responsibility for coordination is decentralized, the process is organized in a very targeted and efficient manner.
Involving as many local stakeholders as possible from the very outset is almost impossible within ex-isting structures. Sooner or later, all active municipal-ities have established special structures for involving citizens and stakeholder groups. These include open community forums, many of which meet on a regular basis, stakeholder groups to discuss principles and targets, as well as smaller working groups and expert forums to develop more specific proposals.
38 C 3 Local government implementation of AGENDA21
Many local governments confine themselves at the beginning of LA21 processes to traditional con-sensus-building methods, such as public meetings and public awareness campaigns. In contrast, almost all cities where the process is already further advanced are working with more up-to-date and sophisticated methods like planning cells and visioning workshops, or at least with some form of professional coordina-tion.
As far as the integration of issues – the key inno-vation of AGENDA21 – is concerned, the industriized countries in particular continue to display an al-most total bias towards environmental quality. Wher-ever efforts are made to solve existing structural problems with the help of the LA21 process, eco-nomic and social criteria have been incorporated as a matter of course. Nevertheless, many cities now have focus groups or specialist forums on non-environ-mental issues, which suggests that an increasingly in-tegrated approach is being taken towards cross-cut-ting aspects.
Two main strategies can be observed regarding the translation of AGENDA21 aims to the local govern-ment level. In the first case, the primary focus is on setting development targets and developing the rele-vant indicators, so that specific activities can be suc-cessively derived or assessed. The second strategy re-lies on projects and isolated activities, without partic-ipatory processes for target-setting. The latter ap-proach may lead more quickly to visible successes, and in that sense have a motivational impact, but it easily creates an illusion that sustainable develop-ment can be achieved in the relatively short term provided one operates the right collection of meas-ures, without having to make further-reaching and ongoing changes to behavioral and decision-making patterns.
3.2.3
LA21 initiatives in Germany
According to a survey conducted by the European Secretariat of ICLEI in late 1996, only about 60–70 local governments in Germany – out of a total of more than 16,000 – are involved in developing an LA21. This would put Germany in the middle ranks on an international comparison. Other sources iden-tify as many as 200 local communities (Kuby, 1996;
Rösler, 1996), while some refer to an “outbreak” of LA21 initiatives in the second half of 1996 (de Haan et al., 1996).
In addition to local environment authorities, who mostly provide the initiative, the main actors in the German LA21 process are above all the environmen-tal and North-South NGOs, the adult education
cen-ters, and organizations affiliated to the churches. In-volving local enterprises is proving difficult in many cases. Mobilization of citizens who are not members of the groups just mentioned is similarly a problem in many local authorities.
Many German municipalities are highly active in the environmental field especially. Existing struc-tures and policies, some of which are already tradi-tional, provide an initial basis here. A hearing on LA21 before the Enquete Commission on Protection of Humanity and the Environment revealed that the activities adopted or already implemented by Ger-man municipalities with LA21 initiatives are primar-ily related to urban and transport development, ener-gy, nature conservation and public awareness cam-paigns (Enquete Commission, 1996). In contrast, however, they tend to neglect the social, develop-ment policy and economic dimensions of sustainable development. There are also shortcomings with re-gard to other key elements of LA21, such as long-term targets and public participation. Many local au-thorities (not only in Germany) wrongly believe that active policies to protect the environment are synon-ymous with the goals of a LOCALAGENDA21. When LA21 activities are assigned to the environment au-thorities, as is regularly the case, this frequently oper-ates as an obstacle to any cross-cutting approach.
Although some specific LA21 activities adopted by local governments in other countries (e.g. Great Britain, Southern Europe) are very similar to those implemented by local governments in Germany 10–15 years ago (e.g. environmental reporting, separ-ation of waste, recycling, environmental awareness-raising), these local governments are explicitly link-ing what in some cases are very young (environmen-tal) policies at local level to the new concept of LA21, thus using the opportunity to work under the Local Agenda philosophy from the very outset (long-term approach, inclusion of global aspects, partner-ships, public participation).
No local authority in German has yet managed to produce a collection of measures commanding a broad consensus in society. Most LA21 initiatives are still concerned with achieving agreement on general principles for LA21, or with analysis of the status quo in their areas in relation to these general principles (de Haan et al., 1996).
LA21s involve specific activities and procedures that are less typical nowadays in the operations of German local governments. The idea of integrated urban development, for example, was already on the agenda as far back as the 1970s. The negative experi-ences of that time, due especially to organizational shortcomings, are frequently a barrier to extensive and early involvement of stakeholders by local gov-ernments.
39 Towards sustainability with LA21 – Potentials and barriers C 3.2.4
As well as reviving the idea of citizen involvement in local community development, it is essential to promote modern forms of citizen participation, bal-ancing of interests and conflict resolution, to propa-gate them and to train those charged with coordina-tion and moderacoordina-tion of participacoordina-tion schemes. Rudi-mentary forms of citizen participation, as established so far in the German laws on planning and approval, but which have been increasingly reduced again in the recent past (the so-called procedural acceleration laws) are inappropriate models to emulate. They are biased too much towards acquiring acceptance for planned measures, and function more as a legal safe-guard than as active participation of citizens in the policymaking process.
The Scandinavian countries and The Netherlands, where environmental protection at local government level and a high degree of citizen involvement have traditional roots and are brought into LA21 process-es, provide excellent models for local authorities in Germany to emulate. Furthermore, as a comparison with Great Britain, The Netherlands and Sweden shows, a national coordination body is very helpful for disseminating information, exchanging experi-ences between local governments with LA21s, and especially for preventing duplication of labor.
3.2.4
Towards sustainability with LA21 – Potentials and barriers
The LA21 concept is especially important on ac-count of its sizable potential for achieving sustain-able development at local government level.
• For all the novelty of the concept, LA21 initiatives can build on existing policies (relating primarily to the environment in most cases), on existing com-munication links between local authorities and NGOs, on the environmental awareness and com-mitment of the population, and on any related ex-perience that has already been acquired.
• Global aims may, indeed must be linked to the concrete situation on the ground (environmental situation, labor market, locational issues, etc.) in order to arrive at a real consensus.
• At local level, most of the relevant actors are known. Responsibilities can be assigned to per-sons or groups, thus enabling the complexity of problems to be kept within certain limits at least.
• Setting up new forms of popular participation can enhance the oft-neglected social and humane components of sustainable, environmentally and socially acceptable development, and can spark off a learning process among all involved.
• “Environment and development” is becoming a
cross-sectoral challenge at local level, too, and one which takes on clear contours through LA21. This requires new criteria for planning and decision-making on the part of local governments.
• By addressing people in their specific lifestyle con-texts at local level, there is greater potential for sensitizing them to the somewhat abstract princi-ples and aims of sustainable development, and for motivating them to adopt sustainable patterns of behavior. To that extent, LA21 processes are an important channel for educating the population on environmental and development issues.
The potential strengths of LA21 are countered, however, by a whole set of barriers that can greatly impede the success of LA21 processes:
• Five years after Rio, there are still severe gaps in information among the population and public ad-ministration with respect to the basic concepts of
“AGENDA21” and “sustainable development”.
• Even at local level, the issues involved in LA21 are already of such complexity that many potential ac-tors are hampered or prevented from taking part in the process. Another aspect is that few if any ac-tors have ever learned “networked thinking” to the extent needed for the LA21 process.
• In many cases, the attempt to operationalize envi-ronment and development as cross-sectoral issues within the local context turns out to involve severe complications and cannot work without institu-tional reforms.
• All local initiatives aiming at sustainable develop-ment rely on international or national top-down processes that frequently impose a framework of critical relevance.
• The leeway open to local governments is often re-stricted in so many respects (legal, financial and human resource constraints) that ambitious goals are often followed by humble deeds. On the other hand, lack of financial resources can compel au-thorities to find creative solutions.
• Decision-makers in politics and public administra-tion often see themselves as being an upper tier compared to the general population, an attitude which makes agreement, never mind cooperation based on confidence-building and consensus, a dif-ficult enterprise. If key political personages in a community fail to give their support to the LA21 process, then the latter has little or no chance of success.
• There is a lack of experience on all sides with new forms of participation and communication, relat-ing to group dynamics or conflicts, for example, and how these can be handled.
• Taking part in the LA21 process consumes so much time and energy, especially for volunteer workers, that people are discouraged from getting
40 C 3 Local government implementation of AGENDA21
involved, or those who do are prevented from car-rying out their other tasks.
• As a rule, local government planning processes have little impact on the general public and take up considerable amounts of time. There is always a risk of plans being forgotten and – intentionally or not – winding up in a dead end.
• The prioritization of short-term as opposed to long-term planning in local government policy-making runs counter to the time scales needed for LA21.
Implementation of AGENDA21 at local level is still a very young process, the results of which will
Implementation of AGENDA21 at local level is still a very young process, the results of which will