Last week we meet with the DGG LG advisor to discuss ways in which we could work together. The NTF of the meeting is here. The new focus of UNDP’s approach to local governance will be urban environments but not just large cities. With resilience in mind, the idea is to target fast growing cities to be able to prevent and manage the issues that the world’s developing country mega-cities are experiencing )increased poverty, slums growth, lack of public services and security, etc.)
Avoiding sectoral issues and piloting of initiatives are core part of the new approach. Instead attention is centered on systemic issues which are usually cross-cutting. In this light, the new approach will pick on areas related to poverty, governance, environment and crisis prevention, all part of UNDP’s new strategic plan.
At the meeting, I made the point that ICTs and e-governance should be included in the approach to ensure that innovation and scalability are properly addressed, etc.
After the meeting I received the draft concept note that an external consultant had prepared and which spells out in detail the proposed new approach. As expected, the note had almost nothing in ICTs. I sent back a edited version of the document to the local governance advisor.
Comments welcome.
Cheers, Raúl
