Thank you to more than 30 participants who have posted their comments.
Key Points From Parts One-Three:
So far, this exploration of urban value chain development has identified several important areas of synergy and difference between approaches to urban development and approaches to value chain development. Please respond to these in order to elaborate, provide examples, agree or disagree.
1. The overlap of section and location: Urban development is location specific, whereas value chains are industry specific and often cross geographic boundaries from rural to urban. So, what do we mean by “urban” value chain development? Let’s explore the spatial dynamics of target value chains – how development can impact cities, towns and rural areas. Also, rural-urban linkages are important to developing both areas and to developing “urban” value chains.
2. Urban infrastructure: There are potential economic and social benefits to looking at urban infrastructure provision from a value chain perspective and considering the role of small and microenterprises in providing such services. Examining “public-private-partnership” models would be helpful. There are also successful cases to document and share.
3. Social networks and exclusion: In many urban areas, there are growth opportunities, and the challenge is overcoming social exclusion. Can value chain developers borrow lessons from the work being done to improve representation and governance for the poor? How can value chain development better incorporate and strengthen social networks? Would partnerships with these organizations be fruitful?
4. Workforce development: A central challenge for urban populations is finding quality jobs, as a significant portion or urban populations are young, and women have more demand for and opportunity to work. Looked at from another angle, a significant asset in urban areas is a larger, available workforce. Urban value chain development may need to pay more attention to workforce development, particularly for young people and for women.
For a full synthesis, see: http://communities.seepnetwork.org/urban/node/121
2 Comments
Some Final Thoughts
Dear All,
On this last day of the conference, I would like to congratulate all the facilitators and contributors for a very productive discussion. The background paper and prompt questions were very relevant. Finally, I would like to make my final contribution on ‘what value chain analysis can contribute to urban development’, especially for the weaker groups.
Following are my personal thoughts:
Between 1983 to 1986, I worked with a non-governmental organization in a large city of a low income country in Asia. The city where I was born and got educated. During this period, I observed very carefully the small and independent private sector which was providing a broad range of services to the city. These services ranged from education, health, water, waste collection, building materials and even banking and financial services. During 1986 to 1988, I got a chance to work closely with the municipal government of the same city. This helped me in understanding the working of the government and a policy and regulatory perspective of looking things, whether development or businesses. Soon it was very evident to me that in cities and towns the demand for services is increasing, the government capacity is limited and small private sector fill this gap, in many cases they sustain this without any external support. Governments and politicians always have a desire to provide the services to the entire population, ideally free of any charge. However, this is not impossible without resources and the gulf between government’s wishes of serving their populations and the needs on the ground getting wider. In Asian countries, governments are accepting the need for a different way of working and many donors, non-governmental organizations and private sector approaching with models of reliable and sustainable service delivery. One of them may be Public-Private Partnerships. Observing these gaps in practice, in 1992, I started my PhD research at the Loughborough University, UK looking into how and why, small scale private sector could work with the governments in a low income country context. The results from this research identified clearly three main barriers on the involvement in the given context:
1) While the activities of the small private sector are extensive, their capacity to provide certain services or certain stages in a service are weak. For example, independent private sector can supply water to homes, but they may not have capacity to invest in the distribution systems and or to develop water sources.
2) The users of the services do not see small private sector as a capable service providers in the long run. Especially, if the users can afford more, they expect governments or large private sector taking this role.
3) The governments do not accept small scale service providers as a reliable and capable group to trust with the service delivery for a large population
Knowing this research outcome in 1997, I continued my search for models of service delivery where small scale service providers are providing affordable, reliable and sustainable service in partnership with governments. I also asked the question, ‘why involvement of the local and small private sector is critical for improving watsan services to the urban poor’. While there are certain practical suggestions to do this, for example saving the cost, distributing the profits and reaching the un-reached group, the overall need for the involvement is still un-clear. If governments or large private sector see a need to involve small scale private sector, they may choose to do so. While independent small private sector have little capacity to provide services to the population and they cannot engage with the policy and regulatory structures and could not make financial investments and bring improved technologies. There are bigger causes for this outcome. If this involvement is seen as a way to distribute wealth and come-up with a ‘new design of social welfare and security’, then obviously we need much large scale thinking on this. Value chains can provide a useful tool to understand and fill some of these gaps. Hearing recently Ernesto Sirolli (www.sirolli.com), he suggests that reliable services and infrastructure are essential for local economic development and perhaps what is more important is how people achieve economic benefits from this provision. I am sure tools like value chain can also look into how these outcomes can be achieved.
Thanks and keep in touch
Mansoor Ali
Note:
Dr Mansoor Ali works for Practical Action in the urban services programme and the views expressed are personal and not of Practical Action.
Small Scale Service Providers
Hi Mansoor Ali,
Great post. This really does answer some of the questions that I had posed in earlier post and I look forward to reading some of your material.
Thanks for this! A great ending to a good discussion.
\Linda