Synthesis: Part 2 Urban Development

Key issues

• Rural urban linkages is an important area for consideration and value chains must be examined in their entirety.

• Social exclusion a more permanent and riskier phenomenon that needs to be recognized.

• Public- private partnerships take various forms and approaches must build communication, trust and dialogue between the concerned parties.

• Need for different groups of urban development communities of practice to understand the legitimacy of each others roles and complement each other.

1. Rural Urban linkages

• Urban value chains are closely linked to rural value chains through product flows, remittances, rural urban migration as well as environmental linkages with rural areas.

• As practitioners there is a need to articulate and facilitate these linkages, look at the dynamics of the whole value chain and recognize the fact that some of the dynamics are determined by rural people though the ultimate users reside in urban areas

2. Urban Development themes that the think piece can benefit from

• Role of government and the enabling environment as an important element of development as the informal sector primarily operates because many governments cannot extend their controls at the informal level.

• Finance and investment scenario needs to be looked at, particularly the role of national governments, private sector and international financing agencies.

• Governance and Representation, Environment and Local Economic Development are themes or issues that are cross cutting.

Other

3. Problem of exclusion is more serious than poverty as poverty is transient and exclusion is more long term. Development initiatives fail to recognize this and work on strategies that run the risk of reinforcing exclusion as they do not always link the poor to the markets and VCD has potential to address this.

4. Informal sectors may not be formalized in their existing forms as governments and the large private sector does not recognize them and users do not trust them as providers of certain services.

5. Different types of urban development communities of practice involve

• Urban development planners and architects
• Social development and employment promotion practitioners
• Business development community

There is less coordination and little trust existing between these communities of practice and thus there is a need to talk to each other, complement each others roles and understand the legitimacy of individual approaches.

6. Role of community based organizations and how can they be leveraged to get entry into the value chains?

7. Types of public private partnerships may take the following forms

• Private sector naturally moving into the vaccum created by the public sector
• Local governments and private sector working hand in hand
• Governments contracting to the private sector

However, little trust exists between these communities of practice and each side regards the other as an obstacle rather than a partner. Therefore there is need to build trust between these players and facilitate meaningful communication.

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