For Release Sunday, April 4, 2010
Citiwire.net
The fifth World Urban Forum (WUF5), held last week in Rio was pulsing with energy. More than 13,000 attendants attended plenaries featuring popular Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ana Tibaijuka, director of UN-HABITAT, Shaun Donovan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Deputy HUD Secretary Ron Sims, Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, Director Adolfo Carrion of the White House Office of Urban Affairs, Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and many others.
New knowledge abounded at this meeting. Slum Dwellers International told how its members are conducting census enumerations of informal settlements. The World Bank reported on its new urban outreach and new diagnostics to test the success of its urban investments. Scholars presented papers, including Janice Perlman who has tracked the way that houses are bought and sold in Rio’s favelas given that nobody owns the land beneath them.
In many instances, the presenters were putting forward best practices in one form or another. And a team of doctoral students from the University of Pennsylvania – our “Global Urban Commons Research Group” — was in attendance, lapping it all up. They have spent the past seven months evaluating the theory and application of the concept of best practices, analysing the UN-HABITAT Best Practices Database and contributing to thinking about a new form of communicating information, “Living Practices,” that UN-HABITAT launched in beta form at WUF5.
Indeed, after reviewing more than 75 journal articles, 10 reports and conducting 15 interviews, the team was armed with fact and perspective as it presented its findings to a packed room at WUF5. The team members will soon have a white paper to share. Here the essence of what they have found:
First, best practice has a long history in the United States. It originated with agricultural extension programs to improve farming. Then it emerged in 1934 as a way to address urban issues when the American Society of Planning Officials created the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) to advance the practice of city planning (as the profession switched its focus from private consultancies to public service in the New Deal). Others, especially business, medicine/nursing and education have since engaged in promoting best practices in their fields.
Second, UN-HABITAT launched a global approach to collecting and promoting urban best practices in 1996 after Habitat II in Istanbul – a step called for in the Habitat Agenda (a precursor to the Millennium Development Goals). Under the leadership of Nicholas You, a skilled staff member, Habitat initiated its Best Practices and Local Leadership Program starting an on-line Best Practices Database and inaugurating the biannual Dubai Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment, enhanced by well-funded prizes for 10 or 12 lucky winners.
The program blossomed, guided by a steering committee drawn from around the world with representatives from the Brazilian Institute for Municipal Administration (IBAM), several universities including Pratt Institute and Harvard, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and others. By 2009, the database had more than 2,000 entries; with every announcement of the Dubai award hundreds more poured in. The Dubai Award had been given seven times to much fanfare. In addition, the program gave rise to several regional best practices hubs to spread the word and offer supplementary programs. The Vienna-based effort is exemplary. In addition, from the database, UN-HABITAT commissioned best practices briefs, some case books and case studies used at conferences and training sessions.
Third, while the general literature suggested that to be really effective, best practices data need to fill a few basic requirements, many best practices databases – UN-HABITAT’s included – did not comply. Lacking were neutral third party validations: no one was checking to determine whether the activities reported were actually occurring, with defensible and comparable metrics of success and contextual discussions of the political, social and financial conditions and resources that enabled the work. Further, the best practices tended to be static – once described, that was the end of the story — and they were in only one voice, that of the nominator or author. In other words, while the UN Best Practices database was a huge step forward in presenting information from around the world, the system was not perfect.
None of this was lost on Nick You. He had already concluded that more could be done and he had a big job in front of him because in September, just as the students were beginning their research, Ms. Tibaijuku had charged him with devising a World Urban Campaign to be launched at WUF5. Describing him to the UN-HABITAT governing board as being “a man of new ideas…a free spirit, sometimes difficult to find and follow, but someone whose capacity to work defied imagination,” she had full confidence that he could deliver.
And that proved to be true. Between September and March he assembled and convened an advisory team not only spelled out steps to a continuing, impact-designed World Urban Campaign, but gave its blessing to such companion efforts as the Citistates Group’s new project – www.citiscope.org – to highlight city advances reported by journalists worldwide, and a new 100 Cities Initiative (www.100citiesinitiative.org) to tap and motivate city government and civic initiatives. The 100 cities initiative aims to create a new process being called “Living Practices,” an evolution from best practices to a dynamic, Internet-based information exchange. Each living practice story highlights the ongoing progress of selected initiatives and has a third party “champion,” who regularly verifies and updates the work.
So armed with their research and participants in developing the 100 Cities initiative, the Penn students then successfully nominated Philadelphia as one of the 100 cities and began to develop the web presence according to desired standards. They have a team of undergraduates who are working with city and civic officials to flesh out six, notable “green” initiatives ranging from stormwater management to creating community gardens to provision of local fresh food to disadvantaged communities. They will help develop success metrics and find a variety of stakeholders who through video interviews will add their voices to story, providing depth and context. As the students complete their dissertations and move on with their careers, our Penn Institute for Urban Research will take up the role of monitoring the Philadelphia story. We’re motivated to stick to the exciting task of assisting on the research side to help develop sustainable communities of lasting value – serving, we believe, the cause at the bottom of the UN-HABITAT mission.
Eugenie L. Birch is Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
Genie Birch’s e-mail address is elbirch@design.upenn.edu