Sustainable development (SD) has increasingly played a key background role in government policy making across the world, especially for the least developed countries in Africa. This paper examines the SD of African countries in public life, education, and welfare, and helps policy makers better monitor the status of SD and formulate development policies in these aspects. The paper first proposes a new method to assess the SD in public life, education, and welfare. Then it assesses and analyzes the Sustainable Development of African countries. The findings of this paper are situated both in the context of prior studies and in relation to opportunities for further academic study. The findings however reveal three issues: first, that there was a positive correlation between income level and SD across African countries; second, that the most SD leading countries were in South and North Africa, while most low SD countries were in the middle; and third, that there were different characteristics of SD status between North African and Sub-Saharan African countries. This paper discusses an important research question that needed to be discussed: What should Africa do to rectify its development trajectory and to make economic development more inclusive? And made comparison between African countries and the countries in other continents. This paper suggests the following possible recommendations. First, the basis of all development is the establishment of a stable political power for those countries still in political chaos. Second, following the practices of European and other developed countries, establishing and improving the judicial, economic, and fiscal institutional systems in combination with the characteristics and development situation of their own countries is vital. After that, taking economic growth as the priority of national development, and establishing economic and trade cooperation with Europe, the United States, China, and other more developed countries is needed. Lastly, the government should pay more attention to sustainable development in public life, education, and welfare when the economic and income level reaches a certain stage.
Keywords: Sustainable development (SD), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), environmental sustainability
Introduction
Sustainability-related
efforts remain central to development, and their accomplishment varies across
places for a variety of reasons including climatic and geographic differences.
This variability makes a regional focus important[1].
With the adoption of the SDGs in September 2015, Africa made commitments to the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Africa Union Agenda 2063. It
always faced a steep climb, its starting point being lower than the rest of the
world’s. The continent was at a crossroads, with low tax revenues in relation
to GDP at one end of the problem and enormous development needs at the other.
The SDGs were conceptualized and adopted during a period of tight global
economic and financial conditions. Recent analysis of the SDGs, including the
previous Sustainable Development Goal Centre for Africa (SDGCA) reports on the
2030 Agenda and the first Africa SDG Index 2018, shows that African countries
still lag in terms of achieving the SDGs, with different countries facing
different problems.[2]
Despite the widespread adoption of, and the progress toward the SDGs, Africa continues to lag in most of the world when it comes to social and economic development. In fact, a recent report by the SDGCA — “Africa 2030: Sustainable Development Goals Three-Year Reality Check”—reveals that minimal progress has been made and, in some instances, there is complete stagnation. More than half of the global poor (those who earn under $1.90 PPP per day) are found in Africa. One in three Africans is at the risk of food insecurity (Begashaw 2019). According to Begashaw, Africa is relatively on track to meet three goals: SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG 15 (life on land). In fact, the SDG Centre’s forecasts (for the SDGs for which we have sufficient data: poverty, malnutrition, maternal mortality, net school enrolment, access to electricity, and access to drinking water) show that all African regions except North Africa are unlikely to meet the SDGs. The struggle is more pronounced for Central Africa across all the goals.
Economic
Growth and Human Development Gaps
The region’s
growth over the SDG period was well below the SDG target of 7 percent per year
and below the historical long-term average. In 2016—the year after the adoption
of the SDGs—the sub-Saharan African region’s growth dropped to 1.4 percent.
Globalization (migration, trade, and finance) has been under pressure or even
reversing; China’s growth, which historically has been positively correlated
with Africa’s, has decelerated in recent years; global trade growth has also
dwindled; commodity prices remain depressed; and climatic conditions remain
unfavourable. At the same time, social inclusion continues to be outstripped by
population growth, impeding structural transformation and future productivity.
Twenty-eight African countries are categorized as low income and 37 as having
low human development (Begashaw 2019).
A child born in
Africa today is still at risk of not receiving a full, high-quality education
or decent health care. An African child in school today continues to struggle
to read and write due to poor quality of education services. Too many Africans
continue not to visit the hospital due to lack of money. In fact, some African
countries have a Human Capital Index score of less than 0.4. In other words, a
child born today in these countries will be only 40 percent as productive at 18
years of age as one who completes their education and enjoys full health.
Data Gaps Persist: While we do have a snapshot of the progress Africa (and the world) is making towards achieving the SDGs, a holistic review of SDGs over the last years was not possible given that not enough data exists. In fact, only 96 indicators have data (41.4 percent of the global indicator framework). Where data exists, it is not comprehensive and consistent. Too often, African countries do not possess updated data for crucial indicators in poverty, health, nutrition, education, and infrastructure. Household surveys are irregular: Their scope, comprehensiveness, quantity, and quality vary wildly. At the continental level, there is just not enough data for tracking SDGs 10, 11, and 12 (Begashaw 2019). This paper however reveals that education is the most important factor for sustainable development in public life, education, and welfare. And education is as important as health.
Methods
The Assessment Framework of SD in Public Life, Education, and Welfare[3]
Sustainable development in public life, education, and welfare was assessed by adopting the social dimension of the National Sustainable Development Index (NSDI) that was built with 12 indicators in economic, social, and environmental dimensions based on the concept of sustainable development (see Jin et al. (2021))[4]. Sustainable development is to coordinate socio-economic, and environmental development, and balance the intra-generational welfare, to maximize the total welfare of generations[5][6]. In other words, the government should set sustainable development as a comprehensive goal including economic, social, and environmental dimensions[7]. Governments should also pursue a relatively high and fair income for citizens, a potential for economic growth, and a reasonable economic structure to improve the welfare of the present generation, in the economic dimension. From the resource and environmental dimension, the climate and air quality not only reflect the living conditions and quality of human beings in the present generation, but also affect that of future generations, while forests, arable land, and energy consumption represent the current resource and environmental conditions and affect the performance of economic activities. And in the social dimension, governments should not only improve social welfare, but should also consider social fairness and harmony, thus education for the young, medical treatment for the sick, basic sanitation, and drinking water should be guaranteed. Therefore, Jin et al suggest that the NSDI should contain these factors, namely “economic growth,” “income level,” and “economic structure” in the economic dimension, “climate,” “air quality,” “forest,” “arable land,” and “energy” in the resource and environmental dimension, and “education,” “health,” “drinking water,” and “sanitation facilities” in the social dimension. And they should select the corresponding indicators for each factor, based on the principles of representativeness, comparability, and data availability. So, we choose the social dimension of the NSDI to study the SD in public life, education, and welfare for Africa countries.
Results
This paper
measures the weight of four indicators with the entropy method (see the last
column of Table 1 below). As a result, each indicator accounted for the
following weight: education 36.36%, health 35.09%, drinking water 14.60%, and
sanitation facilities 13.95%. It means that education is the most important
factor for sustainable development in public life, education, and welfare. And
education is as important as health.
This paper measures the weight of four indicators with the entropy method (see the last column of Table 1 below). As a result, each indicator accounted for the following weight: education 36.36%, health 35.09%, drinking water 14.60%, and sanitation facilities 13.95%. It means that education is the most important factor for sustainable development in public life, education, and welfare. And education is as important as health.
Table 1. The weight of the four indicators
According to the
weights in Table
1, we aggregate the four indicators into a composite index, and assess the SD
score for 51 Africa countries as well the other countries (see Table
2 below). As a result, the SD score of each country is ranged from 0 to 1. The
SD score of each Africa country is shown in Table 2, the top five
countries are Mauritius (0.6514), Gabon (0.5836), Gambia (0.5648), Morocco
(0.5496), and Togo (0.5474), while the bottom five countries are Mali (0.3863),
Mauritania (0.3857), Central African Republic (0.3377), Chad (0.3260), and
Niger (0.3031).
Table 2. The score of SD in public life, education, and welfare in Africa[]
The SD score of each country showed distinct characteristics in income level. These countries are divided into four categories according to income levels following the World Bank’s standard, namely high, upper-middle, lower-middle-, and low-income countries. As Table 2 shows, countries with higher SD score tended to have a higher income level. For example, there are only three low-income countries in the top 20, while 13 low-income countries are in the bottom 20. This means that there may be a positive correlation between income level and SD score. The main reasons are: (1) Those low-income countries have very limited fiscal revenue, leading to insufficient supply of public goods, such as education, medical care, public health, etc.[8]; (2) Some low-income countries lack a systematic and efficient public management system, which makes the supply of public goods inefficient[9].
Figure 1. Geographical distribution of SD scores in Africa. (1) The darker the blue, the higher the SD score of the country, while grey indicates missing data. (2) Above the dark blue dividing line are North African countries, and below are Sub-Saharan African countries.
Figure 1 shows the geographical distribution of SD score in Africa. It should be noted that the darker the blue, the higher the SD score and SD performance in public life, education, and welfare. The countries in North and South Africa have the deepest blue and the highest SD score, such as South Africa and Morocco. On the contrary, central African countries north of the equator have the lightest blue and the lowest SD score, which means that SD performance is at the bottom level, such as in Central African Republic, Chad, and Niger. In sum, the geographical distribution of SD score shows that SD is high in South and North Africa, while low in the middle.
Africa need to adopt a new development
trajectory
African youths did not benefit from the recent economic growth, since many of them either lack the relevant training or are unable to access capital to improve production. Nevertheless, Africa accounts for a significant fraction of the world’s youth (1/5th in 2012).[10] This share is expected to increase to 1/3rd of global youth by 2050. If Africa wants to benefit from the potential demographic dividend over the coming decades, it will be crucial to empower its youth with the relevant skills to meet the continent’s future job market needs. In today’s labour market, the transition from school to work is already challenging. Youth unemployment/underemployment rates are two to three times as high as those of adults. The “Arab Springs” demonstrated that youth unemployment might be a “ticking time bomb” if the transition from school continues to lead to unemployment.[11] Youths face challenges when searching for wage employment, in both the formal and the informal sectors. Governments need to make the appropriate supply-side responses to improve both the quantity and quality of education and skills training. This will require collaboration between governments and the private sector in order to create an enabling macroeconomic employment environment. In addition, because of the high prevalence of informality in Africa, a further challenge will be to find an effective way to harness the potential of youth entrepreneurs.[12]
The recent growth performance in Africa did not help to address issues of inequality resulting in the exclusion of both women and youth from the benefits of growth. Therefore, inequality and poverty are still Africa’s major challenges. These need to be addressed in order to achieve the SDGs. Over 120 million Africans are out of work, and more than 672 million live in poverty. Consequently, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence of hunger: With one in four people being undernourished; More than 32 million children under-five are underweight; and, about 45% of deaths in children under-five are caused by poor nutrition (FAO, 2015). In addition, out of Africa’s 312 million adult women, 115 million are at risk of domestic violence. This disrupts their productive and reproductive roles as well as being a clear violation of their human rights. Therefore, achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains unfinished business for most African countries. The solution proposed is to adopt a development trajectory that is both more inclusive and sustainable.
What should Africa do to rectify its development trajectory and to make economic development more inclusive?
A new development trajectory should enable Africa to provide decent jobs, including most of the youth and women. It also needs to produce enough food for Africa’s population, especially the most vulnerable. To do so, Africa needs to industrialize, but this requires that the continent to first resolve some of its major deficits. One priority is to address the infrastructural deficit, especially the energy deficiency. Without energy, nothing else can happen. Energy fuels economic activities, especially production, industrialisation and the delivery of services. The continent will also need to resolve important shortfalls in its labour market, labour productivity and costs, and the adequacy of skilled labour for market needs, especially in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Another important priority for Africa will be to expand domestic market sizes in order to benefit from potential economies of scale across the continent. This can be achieved by increasing intra-regional trade so that Africans can feed themselves, instead of allocating most of their income to imports from mainly western and emerging markets. Adopting such a development trajectory will lead to a real structural transformation in the continent and, thereby, to improvements in the living conditions of many of Africa’s poor people. These are precisely the priorities of the African Development Bank for the next decade.
Discussion: A Comparison Between Africa and Other Countries [13]
The SD scores of
179 countries are shown in Figure 2.
As a result, the top 10 countries are Denmark (0.7840), the Netherlands
(0.7423), Sweden (0.7095), Finland (0.7075), Norway (0.6960), Germany (0.6915),
Canada (0.6895), the United States (0.6856), Belgium (0.6807), and Austria
(0.6799), while the bottom 10 countries are Nepal (0.3980), Eritrea (0.3959),
Sierra Leone (0.3952), Mali (0.3863), Mauritania (0.3857), Afghanistan
(0.3729), Yemen (0.3391), Central African (0.3377), Chad (0.3260), and Niger
(0.3031).
Figure 2. SD score for each country (upper) and continent (lower). The darker the blue, the higher the mean SD score of the country (upper) or the continent (lower).
The SD score and ranking of each country show distinct characteristics. Most of the high-SD countries are in Europe and North America. The countries with a low SD score are mainly in Africa and Asia. In addition, we find that all the developed countries [14][15] are high SD score countries, and most of them are ranked in the top 30, while most of the bottom 30 countries are developing countries in Africa.
There are three main reasons for the poor SD performance in developing countries. First, the level of economy and residents’ income is relatively low. Second, the supply of public goods and services is insufficient and inefficient, like education, public health, and environmental protection, due to poor governments or inadequate fiscal revenue[16]. Lastly, some developing countries, such as China, are bombarded with such problems as inadequate management and technology of pollution control and resource utilization, while still promoting economic growth at all costs, which damages national sustainable development[17].
The geographical
distribution of the SD score is shown in Figure 2.
As the figure shows, the darker the blue, the higher the NSDI of the country
and the better its performance in sustainable development, while the white
indicates missing data. We find that European and North American countries have
the highest average SD scores, Africa the lowest, and South America and Asia in
the middle.
There is an important reason for that geographical distribution. On the one hand, the countries with a higher economic level always maintain a good performance in sustainable development, because of their established and sound system in public management. On the other hand, those low-income countries not only have a poor economic foundation, but also do not have the above conditions, so they always find it difficult to improve SD performance. Some countries have even been mired in war and extreme poverty.
Conclusion
Overall, the
problems highlighted in this paper, future growth in Africa will, for most
part, depend on successes in diversifying towards highly productive
manufacturing and improving the productive capabilities of African economies
through science and technology, especially in agriculture and agro industrialisation.
Achieving these ends calls for increasing investment in key growth determinants
such as physical and human capital, and improvement in the institutions that
optimize the combination of these resources. To this extent, investment in energy
for people and for firms, in agricultural technology, and in other
infrastructure and human capital needs will remain priority areas for the Bank.
Making growth more inclusive requires enhancing the capacity of segments of
society with limited opportunity to participate and benefit from the
continent’s growth. The Bank’s prioritized intervention areas are selected with
this in mind. An industrial process that is underpinned by improved
agricultural productivity, accessible and reliable sources of energy and well-integrated
markets will generally contribute to poverty reduction by raising productivity
and improving the level of participation among the poor and other marginalized
groups.
[1] Riva C. H. Denny, Sandra T. Marquart-Pyatt; Environmental
Sustainability in Africa: What Drives the Ecological Footprint over
Time? Sociology of Development 1 March 2018; 4 (1): 119–144.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/sod.2018.4.1.119
[2] Sustainable Development Goal Centre for Africa (SDGC/A), 2019, Africa 2030 2019 Version, ISSN 2077-5091.
[3] Li D, He G, Jin H and Tsai F-S (2021) Sustainable Development of African Countries: Minding Public Life, Education, and Welfare. Front. Public Health 9:748845. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.748845.
[5] Guillén-Royo M. Sustainability and wellbeing: Human-scale development in practice. London, UK: Routledges (2016).
[6] Kwatra S, Sharma P, Kumar A. A critical review of studies related to construction and computation of Sustainable Development Indices. Ecol Indic. (2020) 112:106061. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.106061
[7] Goodland R, Daly H. Environmental sustainability: universal and non-negotiable. Ecol Appl. (1996) 6:1002. doi: 10.2307/2269583
[8] Jin H, Qian X. How the Chinese government has done with public health from the perspective of the evaluation and comparison about public-health expenditure. Int J Environ Res Public Health. (2020) 17:1–16. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17249272s.
[9] Jin H, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez. Sustainable Development and the Optimal Level of Fiscal Expenditure Decentralization. Georgia, USA: ICePP Working Paper Series, #2103, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University (2021).
[14] According to the standards of the CIA’s World Fact Book and IMF.
[15] Hametner M, Kostetckaia M. Frontrunners and laggards: how fast are the EU member states progressing towards the sustainable development goals? Ecol Econ. (2020) 177:106775. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106775.
[16] Jin H, Qian X. How the Chinese government has done with public health from the perspective of the evaluation and comparison about public-health expenditure. Int J Environ Res Public Health. (2020) 17:1–16. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17249272s.
[17] Jin H, Qian X, Chin T, Zhang H. Global assessment of sustainable development: based on the modification of human development index with entropy method. Sustainability. (2020) 12:1–20. doi: 10.3390/su12083251.
Generally speaking, public procurement is the process through which public bodies buy works, goods, or services from a third supplier. Public bodies are schools, hospitals, local governments, prisons, etc. and what they buy can be for instance the food for meals at school, the cleaning service and cleaning products, buses for public transport, and so on. Within the European Union, public procurement amounts to approximately 15% of the EU gross domestic product (GDP).
The genesis – The first statutory recognition of Public Procurement from the EU can be rooted back in the ‘70s, a period in which the Community also dealt with the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers, among which public procurement (PP). The 70s Procurement Directives were able to promote savings and price convergence, albeit respecting the core economic principles of the EC, namely transparency, non-discrimination, objectivity and open competition, but also free movement of goods and services, right of establishment and the prohibition of discrimination. Over the years the Directives have been amended several times and new, innovative conceptions of Public Procurement have been provided by scholars. Kunzlik talked for the first time about strategic procurement, i.e., a new conceptualization that conceives PP as an occasion for achieving secondary objectives. But which secondary objectives? Here comes the core of this article. Public procurement has enormous potential for achieving environmental and social sustainability, driving the market offer of sustainable products, to promote Research&Development (R&D) and innovation.
Definitions – According to the objectives it pursues PP has been named in different ways: Green Public Procurement (GPP) Social Public Procurement (SPP) or Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) and Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI), Circular Public Procurement (CPP). The way public procurement is able to pursue secondary purposes stands in the contract design and in this regard the latest Public Procurement Directives[1] (2014) – in particular, Directive 24/2014 – represent a decent result. Let’s think about public procurement as a series of sequential activities:
Along this cycle, public bodies have several occasions for including within the contract environmental or social criteria that the goods, service or work they want to buy must fulfill.
Analysis of the
EU legislation on public procurement – Let’s now take
a brief look at how contracts can lever sustainability.
While drafting the contract, for example, the public body could require in the technical specifications (Art. 42), that hospital staff uniforms must be made with recycled and organic textile, labeled with any fair-trade certification. In the case of the provision of the catering service within a university, the public body, e.g. universities, could require, within the contract performance clauses (Art. 70) of the contract, that the weekly menus include only products or recipes from the Mediterranean diet or that the staff ensure a congruent use of the canteen premises (turning off lights in the absence of people, correctly dispose of garbage, etc.). Other relevant provisions of Directive 24/2014 regarding preliminary market consultations (art. 40) “with a view to preparing the procurement and informing economic operators of their procurement plans and requirements”. The importance of this article lies in giving advance notice to third parties who intend to participate in the tender that can allow them to best adapt to the requirements. The contracting authority may want the products supplied to bear a specific label (art. 43) or to meet the criteria determined by this label, without having it. The bidder may need time to adapt the products it produces to the labeling criteria.
Another important aspect established by the directives and not immediately apparent is the scope of the mandatory principle of non-discrimination, equality and avoidance of distortion of competition (Art. 18). These principles are the basis not only of European substantive law but also of procedural law, included in the discipline of procurement. The enormous scope of the principles has an impact on the prohibition of favoring candidates on the basis of nationality or proximity, for example. In a contract for the supply of food products, for example, it is forbidden to select an agricultural company simply because it comes from the same territory in which the supply should be made. Although it may seem contradictory, one of the main purposes of the European Union is to promote the free movement of goods, preventing protectionist practices by member states. Although this implies the impossibility to select a product on the basis of a territorial criterion – let’s think about our beloved Km0 products that have a low impact on the environment also because the means of transport cover shorter distances – the directives still offer other opportunities to pursue environmental sustainability. In this regard, the Directive 24/2014 seeks to protect small and medium-sized enterprises through article 46, which allows contracting authorities to award the contract in the form of separate lots, so that if the scope of the contract, in terms of goods to be supplied, for example, is large, small manufacturers or suppliers are still taken into account. The article is in fact intended to ensure that firms producing on a small scale are not automatically excluded, but rather several small enterprises are involved in the procurement process at the same time. The Directive 2014/24 also provides for mandatory exclusion criteria (Art. 57), for example, if the prospective supplier has been accused of corruption, child labor or human trafficking, financing of terrorist activities. It is not required, but only permitted to exclude participants from the procurement process if they have violated environmental, social and labor obligations (Art. 18) – but the burden of proof is up to the contracting authority.
In addition, according to which principle do contracting authorities generally award contracts? As a rule, following the screening of all bids and their consistency with what was requested in the tender, the authorities award the contract on the basis of the lowest price. However, it is worth mentioning a consistent change made in the EU Procurement Directives (already in the 2004 amendment[2]). The reference to the evaluation not only of the lowest price offer, but also of quality and life-cycle costing (LCC) of that offer (Art. 67/68). LCC refers to costs relating to the acquisition, the use (e.g. consumption of energy), maintenance costs, end of life costs, such as collection and recycling costs of the products and importantly “costs imputed to environmental externalities linked to the product, service or works during its life cycle”. Last, but not least, the great work carried out by the EU Commission and the experts has been that of drawing up Green (but not yet social) Criteria that can be easily incorporated into contracts by public authorities. The criteria have been drawn up for numerous categories of products and services such as construction, ICT services, canteen services, cleaning products, street lighting, road surfaces, etc. However, according to procurement experts, the directives have some gaps that in fact demonstrate the weak grip of Sustainable Public Procurement.
Limits of the SPP – One of the main weaknesses is that the GPP criteria are not compulsory. Although some member states, among which Italy, have made GPP criteria compulsory for certain categories of products[3], its uptake is still very low, especially considering the ambitious commitment recently undertaken with the EU Green Deal. In December 2020, the EU Commission has stressed its intention to make (part of) GPP criteria mandatory for all member states. Another loophole consists in the lack of training of public bodies about contract design and GPP criteria, in conjunction with lack of engagement with environmental issues. Some studies demonstrate that administrations are more likely to make public procurement greener if they personally want to fight climate change[4]. Another limitation of the directives, as highlighted by Abby Semple[5], is the need for selection criteria, technical specifications, labels and award criteria to be linked to the subject matter of the contracts. In a few words this means that when contracting authorities evaluate different bids, their evaluation must concern just what is considered the subject matter of their contract. Let’s imagine that the City of Oslo would like to purchase renewable energy for the whole city. During the evaluation of the different offers (bids), the City administration may not opt for the company which, beyond the requested amount of renewable energy and their equal price, produces the highest amount of renewable energy as a company, for instance. Public bodies may not, then, interrogate the corporate socio-environmental responsibility, so for example choosing the ‘greenest’ company among those who were competing. Also, if a contracting authority is willing to award the contract to the tenderer which has the lower carbon footprint i.e. in the transport of the products to be supplied, a strict interpretation of the link to the subject matter of the contract may not be efficient. Indeed, the contracting authority may award the contract to a supplier located close to the point of consumption, while the tenderer may need to stock other customers that can be located very far[6].
So, what if the GPP criteria become mandatory? What if the link-to-the-subject-matter will be eliminated? I leave to you the cue.
[4] Grandia J., Implementing sustainable public procurement: An organisational change perspective. (Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2015)
[5] Semple, A. “The Link to the Subject-Matter: A Glass Ceiling for Sustainable Public Contracts?”. In Sjåfjell, B., & Wiesbrock, A. (2016). Sustainable public procurement under EU law: new perspectives on the state as stakeholder. Cambridge University Press.
Quality
public spaces are a vital business and marketing tool as cities increasingly
compete to attract investment, new residents, businesses, and visitors. As
urban population grow, the effective management and sustainability of this
growth including the needs and demands of the citizens especially the most
vulnerable becomes critical. While cities and local governments recognize the
importance of public space and have made efforts to use public space to
transform their cities and neighborhoods, these efforts have been primarily
site based. These site-based approaches can be scaled-up to many sites across
the city but cannot provide distribution, connectivity, accessibility, or
programmatic diversity of public spaces. Little effort has also been made
towards developing city-wide public space strategies[1]
and particularly involving the public in the development of policies. Without
this city-wide approach to public space, there has been a growing trend on
privatization, grabbing of public land, disappearance of public spaces and
eventually creating inequal and segregated cities.
National
and local governments need to recognize the role of good quality network of
public spaces as a promoter of equity and prosperity. It provides the best
means to manage urban growth, support economic development, protect the
environment, and promote overall well-being of communities. However, this can
only be achieved when cities correct imbalances in public space supply,
distribution and quality in different neighborhoods and settlements within the
city. Notably, during the COVID 19 pandemic, public and green spaces have
become critical areas for containment, testing and for decongesting crowded markets.
They offered the much-needed refuge where individuals can be in public, while
safely practicing social distancing measures outdoors. More than ever, it has
become critical for cities to understand the state of their cities in terms of
the spatial distribution and quality of their public and green areas
To
support local governments to include a network of public spaces as part of
their development plans, UN-Habitat developed the city-wide public
space inventory and assessment tool. This tool has
been designed as a flexible framework to aid local governments and partners
working in public spaces to assess the network[2],
distribution[3],
accessibility[4],
quantity[5],
and quality[6]
of their public spaces in a cost-effective way. The tool takes a participatory
and communityled approach that aims to determine priority areas and sectors of
intervention – both spatial and non-spatial– that government and private
entities can take to address them.
“The global community agree that public spaces
play a key role in achieving inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities
and human settlements. This means that interventions in public space can
support achievement in several other targets within the 2030 Agenda and
commitments within the New Urban Agenda. Since the monitoring of SDG 11.7[7]
and the public space commitments in New Urban Agenda are done at the city
level, this city-wide public space assessment tool also supports local
governments to report their progress towards achieving these commitments.”
About the tool
The city-wide public space inventory and assessment is a digital
tool developed to assess public spaces in cities and identify gaps for the
development of long-term public space strategies and policies. It utilizes a
digital questionnaire that can be contextualized to fit different contexts and
priorities. Therefore, the assessment could either be formulated to capture the
broad and diverse aspects of public space or it can emphasize certain thematic
or geographical areas. Application of the tool provides a basis for the actual
state of public spaces in the city; that includes the state of public space,
the problems, and their causes. Mapping of the supply, quality and distribution
of public spaces are important, in order to determine priority areas and
sectors of intervention, this included institution,financial and regulatory
frameworks. It also identifies where public spaces may be lacking, areas where
there might be over provision, poor quality public spaces or poorly located
public spaces and where there are opportunities for improvement to meet the
local needs. This approach supports the development of evidence-based policy,
regulatory and spatial strategy development as well as provides a potential to
reorganise institutional set-up and financial mechanisms within the city.
A city-wide public space
assessment can be commissioned by a local government due to several reasons,
which could be:
A city might not have an
inventory of their public spaces.
A city would like to develop a
new public space strategy or update an existing public space strategy[8].
A city would like to revise their
institutional, legal, and regulatory frameworks and
understand where to allocate funding more efficiently.
A city would like to tackle
emerging issues such as climate change, safety, biodiversity loss, unplanned
urbanization, encroachment of public spaces, heritage loss, accessibility among
others.
Once the objective of the
assessment has been developed, it is crucial to understand the spatial scale of
the assessment within cities. The public space assessment could cover 2
different scales: the administrative boundary[9]
and the urban extent[10].
In some instances, the assessment could be designed for specific
neighborhoods/geographical areas within the city. This could be in the case
where the city would like to pilot and test the public space assessment tool
and methodology in the city or where the neighborhood has an independent
government body and would like to develop strategies for their neighborhood.
The geographic scope and the overall objective of the assessment are set prior
to undertaking the assessment.
The Approach:
UN-Habitat
works with different city governments and partners in conducting city-wide
public space assessments in their respective cities. The model is flexible and
dependent on the capacities of the local government and partner. The city-wide public space
assessment tool ensures the active participation of the community through the
process from formulation of the reference group, development of the assessment
to proposing policy and strategic recommendations for the city’s public
spaces.
The process of conducting a citywide public space assessment has
been designed into four parts that are progressive with outputs that are as important
as the process and social inclusion being considered at all stages of the
process. The process includes (i)pre-field work, (ii) data collection, (iii) reporting
and (iv) post city-wide assessment. Each of these parts has steps that should
be followed with activities, tools and inspiring cases that are drawn from
partners and UN-habitat’s experiences working in cities. UN-Habitat recommends
that each city follows the process to guarantee long-term appropriate
provision, quality and accessibility of public spaces. However, it recognizes
that cities are different with different capacities and are at different stages
of development. Therefore, depending on the objective of the city and the level
of public space provision there are certain steps that are not mandatory to
undertake.
Figure: City-wide public space assessment process.
NOTE: The process is modified depending on the needs and
capacity of cities.
Implementation
Since 2015, the tool has been
regularly updated with feedback from its application in a variety of urban
contexts. It has been applied in 30 cities and engaged approximately 1,750 data
collectors with every city having different thematic entry points such as
children, safety, markets, women, heritage etc.
Through the application of the
tool, 40 training sessions to local governments, community members and
volunteers have been conducted on the use of the tool but also the importance
of public space and the need for data and participation for policy and strategy
development. There have been over 25 visioning workshops to develop
recommendations and strategic interventions for the cities. There has also been a keen interest by other cities to use this tool
for their own citywide public space strategy work. The tool is also key in
monitoring and reporting on SDG 11.7 as well as toward the implementation of
the New Urban Agenda.
Protecting public spaces in Jianghan, Wuhan, China
In 2017, UN-Habitat supported Wuhan Lands Use and Spatial Planning
Research Center to undertake a district-wide open public space inventory and
assessment. This came at a time when public spaces in the district were being
commercialized and threated by the expanding city structures. A training was
done for the local government, Wuhan Land Use and Spatial Planning team and
data collectors. The result of the city-wide public spaces assessment showed
that Jiaghan district falls short of standards set by the National Ecological
city of 11m2/capita as well as the international standard of 9m2/capita. Total
green public space was just 2.2m2 per capita. Being the densest and least
spacious district in Wuhan, Jianghan has to find innovative ways to counter
this trend. Moreover, the increase of urban environments in Jianghan District
has left public spaces to be derelict and therefore decreasing public space’s
function.
The city-wide public space inventory and assessment in Jianghan
identified gaps in the safety, accessibility and inclusivity of public spaces.
Therefore, in 2018, UN-Habitat identified public spaces that require upgrading
and the areas within the district that needed new public spaces to be created.
Spaces that required upgrading were identified through an aggregate of
indicators and UN-Habitat prepared a map of priority public space for
improvement. It was noted that 21% (29) of all public spaces require the most
improvement while 29% (41) require the least improvement measures. A spatial
analysis of the distribution of public spaces in Jianghan was done and the
areas that required new public spaces were identified to be at the periphery of
the district accounting for 18% (4.9 km2) of the total area of the district.
These results led to the development of a public space strategy for
the district, with an ambitious vision of having “Public Spaces in Jianghan
District to be of High Quality, More Accessible, Unique and Diverse.” This
vision came with clear goals and objectives to achieve it. To achieve these
goals and objectives, a phased implementation was proposed, combining near-term
(2017-2022) and long-term (2023-2030) development projects. These was to ensure
that upgrading of public spaces to enhance their quality was supported by a
long-term green network plan in the district. One public space was selected for
upgrading and was implemented in 2018. UN-Habitat together with WLSP will
monitor and evaluate the achievements of this strategy.
Case Study 2:HAYA” Programme
“Eliminating Violence Against Women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
To support the “HAYA” Programme “Eliminating Violence Against Women
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip”, UN-Habitat in collaboration with Ministry of
Local Government, the community, academia and private sector to conducted
city-wide public space safety audits in five cities in Palestine; Khan Younis,
Jenin, Nablus, Jericho and Bethlehem Cluster of Ad Doha, Beit Sahour, Beit
Jala and Bethlehem. The aim was to understand women’s and girls’ safety
concerns in public spaces and to develop city-level public space strategies
that will feed into the national public space policy development process.
Through the participation of over 150 active members of the
local community including women associations, journalists, local NGOs,
International NGOs, handicapped related associations, Ministry of Education,
and youth activists; in addition to UN-Habitat, municipality, other
municipalities, and representatives of local universities, recommendations were
made for each city. Public space strategies that are proposed for Palestine
Territory to promote safety and enhance social cohesion include; 1. spatial
(reducing spatial inequality by ensuring public spaces are equally distributed
within the cities), 2. social
(re-integration strategies such as improving public spaces and creating shared
spaces by reducing car movement, promoting diversity and social programming in
public spaces to reduce perception of unsafety and increase “eyes on the street”,
improving infrastructure to support the active use of public spaces) and 3.
promote good governance (provide for rules of use in public spaces and apply
penalties for all forms of violence against women in public space and ensuring
maintenance of public spaces in order to avoid them being perceived as
abandoned and thus attracting crime and antisocial behaviour). Public spaces
were also prioritized for upgrading based on these assessments and it will lead
to the development and regeneration of five safe and inclusive public spaces in
the targeted Palestinian Cities.
Key Lessons and Transferability
Through
working in these cities and towns, UN-Habitat has considered how the city-wide public
space can deliver more value for cities. Preliminary
generic approaches that a city can take prior to conducting a city-wide public
space assessment includes:
Securing political support to provide the mandate to execute the process for buy-in and allocation of both financial and human resources. UN-Habitat has found that without the support from the local government, the public space assessment reports remain a shelf report without informing the public debate or influencing the development community. The success of the public space assessment conducted in 5 cities in Palestine and in 4 Provincial Districts in Kabul, Afghanistan was a result of direct endorsement by the local and national government.
Enhance synergy among actors in public space, including municipal government agencies, the private sector, NGOs, women’s groups, community members and others. The city-wide public space assessment is not a task for one individual stakeholder and an inclusive partnership is an important mechanism for its implementation and success. This should be built upon a shared vision and principles that places public space and people at the centre of planning. In all the cities we have worked conducting the assessments, a training is organised for targeted city officials from different departments within the local authority, representatives from academia, NGOs and community members. This orientation provides them with an overview of the activities and how they can align it with their already existing or planned activities. In Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa the Social Affairs department and the Police saw the importance of conducting hot spot analysis for safety to understand where and what type of safety concerns are present to be able to act upon them. In other cities, this continuous engagement has led to greater synergies among partners within the city eg, in Nairobi, Kenya, the process led to the creation of a Public Space Network that is active with over 60 members who support implementation of public space projects, leading urban design competitions and other public space initiatives.
Build the capacity of local partners. We have found in cities where we have worked,there is little capacity to conduct the survey and report on the findings from the city-wide public space assessment. This leads to a lack of accountability and responsibility for taking the findings towards a long-term plan for the city or align it to already existing plans.
Increase funding from sources other than municipal government, such as from the national and provincial governments, donor agencies, the private sector and the public. The task of conducting a city-wide public space assessment requires financial resources to conduct the field study and draw out findings that are useful for strategic and policy change. It also identifies public spaces that require upgrading and areas within the city that need prioritisation for the creation of new public spaces. Often, the cities do not have the financial and human resources to implement all the recommendations and therefore creating opportunities and incentives for private sector involvement could be an added advantage.
Create enabling institutional and regulatory frameworks to accelerate public space development. In Nairobi, Kenya we supported the establishment of a public space unit under the urban planning department where the document and its implementation could be anchored. In other cities such as Kabul, we provided recommendations for institutionalising public space within the local government, to ensure its planning and implementation.
Focus on the overall urban area rather than a small area of the city. In some cities, such as Durban, South Africa we supported in piloting and testing the methodology in the Inner City and Ward 21. However, the recommendations remain for those areas rather than the overall city. Therefore, these cannot be implemented at a city scale and long-term strategies cannot be developed based on findings from only those areas. It is recommended that cities plan to conduct the assessment for the whole urban area to provide comprehensive strategic recommendations. In some cities, however, where the small urban area has an independent local authority, e.g, Wuchang District in Wuhan,China the recommendations can be implemented within the geographical scope.
Ensure an action-oriented process and connect strategic thinking to project implementation. In Jianghan, Wuhan, China, from the findings of the district-wide public space assessment and together with the local partner, we developed strategic priorities and made a road map for implementation. However, the recommendations were not synchronised within the municipal/district work plan and a detailed action plan was not developed, therefore, the implementation of these recommendations remains fluid.
Balance external influences(political, economic, environmental and social cycles) and long-term ownership of the process. Without a clear vision for public space, it is difficult to minimise external influences. A written vision is important for the orientation of public space. The strength of it is the fact that it has been debated and discussed and aligned with city development plans and policies and the actual state of public spaces based on results from the city-wide public space assessment. This can help keep the city’s public space planning on track, despite political or other changes. It helps avoid priorities being set in an ad hoc way by reacting to external pulls and pushes
Conclusion
It has become evident, through the application of this tool in 30 cities, that the task of planning and designing city-wide networks of public spaces is not only to deliver equity in spatial distribution and gain from the wide benefits that public spaces have but must also simultaneously design frameworks that will allow those plans to take place effectively and democratically. The process must therefore be anchored on a firm understanding of the role of stakeholders and the socio-political context where these plans and designs take place, but more importantly, should stem from the voices of those these plans are supposed to serve.
Participation is one of the tools that can limit bias in the planning public space. The city-wide public space assessment tool has therefore been anchored within a flexible framework where local governments are able to design new relationships between civil society, the private sector and communities and understand the state of public spaces, gaps and opportunities in the legal and institutional systems, existing forms of partnership and financing mechanisms to develop inclusive and evidence-based city-wide public space strategies. The tool is also applicable in varying contexts and can be adapted to fit priorities of a city and has shown that the inclusion of communities as key stakeholders in the planning process is necessary if actions towards acceptable or desired outcomes are to be met.
[3] Spatial balance of public spaces across the city
[4] Spatial accessibility of public space to the population within
walking distances
[5] Proportion of urban surface devoted to public spaces
[6] Main design features, operation, and management (comfort,
universal access, use, users, amenities and green)
[7] By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive, and
accessible, green, and public spaces, particularly for women and children,
older persons and persons with disabilities
[8] Public space strategies can range from
thematic ones such as public space and health strategy, by typology such as a
park strategy, or an activation strategy for public spaces or public market
strategy. They can also be ambitious and incorporate several themes and
typologies. This is, however, dependent on the objective of the city
[9] In this case, cities are able to develop
strategies within clearly defined jurisdictions. It also becomes easy both in
terms of gathering statistics and politically. Additionally, administrative
units are frequently those for which policies are implemented.
[10] It is important to note that in some
contexts, urban extents go beyond the administrative boundary of the city and
may include other cities/jurisdictions. Therefore, a clear governance structure
needs to be set-up.
Luiss Guido Carli is pleased to announce that Monday, November 23, 2020 at 6:00 pm marks the start of the Engage.EU Roundtables, a new series of digital events organized as part of the Engage.EU alliance of universities, in which Luiss joins with experts from partner universities in the discussion and understanding of modern societal challenges, including digitalization, artificial intelligence, climate change and sustainability.
The first roundtable, on the topic of Digital Innovation, features Barbara Stoettinger, Professor and Dean of the WU Executive Academy, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, and Tor W. Andreassen, Professor and Director of the research center Digital Innovations for sustainable Growth (DIG), NHH Norwegian School of Economics. Luiss Rector Andrea Prencipe will host.
The event will be held in English and participants are encouraged to join the discussion and ask their questions by participating in the dedicated Q&A Session.
SansJus
stands for “Sensing for Justice”. The project was born after a landmark court
decision released in Texas, on June 27th 2019, in which a judge found the
petrochemical company Formosa Plastics Corporation, liable for violating the
Clean Water Act because of plastic discharge into local waters. The case was
brought by a civic group based in part on citizen sensed-evidence which
involved volunteer observations performed over years. This practice entailing
grassroots-driven environmental monitoring could be qualified as ‘Citizen
Science’ and, more specifically, ‘Citizen Sensing’. The contamination could not
be proved through existing data held by competent authorities since the company
never filed any record of pollution with the competent authority. Rather, the
monitoring and data collection was almost entirely conducted by local
residents.
The key
objective of the Sensing for Justice project is to fill the knowledge gap to
avoid a possible scientific and legislative vacuum and provide newly required
research capacity in the EU. The research will be hosted by the European
Commission Joint Research Centre, currently the leading actor in the research
on Citizen Science for environmental monitoring and reporting, which will allow
us to play a crucial role in the enactment of measures to release Citizen
Science for litigation and mediation’s potential across the EU.
Nowadays
it is essential to redefine Citizen Sensing as a manifestation of the broader
Citizen Science practice having a potential source of evidence acceptable in
environmental litigation, as an exercise of the right to contribute to
environmental information and even as a method to foster environmental
mediation.
Give a
look to SensJus website to discover the news and upcoming actions of the
project!
