Incidence of Social Accountability in Local Governance: The Case of the Network for Fair, Democratic and Sustainable Cities and Territories in Latin America

Author(s):  
Andrés Hernández Quiñones ◽  
Paula Chies Schommer ◽  
Diana Cuadros De Vílchez
2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSS E. MITCHELL

This article recognises the paucity of scholarly work on environmental governance in Latin America. More specifically, it is hypothesised that community-based forest management in Mexico serves as an ideal case of ecologically beneficial and democratic decision-making, or ecological democracy. After introducing some of the relevant literature, this hypothesis is tested through a comparison of two indigenous forest-based communities in Oaxaca's Sierra Norte. Four key themes primarily emerged from semi-structured interviews, participant observation and other data collection techniques: local governance, equitable decision-making, forest management and environmental awareness. In comparing these two Mexican communities, this article aims to extend ideas of ecological democracy by linking empirical findings to political ecology theory and community forestry literature. While it is true that ecological democracy in Mexico has been facilitated under certain socio-cultural conditions, it is concluded that it can be simultaneously hindered. The empirical findings provide an analytical framework for subsequent research on ecological democracy in Latin America.


Author(s):  
Norbert Kersting ◽  
Janice Caulfield ◽  
R. Andrew Nickson ◽  
Dele Olowu ◽  
Hellmut Wollmann

2011 ◽  
pp. 1719-1738
Author(s):  
Motoo Kusakabe

The ‘Sustainable cities’ initiative has been widely accepted as a participatory development initiative to achieve environmental and social goals. In the cities in developing countries with a severe constraint in their capacity for participatory planning, a potentially effective way to build ‘sustainable city’ initiative is to use an e-government portal designed to support citizens’ participation in planning and monitoring processes and knowledge sharing among participating cities. In the Nigeria Delta region, 23 local governments were chosen to pilot this initiative. This region has been suffering from weak local governance and protracted youth unemployment caused by ‘youth bulge’ that led to severe social unrest. In such circumstances, this pilot had a strong focus on enhancing local governance and job-creation among young people in knowledge-intensive industries, particularly using information and communication technologies. This chapter investigates positive and negative sides of this approach using the cross-country and city-level survey data.


Author(s):  
Motoo Kusakabe

The ‘Sustainable cities’ initiative has been widely accepted as a participatory development initiative to achieve environmental and social goals. In the cities in developing countries with a severe constraint in their capacity for participatory planning, a potentially effective way to build ‘sustainable city’ initiative is to use an e-government portal designed to support citizens’ participation in planning and monitoring processes and knowledge sharing among participating cities. In the Nigeria Delta region, 23 local governments were chosen to pilot this initiative. This region has been suffering from weak local governance and protracted youth unemployment caused by ‘youth bulge’ that led to severe social unrest. In such circumstances, this pilot had a strong focus on enhancing local governance and job-creation among young people in knowledge-intensive industries, particularly using information and communication technologies. This chapter investigates positive and negative sides of this approach using the cross-country and city-level survey data.


Author(s):  
José Jorge Peralta Arias

ResumenLa insostenibilidad constituye un tema de reflexión obligada en los momentos actuales que vive el planeta, en donde los grandes desafíos a enfrentar están marcados por el cambio climático, el crecimiento poblacional y la urbanización acelerada, cuyas secuelas van de la mano del consumo irracional de recursos, la contaminación, la desigualdad y la pobreza. En Latinoamérica, esta situación se ve reflejada en un crecimiento urbano discontinuo, periferias pobres, bajas densidades, déficit de infraestructuras y servicios, entre otros factores que han sido considerados detonantes de problemas socio ambientales y de salud de su población; hechos que exigen ser tratados mediante procesos de planeamiento más integrales, que incluyan criterios de sostenibilidad y mecanismos de medición como indicadores e índices de sostenibilidad, para que ayuden a forjar ciudades y territorios más sostenibles. La investigación tiene como objetivo contrastar la realidad latinoamericana con otras realidades ya destacadas en el tema como la europea a través del caso español, con el fin de superar la visión sectorial del análisis. Los aportes más relevantes, se conjugan en una batería de indicadores referenciales con énfasis en la dimensión física ambiental, que podrían ser útiles al momento de plantear un modelo de Unidad Barrial Sostenible (UBS) para Latinoamérica.AbstractThe unsustainability is a subject of reflection forced in the current moments that the planet lives, where the great challenges to face are marked by climate change, population growth and accelerated urbanization, whose consequences go hand in hand with the irrational consumption of resources, pollution, inequality and poverty. In Latin America, this situation is reflected in discontinuous urban growth, poor peripheries, low densities, lack of infrastructure and services, among other factors that have been considered triggers of socio-environmental and health problems of its population; facts that require to be treated through more comprehensive planning processes, including sustainability criteria and measurement mechanisms such as indicators and sustainability indices, to help forge more sustainable cities and territories. The research aims to contrast the Latin American reality with other realities already highlighted in the subject, such as the European one through the Spanish case, in order to overcome the sector vision of analysis. The most relevant contributions are combined in a battery of reference indicators with emphasis on the physical environmental dimension, which could be useful when proposing a Sustainable Neighborhood Unit model (UBS) for Latin America.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document