Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"
The environmental public policies within the globalization context - study cases: Bogotá, Madrid, Mexico and Sao Paulo.
Results obtained during the stay at EPFL, specifically at "cooperation@epfl", were highly satisfactory to achieve the objectives set for this stage of the research and to advance in the development of the doctoral thesis in relation to the subjects of "governance" and "good government", subjects where both EPFL and Switzerland have interesting experiences in different parts of the world, mainly through the cooperation to development..
Regarding the proposed objectives, the results were as follows:
General Background:
The word gouvernance, translated into English as "governance" and into Spanish as gobernanza by the Spanish Royal Academy of Language, reemerged in 1937 with the American studies on "Corporate Governance" making reference to the company’s efficiency and profitability, being this the " ... first vulgarization of the gobernanza concept used in the private scope”. "Later, in 1973 amid the Cold War, the term governance is retaken by the public sector and translated into Spanish as "gobernabilidad", used in 1975 by Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki in the report "The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission", which was brought before the Trilateral Commission (USA, Japan and the European Economic Community) amid of the full crisis of the Welfare State and the timid emergence of what is now known as globalization (Prats, 2001).
The Commission of the European Communities, in Gouvernance européenne - Un livre blanc of 2001, refers to the gouvernance concept as the one that points out the rules, processes and behavior dealing with the exercise of powers at European level, especially from the perspective of openness, participation, responsability, efficiency and coherence ; these five principles seek to reinforce the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
In the specific case of Latin America, the ambiguities generated by the use of the term governance or gobernanza led to the appropriation of the term "governability" as a reaffirmation of the uniqueness of the situations in the region and critique of universal solutions (Theys, 2003) . The increasing use of the term in the region has led both Anglo-Saxon authors (Bailey, John and Godson, Roy, among others) and to various international institutions (IMF, WM, BID, UN, EU) to use the term governance (Governability in English and gouvernabilté in French).
The United Nations Program for Development defines Governability as:
“…the system of values, policies and institutions by which a society manages its economic, political and social affairs through interactions within and among the state, civil society and private sector. It is the way a society organizes itself to make and implement decisions— achieving mutual understanding, agreement and action. It comprises the mechanisms and processes for citizens and groups to articulate their interests mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and obligations…”
As far as Lieberherr (2002) is concerned, he asserts that the governability “…requires democratic tools, participatory decision-making processes, regulatory systems, and an understanding of the environmental stakes for local and global development…”
Currently, application of the term governability has gone beyond the merely political scope, that's why today it is essential, within the context of sustainability, to analyze urban governability, understood by the UNFPA (2007), as the “has come to be understood as both government responsibility and civic engagement. Generally, it refers to the processes by which local urban governments—in partnership with other public agencies and different segments of civil society—respond effectively to local needs in a participatory, transparent and accountable manner.”
The above proves that the challenges for the local governments are increasingly greater since they have to manage and watch for the efficient investment of funds, meet the growing demands of society regarding the democratization and socialization of politics and to watch for the ecological, social and economic equilibrium of the city and the environment it depends on.
The "cooperation @ epfl" Experience:
The review of the works carried out by "cooperation @ epfl" in several different South American cities (Belo Horizonte, Bogotá, Autlán, Rosario, among others), Africa and Asia, on issues related to inclusion, social cohesion and durability as key elements of governance and good government, reaffirm that:
General Conclusion:
In short, governance in big cities will depend primarily on both the exercise of management by the state institutions (foundations, principles, techniques, objectives) and on the formulation and implementation processes of public policies (approaches, actors, resources, objectives), which are able to combine "the preservation of local identity, for nobody to lose the ability to express themselves and get them to be heard"6 with the demands of a globalized world (competitiveness, efficiency, effectiveness) and the community needs (sustainability, inclusion and equity).
Bibliography
Prats i Català, Joan. Gobernabilidad democrática para el desarrollo humano. Marco conceptual y analítico. Revista Instituciones y Desarrollo Nº 10. Institut Internacional de Governabilitat de Catalunya. Barcelona. 2001. págs. 103-148
Jacques Theys. La Gouvernance, entre innovation et impuissance. Développement durable et territoires. Dossier 2 : Gouvernance locale et Développement Durable. Novembre 2003. URL : http://developpementdurable.revues.org/index1523.html
Contact:
Marcela Navarrete Peñuela Barcelona - España |
Professeur Jean-Claude Bolay |
- Launay, Claire. Ambigüedades y desafíos de la gobernanza en Colombia. Hacia una visión diferenciada del concepto. 2007. En: www.institut-gouvernance.org/flag
- “La notion de "gouvernance" désigne les règles, les processus et les comportements qui influent sur l'exercice des pouvoirs au niveau européen, particulièrement du point de vue de l'ouverture, de la participation, de la responsabilité, de l'efficacité et de la cohérence.” In Commission des Communautés Européennes. Gouvernance européenne. Un livre blanc. Bruselas. 2001. Pág. 8
- PNUD. Strategy Note on Governance for Human Development. 2000. En: Indicadores de gobernabilidad. Guía del usuario. 2ª ed. New York. Sd. Pág. 1
- 4 Lieberherr, Françoise. First Urban Forum. Editorial. ¿For sustainable cities?
- Urbanews. N° 6. EPFL. 2002. Page. 1 (Spanish)
- 5 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). State of world population. 2007. To release the Potential of Urban Growth. Chapter 6. 2007. Page 67 (Spanish)