19 Urban Governance

Dr. Deeksha Bajpai Tewari

India: Trends of Urbanization

India is witnessing an increased pace of urbanization. Despite a large section of its population continuously being predominantly rural, it is quickly emerging as one of the fastest urbanizing countries. It is the second largest urban system in the world with an urban population of about 340 million and 35 metros. Cities are emerging as the engines of national economy and the generators of wealth. Cities are the centers of technology, innovation, creativity and economic growth and employment, reservoirs of skills, knowledge and hope for migrants from rural areas. There has been a steady increase in the country’s urban population over the decades. The urban population increased from 26 million in 1901 to 285 million in 2001 and from 10 per cent to 28 per cent during the same period.

The Indian urban scenario of India can be better comprehended through an understanding of the spatial dimension of urban growth. Till 1991, Maharashtra was the most urbanized state of India. In 1981, Tamil Nadu followed Maharashtra in the level of urbanization. In 1991, Gujarat overtook TamilNadu as the second most urbanized state and in 2001Tamil Nadu surpassed both Maharashtra and Gujarat and became the most urbanized state in the country. With only 10 per cent of its population living in urban areas, Himachal Pradesh steadily remains the least urbanized state. The regional pattern of urbanization remained quite unwavering over past 30 years. The western and southern states are more urbanized than northern, central and eastern states. All the four southern states, i.e. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh and two western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat generally had the level of urbanization higher than the national average whereas Punjab in the north and West Bengal in east have that distinction. The state wise differentials in urbanization closely follow the spatial diversity in industrial and agricultural development.

Components of Urban Growth

There are four components of urban population growth – natural increase or organic growth, rural to urban migration, reclassification, and boundary changes of the existing urban centers. From the census reports it can be assumed that the natural increase during 1991-2001 was about 59 percent, rural-urban migration 21 per cent and the remaining urban growth is due to reclassification or boundary changes.

One feature of India’s urbanization is the growth of large and metropolitan cities. This is a challenge of India’s urbanization. In 1901, Calcutta was the only city which had more than a million population, and the number of such cities increased to 12 by 1981, to 23 by 1991 and to 35 in 2001. The metropolitan cities together have a population of about 108 millions in 2001. The metropolitan cities together host nearly 11 per cent of the country’s total population and 38 per cent of urban population. One aspect of metropolitan growth is that there is very favorable spatial spread of these large cities that may help in achieving the goals of balanced urban growth. Today Mumbai is the most populous city of the country followed by Kolkata, Chennai and Delhi. These four cities have remained at the top of India’s urban hierarchy.

Urban Projections

    Projections indicate that by 2030 that India’s urban population will be 575 million, constituting over 40% of total population. A McKinsey report, India’s Urban Awakening (2010) projected that by 2030 five states -Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu will have more than 50% urban population and 13 cities will have more than 4 million population each. Six cities viz., Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune will have more than ten million population each.

Challenges of Urbanization

The quality of the physical environment is deteriorating in most of the cities. Citizens are exposed to harmful pathogens and bacteria because of stressed physical infrastructure, inadequate delivery of basic services, air and water pollution, uncollected wastes, etc. Urban health is fast deteriorating and has become a crucial issue because of the emergence and spurt in diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, which are related to poor environmental condition and poor living conditions.

The other serious problems include:

·  Hasty economic activity whereby urban growth is much quicker than their solutions and there is no reliable data being generated to track this.

·   Multiple agencies with manifold institutional jurisdictions like basic services with ULB and PDS /housing with other state departments.

·   Weak administrative systems and human resources with minimal training, poorly designed cadre and recruitment rules.

·  Inadequate internal systems – finance, land records, etc.

·  Inadequate or inappropriate technical skills.

   · Mismatch between emerging problems and the available new skills; PPPs, outsourcing, use complex contracts, etc.,

·  Urbanisation of poverty, issues of land rights, unavoidable permanent and seasonal migration, and issues in beneficiary identification under different schemes;

·  Increased financial requirements for provision of basic minimum urban infrastructure – for 63cities, the CDPs tentatively estimated a need of Rs 3,23,779crores.

Urbanization is both inevitable and is considered an affirmative for national development. The response to increasing urbanization and growth and development of cities needs to be viewed positively, though there is no denial of the fact that it should be more balanced and more responsive to national development goals. There is a dire need to provide a better management and governance regime to our cities. The 74th Constitution Amendment manifest a noteworthy initiative to make urban local bodies as institutions of self-governance. This was followed by other reforms like Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) and Thirteenth Finance Commission. The focus was on making urban local bodies (ULBs) answerable for proficient management of cities.

Urban Governance: Concept and Principles

The gradual transformation of the predominantly rural society to an urban one has been set in motion in India. There are significant structural shifts in the economy, with the decline in share of primary sector output and employment. The urban centers already contribute over half of the national income. The liberalized market-based economic policies being pursued for the last three years are likely to further accelerate the process of urbanization and sustain the dominant role of cities in the national economy. The experience of the East-Asian and the Pacific region cities suggests that Indian cities will have to become aggressive players in the international market and compete with other global cities in the Asia-Pacific region. This can happen only when city governance becomes sensitive to the issues of economic development. Ever-improving economic and social conditions combine with internal and international migration and the widespread effects of globalization change the nature of urban settlements. Demographic expansion enhances more diversity to urban communities, thereby creating more tension and social fragmentation. At the same time, this expansion enables economies of scale and agglomeration with productive concentrations of capital (human, financial and physical) and larger markets for goods and services – what is known as the ‘productivity of social diversity.’ The importance of social diversity and its role in productivity has, in turn, generated ideas and policies designed to enhance ‘inclusiveness’ in urban governance (Stren, 2001; Stren & Polese, 2000; UN-HABITAT, 2010a).

Governance may broadly be defined as ‘the ways in which a society organizes itself to make and implement policies’ (Summers and Pritchett, 1993). The economic policy and performance of a nation and a city are largely dependent on the system of governance. Governance is also much more than what the governments do. The system of governance is ‘good’, when all the stakeholders—the government, bureaucracy, business enterprises and the civil society at large— collaborate on certain economic and social goals. The challenges lie in creating instrumentalities that provide opportunities to the diverse groups of stakeholders to come to terms with such goals and participate in the system of governance. The challenges of good governance lie not only within the domain of economic performance, but also in the sphere of transforming the very mode of governance itself. This new mode of governance has to promote economic development, as well as to safeguard the interests of all its stakeholders against the likely adverse impacts of the envisaged rapid economic growth. Governance describes “the process of decision-making, the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented) and the process by which power is exercised for the optimum utilization of economic and social resources for development”. The term governance can apply to corporate, international, national, local governance .Good governance is a term used to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights and sustainable development.

With increased urbanisation and growing importance of cities in national economy and development, conventional methods of governing the city with top down approaches have proved to be restrictive and inadequate. There has been an increasing demand for avenues for participation in urban governance, to increase transparency in civic management, modernizing administration, improved service delivery, etc. The need to adopt new systems and methods of governing the cities that are inclusive and facilitate active and effective the participation all stakeholders is being increasingly realised. There is also a realisation that the existing capacity of the urban local bodies is limited and need to be enhanced systematically, which only will contribute to good urban governance.

Urban governance is defined as “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city. It is a continuing process through which conflicting and diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action can be taken. It includes formal institutions as well as informal arrangements and social capital of the citizens”. Good urban governance is:

·       A progression by which the quality of life in the cities can be improved.

·       A proficient and effectual response to various urban problems along with accountable local government working in corporation with civil society.

·       It aims to support civil society participation in management of city along with municipal institutions.

·       An inclusive process to achieve a quality of life as desired by the citizenry, particularly the poor and the disadvantaged. It promotes inclusiveness of stakeholders, reduces poverty and increase the involvement of all stakeholders in the political process of governing the city. Good urban governance, however, is not a panacea for all urban problems, ills and controversies. It is undeniably linked to citizen welfare and enables the community to access the benefits of urban citizenship, including adequate shelter, security, tenure, safe water, sanitation, a clean environment, health, education and nutrition, employment and public safety and mobility. Through good urban governance, citizens are provided a platform that allows them to use their talents to the full to improve their social and economic conditions. Good urban governance, like good governance, is characterized by the following criteria viz.:

Sustainability – cities must balance the social, economic and environmental needs of present and future generations and this includes having a clear commitment to urban poverty reduction.

Subsidiarity of authority and resources to the closest level to facilitate efficient service delivery to facilitate community initiative and responsiveness.

   Efficient delivery of services and promotion of local economic development through sound and cost-effective financial management, delivery of services, good public private-people partnerships, etc.

Transparency and accountability of local bodies to facilitate citizen’s understanding of municipal performance through information flow, active citizen participation in local affairs, etc.

Civic engagement by all stakeholders including women, poor, members of civil society, etc.

The Security of people and the environment to avoid conflict, crime, and disasters. This refers to the security of individuals in their living environment.

Good urban governance contributes to sustainable urban development. It brings civil society, private sector and other actors into a political process. Sustainable cities have four important characteristics viz., good governance, liveability, competitiveness and bankability. Through good governance, urban local bodies develop competitiveness, make the city liveable and through prudent and efficient financial and asset management increase rating to facilitate market borrowings for investment in city development. Therefore, good urban governance is critical for growth and development.

The Stakeholders in Urban Governance

Figure 1: Basic Stakeholders in Urban Governance

Source: Laquian, 2005

The above diagram is similar to the one used by UN-HABITAT’s Urban Management Programme in its training materials. It lists eight main stakeholders in urban governance (SeeFigure). Their mutual interactions enable urban societies to evolve consensus, formulate and enforce laws, adopt and enforce regulations, and legitimately manage urban affairs for the sake of justice, welfare and environmental protection.

“Governance of human settlements in Asia today involves multiple actors and stakeholders,

interdependent resources and actions, shared purposes and blurred boundaries between the public and the private, formal and informal, and state and civil society sectors. The active involvement of these varied actors in governance indicates a greater need for coordination, negotiation and building consensus.” UN-HABITAT (2001)

The definition of urban governance has more recently been broadened to include “the critical role played by organizations in urban civil society where formal structures are weak and unable to provide basic services” (McCarney et al., 1995; Laquian, 2005). As pointed out by McCarney et al., (1995:95), “urban governance is concerned with the relationship between civil society and the state, between rulers and the ruled, the government and the governed.”

   Local Governments – As part of their legislative, executive and judicial functions, promulgate, execute, finance and evaluate public programmes or policies. At the same time, local authorities rely on the public for inputs in policy making and feedback on outcomes and performance.

Civic Institutions help secure consistency between particular concerns and the more general, public interests they typically advocate, and also assess and monitor performance. They augment government resources through voluntary efforts and resource mobilization in support of public programmes.

Interest Groups, including the Business Sector and Labour/ Trade Unions pursue more narrowly focused objectives that also contribute to public welfare. Private sector participation in the financing, operation and management of urban infrastructure and services has becom a critical element in urban governance. As for labour unions, they stand for equity and social justice in the allocation of the benefits arising from public policies and programmes.

The Academic community is an excellent source of researchbased policy analysis that methodically assesses the effects and impact of specific public actions. Academic research also contributes to good management and governance, including with experimental pilot projects before these are mainstreamed in public programmes.

National governments, on top of maintaining public order and the conduct of foreign affairs, can levy taxes, a prerogative that can be shared with local government units. Effective, strategically sound decentralization and devolution has a crucial role to play in urban management and governance.

Non-governmental organizations are voluntary groups that represent special interests based on issues, group affiliation, geographic areas and other fields. They act as advocates for specific causes and influence the formulation, adoption or implementation of public policies that help make urban areas more sustainable.

•   Individual citizens exert their own influence on urban management and governance through participation in elections, plebiscites and referendums. They also evaluate how public programmes positively or negatively affect their lives, and use the media or civic action to make their voices heard and their influence felt. Although citizens may appear powerless as individuals, they can exert direct influence on local government when they are organized and mobilized around specific issues.

•  Active participation of individuals organized at Community or grassroots level is the basis for peoples’ initiatives, especially when regrouped in community-based organizations (CBOs). The community level is where public interests are best formulated, as citizens tend to be more aware of local conditions and local leaders in a better position to heed their demands, with human and material resources mobilized in the pursuit of common goals. Community-level stakeholders can also monitor and evaluate governance, ensuring better efficiency and equity.

    Principles of Urban Governance

    The cardinal principles of urban governance include responsiveness to the public’s needs and demands, as well as accountability of decision-makers. Responsiveness goes hand in hand with the principles of participation, transparency and the pursuit of consensus, while accountability is linked to the rule of law, effectiveness, efficiency and equity (UNDPTUGI, 2003).

Participation and Representation

Historically, central governments in the Asia-Pacific region have dominated local agendas. With ever more complex urban conditions and pervasive globalization, however, grassroots and special-interest groups as well as non-governmental organizations have demanded greater participation in local affairs. During the 1970s and 1980s, governments in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Pakistan sought to restrict civic participation.

These regimes have not survived, though, and strong-armed rule by leaders like Suharto in Indonesia and Marcos in the Philippines has collapsed (Douglass, 2005). The most direct form of participation is through local elections, referendums, petitions and attendance at committee meetings. In India, mission specific non-governmental organizations have concentrated on advocating and fighting for developmental or remedial . They also use the mass media to campaign for specific reforms. In China, direct participation has taken the form of community consultation and dialogue with local officials. In the Republic of Korea, urban dwellers have come up with frequent demands for audits of, and investigations in, government programmes. In Thailand, the government has set up a “court of governance” which citizens can turn to in order to resolve conflicts with public authorities. In India, under the 1992 Constitutional Amendment Act, state governments must make sure that municipal councils are more representative with at least one-third of all seats reserved for women. In Pakistan, recent reorganization efforts have introduced a three-tier metropolitan governance structure in Karachi, including Citizen Community Boards, in order to encourage a more participatory governance.

Participatory Budgeting

Participatory budgeting, whereby ordinary residents decide local resource allocations among competing items, has been quite late in coming to the Asia-Pacific region but it is gaining in popularity. The process originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989. In a bid to involve low- income people and civil society groups in governance processes, the city empowered neighbourhood, district and city-wide groups and associations to elect budget delegates who identified spending priorities and decided which items should be implemented and funded. A budgeting cycle was instituted whereby specific steps in the process were carried out at designated times over the course of the year. In Indian cities, a number of civil society groups have engaged in analyses of state budgets, prepared budget briefs and influenced local legislators to allocate more resources to programmes that benefit poor and underserved communities. In Pune, the municipal authorities enabled both the citizens and city officials to submit requests for projects. In 2006 and 2007, the process was refined and members of self-help groups in low-income communities received specific training.In 2008 and 2009, the participatory budgeting exercise was extended to residents at the ward level.

Urban Governance Index (UGI)

Within the framework of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance, UN-HABITAT is currently developing and testing an index to measure the quality of urban governance. The index has a two-fold purpose:

q  At the global level, the index will be used to demonstrate the importance of good urban governance in achieving broad development objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals and those in the Habitat Agenda. Research at the national level has demonstrated that the good governance correlates with positive development outcomes. The index will also permit the regional and global comparison of cities based on the quality of their urban governance. The process of comparison is designed to catalyse specific action to improve the quality of local governance.

q  At the local level: the index is expected to catalyse local action to improve the quality of urban governance. Local indicators will be developed by cities and their partners to respond directly to their unique contexts and needs. The Urban Governance Index, therefore, will be supported by tools, training guides and an appendix of additional indicators to help cities develop their own monitoring systems.

What is the focus of the index?

    The Urban Governance Index and its constituent indicators focus on the processes, institutions and relationships at the local level. This should be seen as part of a wider range of indicators, focusing on inputs, processes, performance, perception, output, or outcome. For example, the following indicators all measure different aspects of the “access to water”.

q  Input: Resources available for improvement of basic services in a municipality ($)

q  Performance: Average time required by municipal authority to process a water connection (# days)

q  Process: Is civil society involved in a formal participatory planning and budgeting process before undertaking investment in basic services? (Y/N – incremental steps)

q  Perception: Satisfaction with transparency in access to water (through report card/ survey result)

q  Output: Households with access to water within 200m of dwelling (%)

q  Outcome: Under-Five Mortality Rate: of male and female children who die before having attained their 5th birthday (%)

The structure of the index reflects four core principles of good urban governance promoted by the Campaign as the overall organising framework for the Index: effectiveness, equity, participation and accountability. The index can then be used to test for correlation between the quality of urban governance and issues such as urban poverty reduction, quality of life, city competitiveness and inclusiveness. Some of these issues are already captured by other indices.

How has the Index been developed?

The Urban Governance Index has been developed jointly by the Global Urban Observatory and the Global Campaign on Urban Governance, supported by selected cities as well as key members of the Campaign’s Global Steering Group. An internal UN-HABITAT Flex-Team was established to prepare initial framework and indicators in 2002. Initial indicators were developed based on Urban Indicators Programme and in-house research. An Expert Group Meeting made recommendations regarding the structure and content of the index in November 2002. Field-testing was carried out in two stages with a group comprising first 12 and later 24 large and medium-size cities from different regions.1 It is intended to expand this to a larger group based on the Global Urban Observatory’s monitoring programme and through the ongoing city-based work of UN-HABITAT programmes. A long-list of indicators was selected for the initial field test with partners. Based on the results, indicators that demonstrated the strongest correlation to the quality of governance have been selected for inclusion in the Index. Opportunities for national adaptation of the Index are being actively pursued, including in Indonesia, Somalia and Sri Lanka. National (multi-city) application is already underway in Zimbabwe and Mongolia. Discussions are ongoing with local authorities’ associations to develop a Good Governance Hallmark or Award system for cities based on the Index results.

What are the benefits of developing urban governance indicators?

q  Indicators are essential to assess the effectiveness of policies (eg. decentralization policy, gender policy)

q  Indicators can help in monitoring if capacity building efforts yield the expected results (Value for Money; Cost-Benefit Analysis)

q  The design of an indicators system can help creating a platform to involve civil society and private sector in local governance

q  Indicators give us an objective set of data to feed the review of urban governance strategies when necessary

q  Monitoring through indicators can provide an objective account of achievements of local elected leaders (for instance at times of elections).

Which criteria are used to evaluate the usefulness of indicators?

A list of criteria was proposed for evaluating the indicators that will make up the Index. The key criteria include the following:

q  Relevance for monitoring Urban Governance Principles and Relationships

q  Ease of collection including availability and/or effort required to obtain data

1  Cities which participated in the field tests include, in alphabetical order: Amman, Bayamo, Colombo, Dakar, Douala, Enugu, Guadalajara, Ibadan, Ismailia, Kandy, Kano, Louga, Matale, Montevideo, Montreal, Moratuwa, Naga City, Negombo, Pristina, Quito, Santo Andre, Tanta, Vancouver, Yaounde.

• q Credibility for Partners, Investors, Media, Electorate
• q Universality of use, at local, national, regional, global levels

Conclusions

Cities and their governments more important as ‘new state space’. Urban poverty needs to be recognized as multi-dimensional deprivations. City governments need to strengthen their own capacity and link up with other scale levels of government – metropolitan governance and city-to-city networks, and trans-national urban governance networks. Diversity of citizens’ identities and interests made explicit, so that inequalities do not grow further. Participatory models can support redistributive urban policies. Urban regime research still very necessary to analyze government – private sector links

References

• Urban Governance Index: Global Campaign on Urban Governance, 2005. http:www. unhabitat.org/content.p? typeid=1 9&catid=25&cid=2167 (accessed 25 August 2017).
• World Bank “Concentration without Congestion, Policies for Inclusive Urbanization.” World Development Report, Chapter 7.Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009.
• State of the World Cities 2010-2011 – Bridging the urban divide. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT; London: Earthscan, 2010.
• Laquian, Aprodicio,  “Urban  Governance,  Some  Lessons  Learned.”  In  Democratic Governance        and        Urban        Sustainability,       by        Joseph        S.        Tulchin, Diana Varat & Blair A. Ruble, pp97-125.
• Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.