UNCRD LAC Office

Building Institutional and Technical Capacity for the Integrated Regional Development of Bogotá-Cundinamarca

• Background, Objectives, and Components
• Achievements and Status of Implementation
• Activities

Background

The Bogotá-Cundinamarca Regional Planning Board (RPB) was installed in February 2001, as a result of a goodwill agreement signed by the Mayor of Bogotá, the Governor of Cundinamarca, and the Director of the Cundinamarca Environmental Development Agency (CAR, Spanish acronym), to strengthen cooperative links between Bogotá and Cundinamarca and to promote social, environmental and economic development. UNCRD was invited to join this initiative from the RPB's inception through the provision of technical support. The central government also participates in the RPB, where it is represented by the National Planning Department (DNP, Spanish acronym).

Bogotá is the capital city, with a population of around 7 million; and Cundinamarca has a population of some 2 million, living in 116 municipalities. All are territorial entities with autonomous jurisdictions and administrations, and there is no regional authority responsible for managing cross-jurisdictional and cross-sectoral issues.

The governments of the region are facing an increasing number of economic, environmental, and human security threats, such as the concentration of high rates of population and poverty, violence and insecurity, wide existing disparities between socioeconomic groups in terms of income, employment, and basic social services; as well as wide existing disparities between the provinces, municipalities, and urban and rural sectors, in terms of income, and of institutional capacity to face state-wide problems. There is a clear need for cooperative management between different levels of government (national, regional, and local) and the private sector and civil society to solve existing threats and problems.

Regional governance in Bogotá-Cundinamarca (B-C) requires a new type of leadership, one which is capable of serving as a catalyst of the needs and demands of public and private interest groups and of directing them in their search of common objectives. The RPB was created as a neutral and technical body of participation, coordination, and support to the governments and institutions of the study area to help resolve the limitations of its productive and social development, and of its environmental sustainability.

Objectives

The main objective of this project is to support the RPB in building technical and institutional capacity in regional government and key public and private stakeholders to work in cooperation and with a shared vision of the future of the region, and to develop strategic actions and projects that address critical threats and obstacles there. The ultimate goal is that all of the population -- specially the most vulnerable groups -- should have access to the social services required for development. The region will have to become more productive, with a higher and more equitable income per capita if it is to attain this objective.

To achieve the project's objective, the project's strategy is centred on promoting and supporting the organization, participation, training, and technical assistance of key governmental institutions and private-sector stakeholders, so that they themselves can develop an institutional and strategic regional development plan, which comprise the articulation of the set of activities and priorities from which the different entities and instances will be coordinated.

Project Components

1. Research and technical assistance. UNCRD has closely worked with the RPB members and a technical coordination team comprising Colombian professionals, involved in the research process by collecting existing information and preparing a regional profile that analysed key initial themes identified by the RPB, namely, productivity, human security, environment, and institutional development. This component also included action research on good practices related to the above themes that were used for training.
2. Training and participation. Training has been aimed at building and improving the capacity and skills of the RPB public officials, and of other selected key public and private stakeholders, so they can jointly identify issues and solutions to problems of critical importance to the region. The training and participation component has involved:
   • SWOT analyses. Since the project is being carried out by three entities, from the project outset it was vital to indicate the role of each organization, the importance and interrelationships of these roles, and the capacity of each organization to carry out their assigned roles. It was also vital to determine and evaluate the adequacy of proposed mechanisms and procedures for achieving the required coordination of functions. SWOT analyses were conducted to determine each RPB organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and hence, training needs.
   • Training courses on Regional Development Management (2-week training courses). These training courses gathered the public officials of the participating entities selected by the RPB due to their potential to lead planning and management processes, and generate a multiplying effect in the entities they belong to. They were aimed to enable participants to gain a broader appraisal on regional development concepts and strategies, exchange of knowledge, experiences, and common information, learn from relevant national and global case experiences, and acquire practical tools to jointly identify and analyse existing problems. Participating in these courses also helped them to analyse their needs for institution building, develop skills for collaborative management, prioritize appropriate responses to the particular situation of the region, and incorporate concrete strategies, activities, and projects in an action plan.

   The training courses were designed as an integral part of the process to launch the three phases of the project, and to train participants on the specific aspects and methods addressed in each of the phases (see below). They were designed as results-oriented and highly participatory activities, in which the dynamics were primarily based on the participants�f knowledge and experience. The outputs of the courses served as base material for the development of the activities undertaken by the working teams along the different phases of the project.

   • Workshops with strategic planning teams. This has been one of the essential components for building the capacity for collaborative management and defining agreements among the stakeholders acting in the region through strategic planning processes. The working teams constituted planning teams, and the workshops were centred on the development of specific aspects and projects. Participants counted on the support and advice of UNCRD experts, the technical team, and external advisors and specialized teams, mainly comprising local universities and research centres. Action planning was carried out to define and articulate the common agenda and priorities from which the different entities and instances were coordinated, wherein participants pooled their knowledge together in identifying the building-blocks for integrated regional development, resources, and obstacles. The action-planning exercise also helped define the responsible entities for each activity, their respective work plans, the management of available resources, and the definition of expected end-products in each step.
   • Study tours designed as training achieved through the direct sharing of relevant experiences with practitioners of other national and international regions. This study tour was designed as a response to the needs identified as specific issues and was directed to the project�fs managers and leaders. A second study tour to Japan was originally programmed, but has not been implemented to date.
3. Formulation of strategic plans, projects, and inter-institutional agreements, which has been the responsibility of the institutions that act in the region. The RPB's role has been that of supporting and orientating the overall process.
4. Dissemination of information. This component aims at public education and the timely and wider dissemination of key information to the wide array of public and private stakeholders involved and affected by the progress made, and results of, the process in all its stages. This has been achieved through forums, public events, the media, and mainly a web page of the project, which has extranet and intranet forums, a library with all the information and documents produced within the implementation of the project, links, chat rooms, and others.