Date:	27 January - 7 February 2003

UNCRD supports the Bogotá-Cundinamarca Regional Planning Board (RPB) - established in February 2001 - as its technical secretariat in the implementation of the project on "Building Institutional Capacity for the Integrated Regional Development of Bogota-Cundinamarca" (B-C), the main objective of which is institutional and technical capacity-building among the wide diversity of jurisdictions and stakeholders acting in the study area for collaborative management, while cooperating in the economic, social, and environmental development of their territory. Bogota, the capital city, has 7 million people while the State of Cundinamarca, comprising 116 municipalities, has about 2 million. All are territorial entities with jurisdictional and administrative autonomy; there are no existing regional authorities responsible for managing cross-jurisdictional and cross-sectoral issues.

The overall goal of the project is enabling and supporting the organization, participation, training, and technical assistance of key governmental and private sector stakeholders, so they can jointly identify common issues, problems, and develop action plans culminating in a set of activities and priorities through which the different entities will be coordinated.

The project has three phases. Phase 2, almost complete, incorporates the initiation of the local/provincial participation component of the project, promoting active participation of the general public and private stakeholders. Between April and June 2003, twenty workshops were held in Bogota (five localities) and Cundinamarca (fifteen provinces). Around 1,100 participants attended these workshops. The overall training package involves four training courses on regional development management, strategic planning workshops, study tours, and an information dissemination and interactive programme via a website; and a series of technical support activities related to priority themes identified by the RPB. The project is fully funded by the RPB entities.

The first training course was conducted from 15 to 27 April 2002 with the participation of around seventy public officials, and focused on collaborative and integrated regional development management. Phase 1 of the project, initiated with this first training course, concluded at the end of 2002. Phase 2 of the project, initiated at the beginning of 2003, aims to build a shared vision of the future of the region, identifying a common action agenda, and defining concerted guidelines to formulate a strategic regional plan. The second training course on regional development management, the launching of phase 2 of the project, was held from 27 January to 7 February 2003. It had the participation of around 110 public officials from the RPB entities, and representatives from the private sector and the provincial and local levels, who underwent training on the methodology to be used by the working teams in phase 2. The five-module course was designed as a highly participatory and results-oriented activity, whose dynamics were primarily based on the participants' knowledge and experience. Among other things, it aimed to acquaint participants with the findings and conclusions of phase 1 of the project (referential scenarios analysis, critical topics and projects), set up an exchange of knowledge, ideas, and information, and provide the required inputs and information for the development of the activities and workshops scheduled/programmed for phase 2 of the project.

The course was undertaken by UNCRD Director Onogawa, the Governor of the State of Cundinamarca, the deputy directors of the RPB, and the coordinator of the UNCRD Latin America Office. Case presentations included contributions by resource persons from Colombia, Chile, the US, Japan, and included experts from the University of California, Berkeley, the World Bank, and UNCRD. Workshop sessions addressed the following issues: Present situation - Where are we?; Probable future - Where are we heading?; Possible future - Which other alternatives do we have for the future?; Desirable future - Where do we want to go?; and Strategies - How can we contribute from now to build the future we wish for?

To evaluate the course, a questionnaire survey was used. Feedback received from the results of the questionnaire has been very satisfactory, with higher percentages (around 80 per cent) ranging from "very good/very satisfactory" to "excellent" in each aspect of the course.