Question

Say you live in a metropolitan area and the community has needs and you are to create an assessment of these needs. Complete the following assessment plan for a metropolitan city. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that you understand the key players in the community and know why specific individuals and groups should be involved in the assessment process.

Who should take part in assessment process and why?

Why is the needs and resources assessment being conducted?

What type of information do you need for the assessment?

What method(s) will be used for gathering information?

Whom will you gather the information from and why?

What is the assessment timeline?

Answer 1

The Sector Project “Sustainable Development of Metropolitan Regions”, implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), develops action-oriented advisory services on the role of metropolitan regions as drivers for sustainable development. Within this approach, the Sector Project operates in four focus areas to address the diverse social, economic and ecologic challenges in urban agglomerations.

residential centers in metropolitan regions.

The Metropolitan Capacity Assessment Methodology (MetroCAM) presented here has been developed to offer a set of tools for actors in metropolitan regions who want to initiate change, and for the agencies planning to support them do so. It is a joint contribution by GIZ and UN-Habitat to implement the international development agendas, such as the Urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11 “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”) as well as the Habitat III agenda, and bring them to the metropolitan scale. It is a generic methodology that provides guidance about what needs to be covered when assessing the governance capacity of a metropolitan region, starting with existing capacity, future needs, and potential trigger points and then identifying what else is needed to deal with a particular need or challenge (e.g. mobility, resilience, social inclusion). The methodology also offers ideas, tools and guidance about how to conduct the assessment process, through steps such as stakeholder mapping, gathering core data, assessing financial and institutional arrangements, conducting consultative workshops, and so on.

Against the background of increasing speed and scale of urbanization around the world, the face of cities is changing, particularly in developing countries. Cities are becoming spatially, functionally and economically interdependent with their surrounding areas – be it neighboring cities or the peri-urban and rural hinterland - constituting metropolitan regions. The need for holistic approaches to govern these urban agglomerations becomes ever more pressing. Local authorities, planners, decision makers as well as the international development community consequently need to look beyond traditional administrative and jurisdictional boundaries. International development agendas like the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the Paris Climate Agreement and the outcome document of the Habitat III process (New Urban Agenda) have thus recognized the need to overcome the traditional rural-urban dichotomy. This is why there is now an increasing focus on metropolitan governance as an essential mechanism for cooperation beyond city boundaries, achieving efficiency gains for cost effectiveness, improving delivery of basic services for all, ensuring equitable distribution of resources, promoting balanced territorial development, and many other needs. However, many metropolitan regions do not yet have a coordinating body to facilitate cooperation and collaboration between the municipalities within the region.

Using this methodology will provide a framework that can both guide decision making about what needs to be done and then provide useful tools for conducting the relevant activity steps. It aims to show options and incentives for municipalities to cooperate beyond administrative boundaries, make use of synergies and deliver equitable and affordable basic services for all. As important as the capacity assessment itself, the MetroCAM is also a process to build consensus. The whole assessment process is a way to foster dialogue and get political buy-in to initiate or deepen a reform. The ultimate aim of the MetroCAM is to lead to the provision of informative analysis of key issues, together with recommendations for initiatives that would contribute to solving problems, creating innovations, or improving existing services and conditions. The modular methodology can be adapted to diverse local contexts and specific sectoral challenges and is directed to urban practitioners, local government representatives, researchers or development organizations.

The assessment team and its role

Any given assessment will be initiated because someone – individual or group – has identified a problem in an urban setting (e.g. mobility, resilience, social inclusion) and expressed the need for an assessment as the first step in creating solutions. Whoever made that decision will need to have in mind a broad goal statement of what they want to achieve with the assessment. This goal (e.g. stakeholder analysis, project proposal, a guide for organizing the results of stakeholder consultation, planning tool for identifying entry or trigger points to stimulate change, political commitment, etc.) will then enable them to decide who to bring together to start creating the assessment team, i.e. the people who will be responsible for putting in place all that needs to happen, together with an allocation of resources to support the activities. Getting the work done is usually best achieved by creation of a small core team brought together specifically for the purpose. This ad hoc team will plan the process, access and manage resources for doing the work, keep the activities on track, and ensure that the information gained is analysed to produce helpful findings and useful recommendations for relevant stakeholders. The team will decide who else to involve in different steps of the process, and they may also, but not necessarily, lead some of the activities. The membership of the team should be decided on a case by case basis. For efficiency the core team should not be too large, but it should include some key people like:

 Representative/s from metropolitan or municipal authorities;

 Key experts on the thematic issues;

 Civil society;

 Academia;

 Development organisations. Many different perspectives are needed for developing a coherent analysis. Yet, including all or many different representations could complicate work in the initial stages, as people may have very different understandings of the problem definition. Choices should be made carefully at the start and it may be more effective to have a two-tier group. The first would be a core group of people from the relevant authorities who are able to lead and deliver on the overall process, possibly with consultant support to help them get the work done. The second group could be more consultative or advisory in nature, or perhaps tasked with specific elements of the process. This type of approach would potentially avoid the process being held up by conflicting perspectives and interests from different sectors. The core group will probably work best if they decide on who is the team leader, and designate specific individuals to take the lead on different aspects of the work. For example, one could lead on gathering and analysing core data, another on stakeholder consultations, and so on. For a major assessment process the team will undoubtedly need to delegate or contract different components of the work to others, depending on the resources available. In the guidance that follows any references to the assessment team refer to this core group of people, formed at the start, who have been given the responsibility for managing the process to a successful conclusion. The group may, of course, at any stage be expanded to include other key individuals, or representatives of important agencies who are committed to taking the process forward. Once formed, the assessment team needs to make a plan for getting the assessment done, including an analysis of findings and making recommendations on how to proceed. They will need to decide on the first steps and who will be responsible for conducting them, with a proposed schedule for completion of the preliminary tasks. Key activities to be included in the first round of planning steps are set out below. The sequence is not prescribed as the activities may happen in any order, or simultaneously, according to circumstances. Some elements of the overall MetroCAM process are essential, and these are

2.2 Clarifying the purpose, scope and focus of the assessment Capacity is always context specific, so any activity to assess current capacity or future needs should always start with a definition of capacity for the particular context under consideration. GIZ is using the following as a broad working definition of capacity in the context of governance of metropolitan regions. The ability of key stakeholders to work together, utilising the agencies, systems and resources at their disposal, to ensure the delivery of equitable, sustainable and cost effective public goods and services for the citizens of the metropolitan region. This is not a definitive statement: it should always be adapted to make it specific and relevant to the assessment process being planned. In particular it should be adapted to reflect the theme or function that is the focus of the assessment process. Before starting activity planning it is important that those who have initiated the assessment work together with the assessment team, to reach a shared understanding of their definition of capacity in the context, i.e. they have made appropriate amendments to the definition given above, for example: The ability of key stakeholders, including representatives of user groups and private sector providers, to work together, utilising the agencies, systems and resources at their disposal, to ensure the delivery of equitable, sustainable and cost effective mobility and public transport services for the citizens of the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region. They will also need to clarify what the process is intended to be, which may be either:  A broad general assessment; or,

 A detailed assessment of a specific issue, or component of an issue, that key stakeholders have already identified as important and/or expressed an interest to work on (e.g. mobility, resilience, social inclusion). Taking time to ensure everyone is clear about definitions, intentions, focus, etc. at the start can avoid confusions and misunderstanding arising later on. The template given in Box 1 below is a worksheet that can be used to guide the discussions. It can be used for two purposes:

1. For the assessment team to clarify together, and record, essential information about it so as to ensure that they have shared understanding and agreement. The information in the ‘Scope’ box will guide the development of a preliminary action plan following this process of clarification; and,

2. To share, if needed, as a briefing document for others who will be involved.

Goal The goal should be a clear statement of purpose, framed in a way that it can be used to provide the foundation for formulating objectives for any workshops, surveys, etc. conducted as part of the process. The goal statement should also specify what the expected results of the process will be, e.g. a report or the basis for formulation of a new initiative.

Focus  If conducting a broad general assessment, give an overview description of what issues the process is expected to cover. This will necessarily be quite open at the start, but may change as the process proceeds and generates information about specific issues.

 If working with an agreed theme, give an overview of the issue as it is currently understood. This could be defined: by services - e.g. transport; by theme - e.g. resilience; or, by implementing mechanism - e.g. financial instruments  Identify any goals that have already been defined by key authorities or stakeholders, relevant to this assessment. Definition of Capacity Review the generic definition of capacity given and adapt it to make it specific to the focus theme and metropolitan region of this particular assessment. Scope State the first estimates of.

 Expected range and nature of inquiries e.g. questionnaires, interviews, workshop.

 Summary list of stakeholder groups to be consulted, e.g. municipal authorities, civil society organizations, political parties, national government ministries, etc.

 Time frame

 Resource needs

Framing the assessment:

When doing a capacity assessment, it is always helpful to have a guiding framework that defines how capacity is understood. This will be a helpful aid to framing the assessment and analysis. Capacity is a big and complex subject addressing many different issues and entities within any given context, so a comprehensive, holistic approach is helpful. For the purposes of a metropolitan capacity assessment, the GIZ model provides the type of guidance that is needed. The working definition and the model of capacity to guide the assessment should be decided in earlier steps, but if necessary it can be reviewed before starting the detailed assessment and analysis. With the definition to guide thinking, it is also helpful to keep in mind that both soft and hard capacities are relevant, and in most contexts the soft capacities will be more important especially when finding entry points into complex systems. This classification of capacities is important to consider for both the general background environment and the specific trigger point under consideration

RESOURCES AND TIME CONSIDERATION

Any assessment concerned with a metropolitan region is by definition dealing with issues of considerable size and complexity. To undertake a fully comprehensive assessment would likely be very time consuming and very expensive. Only few agencies will have unlimited time and resources for such exercises. So decisions need to be made about what can realistically be done with what is available. Before starting the process, the assessment team needs to focus on what needs to be done to achieve their goal, taking into account the time and resources available. Where time and resources are tight, it may be necessary to be highly selective about activities and limit them to, for example: pulling together known core data; a few interviews with selected high value informants; and, one workshop to validate findings with key stakeholder groups. All of which could possibly be achieved in just a few weeks on a relatively low budget. On the other hand a full scale assessment, engaging as many stakeholders as possible in multiple methods like surveys, interviews, and a series of workshops could take up to a year to complete, and require a budget to match. Other variables in the process include factors like the availability of local expertise to conduct the various activities. Guidance cannot be given about costs except in the most general terms, because all costs can vary widely from one location to another. Table 4 below gives a brief overview of the types of activities that might be undertaken during the assessment process. It is important to note that not all of these activities need to be undertaken every time. Resource and time factors need to be taken into consideration when deciding what to do, with whom and where. These activities may be undertaken at any time, and some may need to be repeated at different times.