Making common ground?

How far have public-private partnerships enabled poor people in cities to obtain access to land, services and shelter? Have they enhanced efficiency and equity of urban land markets? Have PPPs created a more productive relationship between public sectors and civil society? Or is a better solution?

As the ability of the state to supply land and housing has universally declined in favour of a range of other suppliers, the need for new relationships between key stakeholders has increased. Public-private partnerships have been widely seen as representing the way forward.

Research findings reveal, however, that progress to date is modest:

* Formal partnerships succeed more easily where profit margins are attractive and development would have taken place anyway.

* Formal partnerships are more difficult to implement where private developers or landowners are required to include non-profitable elements, such as housing for the urban poor.

* Public agencies rarely have the necessary negotiation skills to lever a public benefit from a private development.

* Creating procedures which combine administrative consistency with the flexibility needed to negotiate arrangements for each unique development is problematic.

Are multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) rather than PPPs perhaps the answer? Indeed, a wide range of informal arrangements exist enabling the poor to access land and housing under terms and conditions acceptable to them. In such cases, civil society groups, such as NGOs and community based organisations (CBOs) are usually involved.

To change the cultural environment in which civil servants and developers operate in favour of commercially viable and socially responsive approaches, there is a need to:

* Review existing regulatory frameworks (building, planning, administrative). This will reduce the cost of access to legally sanctioned land and shelter, make it easier for formal developers to incorporate more modest options for lower income groups, and permit multi-occupancy and livelihood activities in residential areas thus reducing costs and increasing incomes.

* Create or expand parastatal agencies that are not bound by conventional bureaucratic cultures and combine a public sector ethos with private sector flexibility and efficiency. For example, the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharastra in India has pioneered innovative and sustainable partnerships in New Mumbai and now offers consultancy services to other states.

* Enable public sector professionals to work in the private or community sectors without losing seniority in promotion to help increase ability to balance social, environmental and economic considerations more effectively.

Two types of partnership currently offer the best prospects for future co-operation: land pooling and readjustment (LP/LR) programmes which require effective and accountable urban administrations to ensure acceptability; and requests for proposals (RFPs) which need an appreciation of land market behaviour. The public and community sectors seem willing and able to participate in such approaches, but are public sector agencies and staff ready to respond?

Source(s):
Full document: Insights #38 'City politics: a voice for the poor?' http://www.id21.org/insights/insights38/index.html
Full document: ‘Making Common Ground: Public-private partnerships in land for housing’ Intermediate Technology Publications: London edited by G. Payne 1999 http://www.gpa.org.uk/

Date: 1 November 2001

Further Information:
Geoffrey Payne
Geoffrey Payne and Associates
34 Inglis Road
London W5 3RL, UK

Tel: (44) 020 8992 2683
Fax: (44) 020 8992 2683
Email: gkpayne@gpa.org.uk

Geoffrey Payne and Associates http://www.gpa.org.uk/

Other related links:

'Private sector participation in water and sanitation: promises and pitfalls' http://www.id21.org/society/s2alw1g1.html

See the UNDP's Public-Private Partnerships for the Urban Government http://www.undp.org/pppue/index.htm

Cities as Symbols of Hope - The Habitat and Istanbul+5 Process http://www.earthsummit2002.org/es/life/Habitat.pdf

Refer to the IIED's work on Urbanisation and Human Settlements http://www.iied.org/human/index.html

ESCOR has further research on Urban Governance, Partnership and Poverty http://www.bham.ac.uk/IDD/activities/urban/urbgov.htm