|
|
November 2001 Insights Issue
#38
Back
to Insights #38
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 there 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 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?
Geoffrey Payne
Geoffrey Payne and Associates
34 Inglis Road
London W5 3RL
UK
gkpayne@gpa.org.uk
See also
'Making Common Ground: Public-private partnerships in land for housing'
Intermediate Technology Publications: London edited by G. Payne 1999 |
|
| FREE Information Delivery services
from ID21: |
 |
| ID21 is enabled by the UK Government
Department for International Development(www.dfid.gov.uk) and hosted by the Institute
of Development Studies (www.ids.ac.uk/ids), at the University of Sussex,
UK. Charitable Company No. 877338. ID21 is a oneworld.net
(www.oneworld.org) partner and a mediachannel
affiliate (www.mediachannel.org). |
Right-to-Reply:
Comment on any of the issues
raised in this Insights.
Read what others have said.
|
