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Articulating territorial and thematic networks for human developmentA

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T WHERE WE ARE AND WHO PARTICIPATES

At present, ART GOLD Programmes are underway in Albania,Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Lebanon,Morocco, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Uruguay. Other initiatives arebeing planned in Bolivia, Indonesia, Kosovo, Macedonia andMozambique. Thematic ART networks also carry out activities inBrazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The Art Initiative is supported by the governments of Belgium,France, Italy and Spain. The governments of other donorcountries such as Canada, Japan, Monaco, Portugal, Sweden,Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as the EuropeanCommission, contribute to various ART country programmes.

More than 400 regional and local governments, and theirassociations, such as CPMR, NRG4SD, REVES, ANCI, theSpanish Confederation of local and regional Cooperation Funds,and CGLU, collaborate with the ART Initiative at the internationallevel and in countries.

In March 2007, more than 1000 representatives of 65 nationalgovernments and of 150 regional and local governments tookpart in the First International Convention on a TerritorialApproach to Development, organized in Marseille by the UNDPand the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europeand the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region (PACA). Theparticipants see the ART Initiative as a fundamental tool for theimplementation and coordination of decentralized cooperationactivities that wish to have a concrete impact on theachievement of the Millennium Development Goals in countries.

The ART Initiative contributes to the United Nations reformthrough the active participation of the UNDP, ILO, UNIFEM,UNITAR, UNHCR, UNOPS and WHO. The ART Initiative helps toreduce aid fragmentation, complying with the Paris Declarationand the European Consensus on Aid Effectiveness.

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1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2. Achieve universal primary education3. Promote gender equality and empower women 4. Reduce child mortality5. Improve maternal health6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases7. Ensure environmental sustainability8. Promote a global partnership for development

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENTGOALS TO BE ACHIEVED BY 2015

ART is an international cooperationinitiative that brings together programmesand activities of several United NationsAgencies: UNDP, ILO, UNIFEM, UNESCO,UNITAR, UNHCR, UNOPS, WHO andothers. It promotes a new type ofmultilateralism in which the UnitedNations system works with governmentsto promote the active participation of localcommunities and social actors from allcountries. ART shares the MillenniumDevelopment Goals:

Articulating to territorial and thematic networks for human development

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ART is based on three premises:

• Each of the eight Millennium Development Goals isclosely linked with the others and can be achievedonly by working across sectors, with institutions andinterested social groups and partners workingtogether, avoiding projects with rigid sector divisionsor limited to only one category of persons.

• To effectively combat poverty, illiteracy, discrimination,disease, environmental deterioration, socialbreakdown and violence, it is not enough to addresstheir tangible effects. Rather, it is their root causes thatmust be confronted: that is the mechanisms of socialexclusion that characterize unequal and imbalanceddevelopment.

• A joint effort by all local, regional, national andinternational actors is essential for overcoming thestructural obstacles to development.

ART valorises the active role of local communities indevelopment processes.

Local communities are populations living in the areascorresponding to a country’s political-administrativesubdivisions, be they regions, provinces or municipalities.With their own natural, historic, cultural and knowledge-based resources, and with their own institutions andgovernmental systems, local communities play a crucialrole in governance and development, taking oncommitments and responsibilities and engaging in activedialogue with central government structures and withinternational organizations.

ART was founded in November 2004, but grew out ofprogrammes operating within the multilateral humandevelopment framework, carried out since 1989 under variousnames: Prodere, Smalp, Hedip, PDHL, PDHI, Sehd, Atlas, Print,Pasarp, City to City, Appi, and Universitas. These programmesinvolved the following countries: Albania, Angola, Belize,Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba,Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,Mozambique, Nicaragua, Serbia, South Africa, Tunisia. Thecooperating governments were those of Belgium, Canada,Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and theEuropean Union. The United Nations agencies involved were:UNDP, HABITAT, IFAD, ILO, PAHO, UNEP, UNESCO, UNHCR,UNICEF, UNICRI, UNIFEM, UNOPS, WFP and WHO.

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ART supports national government policies that movein the direction of a democratic decentralization,provided with the corresponding resources, and thatsupport the development of the country’s localcommunities. These choices are encouraged andsupported because they are generally an indication of apolitical will to move toward more sustainable,participatory, fair and peaceful development.

ART also operates at the international level to provideprogrammes within countries with the institutional andtechnical support of the United Nations system and itsspecialized centres and, above all, to promote functioningdecentralized cooperation partnerships between localcommunities and social actors from the public, privateand associative sectors of the South and North.

New multilateralism is characterized by a worldwidenetwork of constructive, peaceful and high-qualityexchanges. ART promotes and supports the networkwith a global system of cooperation that links togetherlocal, regional, national and international actors so thatthey can work together more effectively towardachieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Multilateralism is the future

28. To achieve our goals of sustainable development, we needmore effective, democratic and accountable international andmultilateral institutions. 29. We reaffirm our commitment to the principles and purposesof the Charter of the United Nations and international law, aswell as to the strengthening of multilateralism. We support theleadership role of the United Nations as the most universal andrepresentative organization in the world, which is best placedto promote sustainable development. 30. We further commit ourselves to monitoring progress atregular intervals towards the achievement of our sustainabledevelopment goals and objectives.

Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development. 2002

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T4central ministries and state structures. The localworking groups are responsible for drawing up actionplans to be funded with contributions frominternational cooperation partners. These plans arebrought together in periodic national operating plans ofthe framework programme.

The NCC and the local working groups programme theuse of resources made available through internationalcooperation, ensuring that they complement resourcesalready included in the public budget. In this way, theprojects acquire greater sustainability and themethodologies adopted for bringing diverse actorstogether can progressively influence current modes ofprogramming public expenditure, and also help toorient private investment.

The NCC ensures that local initiatives are in line withnational development policies. It is also responsible fordisseminating the most effective work methods toother parts of the country and for promoting theinvolvement of new donors. The local working groupscoordinate the implementation of initiatives in order toavoid overlaps and gaps, and they maintain contactwith donors present in their area.

UN Country Offices, through ART GOLD Chief TechnicalAdvisors and teams, support the NCC and local workinggroups in all their activities.

At a central level, the framework programmes aremanaged by a National Coordinating Committee (NCC),formed by the government, the United Nations CountryOffice, with the participation of the donors involved.The NCC orients various projects and contributionstowards a programme logic, thereby generating markedimprovements in the outcome and impact of internationalcooperation. The framework programmes provide theopportunity to translate the donors’ willingness tocoordinate – expressed insistently at various institutionallevels – into an effective operating strategy.

The NCC identifies which regions in the country are tobe involved in the framework programme. It does so onthe basis of national priorities and interest expressedby the donors involved. Within the regions (ordepartments or provinces) and their municipalities,local working groups are formed. Public, associativeand private actors from the area participate in theworking groups along with local representatives of the

National and local coordinationstructures

COUNTRY FRAMEWORKPROGRAMMES

ART promotes and supports national cooperationframework programmes for governance and localdevelopment, termed ART GOLD. The frameworkprogrammes create an organized institutional contextthat allows the various national and internationalactors to contribute to the country’s humandevelopment in a coordinated and complementary way.Participants include donor countries, United Nationsagencies, regional and municipal governments,decentralized cooperation actors, associations,universities, private sector and non-governmentalorganizations. The framework programme is a tool thatthese actors can employ to expand the sustainabilityand impact of their initiatives without having to forfeittheir own identity or visibility.

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• LOCAL BASIC EDUCATION AND TRAINING SYSTEMS: devisingintegrated plans and projects for facilitating schoolaccess for all children; creating links between schoolsand the territory; adapting education programmes tospecific cultural settings; improving professionaltraining; disseminating the culture of humandevelopment.

Fields of act ion

ART works in the following complementary fields ofaction using an intersectoral approach:

• GOVERNANCE: improvements in public administrations;support to local institutions for programmingterritorial development; training of localadministrators and technical staff; advocacy for rightsand for active citizenship; dialogue to improve therapport between institutions and social actors;promotion of a gender approach and of innovation inall fields of action.

• ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND TERRITORIAL PLANNING:plans and projects for the valorisation of the territory’shistorical and cultural heritage, for the sustainableand rational use of natural resources, to improve theurban habitat, to produce and distribute clean energy,to improve communications and transport and toreduce vulnerability to natural disasters.

• LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: devising plans andprojects for valorising the potential of the local territory,creating employment opportunities for all social groupsand improving the territory’s competitiveness;promoting collaboration between public and privateactors through economic development agencies whichprovide integrated services to local enterprises andcooperatives, strengthen the territory’s chain ofcompetitive value and promote internationalpartnerships and investment.

• LOCAL HEALTH AND WELFARE SYSTEMS: devisingintegrated plans and projects for improving thepopulation’s health and social well-being, and theorganization of basic services and programmes sothat they are accessible to rural populations, peoplelacking social security coverage and those who aremost vulnerable.

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document produced for widespread distribution thatdescribes the territory, highlighting its developmentpotential (natural and human resources, historicaland cultural heritage, etc.) and also its main problems(e.g. unemployment, migration, disadvantaged areas,vulnerability within the territory and its socialstructures, etc.). The document is called a territorialmarketing document and is used to attractinternational partners and direct them to thoseinitiatives for which the local community wishes toestablish development partnerships and worktogether towards the MDGs.

• The projects identified through this process areimplemented, in a way which valorises and reinforceslocal management capacities.

The local working groups coordinate and guide visits ofrepresentatives of cooperation organizations interestedin establishing development partnerships: bilateraldonors, decentralized cooperation partners,universities, businesses, NGOs and others. In thecourse of the visits, the parties agree on specificprojects to be carried out in the context of the regionaland local plan for international cooperation.

Local-level work methods

The regional and municipal working groups play afundamental role in promoting participation inprogramming and managing development activities.The method of work envisages the following stages:

• At the regional level, working groups launch a processto increase knowledge of the territory, its resourcesand potential, and of the problems that needresolving; they organize thematic subgroups for thevarious fields of action, and conduct research andstudies deemed necessary; they organize seminarsand training courses to improve the skills of public,associative and private actors related to participatoryplanning and management of development.

• At the municipal and grassroots level, working groupscarry out a similar process for acquiring knowledge ofthe territory and defining priorities, using methodsthat facilitate the participation of people from ruralareas and of vulnerable groups. As a result, municipalplans for using international resources are drawn up,which include improvements in local services in orderto make them accessible to the entire population anddevelopment projects that enable the valorisation oflocal resources.

• A synthesis of the municipal programming process iscarried out at the regional level, where a document isdrawn up to plan the use of available and potentialinternational cooperation resources (regional andlocal plan for international cooperation). In this way,international cooperation contributes to theprocesses of strategic and participatory planning.

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Decentral ized cooperat ion

In agreement with governments, ART supports localcommunities in building development partnerships aspart of the framework programmes. More then 400decentralized cooperation partnerships are operationalin various countries.

The decentralized cooperation projects may involve allor only some of the fields of action included in theframework programmes. What matters is that they bedefined in collaboration with the local work groups andthat they fit with the regional and local plans forinternational cooperation.

The local communities of donor countries, through theirpublic and private actors, make an importantcontribution to local development processes, not onlybecause they provide new sources of financing, butalso – and above all – because they make available theirknowledge and experience. Decentralized cooperationprojects serve as laboratories for innovation in thevarious fields of human development, driven by a spiritof shared dignity and mutual learning. They also serveto promote social-solidarity, scientific, cultural,professional, training, economic and commercialinitiatives and exchanges that nurture an open andinternationalized vision of development.

Through its international services and frameworkprogrammes, the ART Initiative provides technical andorganizational support to local communities and theirnational and international associations to establish,and to render operational, decentralized cooperationpartnerships oriented toward the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. Upon request, ART alsoadministers funds raised by local communities.

One of the methods used in all the framework programmes inorder to encourage public participation in developmentplanning and management is that of the community maps ofrisks and resources. The drawing up of the maps can involvehealth and social workers, local administration officials, andscientific and civil society organizations. In many cases, themaps are made in the schools, with the help of teachers,because children are natural community promoters. In school,the children draw a topographic map of the territory, discussthe risks they know about and choose a different symbol foreach risk. Then they go out into the community to identifywhere the risks are and to discuss them with their families,with shopkeepers, public service workers, the authorities andall the actors interested in participating. During the visits,with everyone’s collaboration, the symbols representing therisks are placed on the map, and there is discussion abouthow to prevent them or limit their consequences. There is alsodiscussion on the material and human resources necessary toprevent and reduce the risks. In the concluding discussionswith the community, agreement is reached regardingpriorities, the most appropriate strategies and the initiativesto be undertaken. Projects are identified that can be carriedout immediately by various actors in the community using theavailable local resources. More complex initiatives, whichrequire additional funds and specific commitments from theauthorities, are also identified. The framework programmesearmark specific operating funds for implementing projectswith immediate impact (as identified through theparticipatory mapmaking exercise), and they also providesupport to the communities for implementing the morecomplex initiatives.

Community maps of risks and resources

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Through its specialized services, ART Internationalundertakes the following activities:

• It provides technical and organizational support to UNCountry Offices interested in helping governmentsestablish ART framework programmes; promotesSouth-South exchanges between countries involvedin the programmes; organizes international eventsand ensures the circulation of information anddocumentation; provides technical assistance for thevarious areas of action, through its own personnel,from an international roster of senior experts and bymobilizing centres of excellence.

• It offers technical, organizational and administrativesupport to local communities that intend to set updecentralized cooperation partnerships; itdistributes territorial marketing documents to localcommunities of donor countries and it organizesreciprocal field visits.

• It provides specialized technical assistance for settingup local economic development agencies and forlinking them in a network; it promotes partnershipsbetween local economies that translate into mutuallybeneficial productive projects, mixed enterprises,commercial and technological exchanges, andtraining activities for operators and entrepreneurs.

• It identifies relevant innovations for humandevelopment and disseminates them in countrieswhere the programmes are operating, in collaborationwith national scientific institutions; it mobilizes thetechnical assistance of innovators to help transfertheir ideas to interested countries via mechanisms forSouth-South and North-South cooperation.

• It provides specialized technical assistance in thearea of basic health and welfare policies andpractices, with a special focus on territorial servicesand persons in difficulty; it supports governmentsinterested in promoting policies to overcomesegregating institutions.

• It promotes links between universities in the Northand South and supports their involvement ininnovative practices of international cooperation forhuman development; it designs and offersuniversity-level and refresher courses for peopleinvolved in the programmes; it undertakes researchto systematise and disseminate knowledge abouthigh-quality experiences.

ART INTERNATIONAL

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The UNDP Geneva Hub for Innovative Partnerships,which has set up a specific Trust Fund, promotes a newactive multilateralism, which involves the fullparticipation of donors in identifying, formulating,carrying out and assessing initiatives.

The Hub is at the service of national governments thatdecide, in close collaboration with regional and localgovernments, to support a strategic role for the UnitedNations, able to offer countries with different historiesand cultures the chance to work together, bringing inthe contribution of local communities and social actorsfor a more human, peaceful, equitable and sustainableglobal development.

Concrete ways in which active donor multilateralism ispractised include: consultative committees; theorganization of joint technical missions in countries;consultation for selecting international personnel;adoption of shared monitoring and evaluationmechanisms; the organization of national andinternational informative events; and other activitiesdefined by mutual agreement.

The Hub can establish specific agreements withdifferent UN Agencies and Programmes, as well as thenational governments of donor countries for singleprojects, or multi-year framework agreements tosupport one or more country programmes. Theseagreements can include the systematic involvement oflocal administrations in decentralized cooperation, aswell as the ongoing involvement of centres ofexcellence, universities and other actors in the country.

The Hub also sets up collaboration agreements withregional and local governments for carrying outdecentralized cooperation activities in the context offramework programmes or for organizing internationalinitiatives through centres of excellence located withintheir territory. Such agreements establish an active rolefor local governments in the context of the ART Initiative.

ART AND DONORS I ask every developing country to adopt and begin toimplement a comprehensive national strategy bold enough toachieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015; and tomobilise all its resources behind that strategy. And I ask everydeveloped country to support these strategies, by increasingthe amount it spends on development and debt relief, anddoing whatever it can to level the playing-field for world trade.

Statement by the United Nations Secretary-General. 2005

Articulating territorial and thematic networks for human development

CONTACTS

To establish relationships with ART International,please contact:

Hub for Innovative Partnerships, UNDP Office, Geneva

The UNDP has established the Hub for InnovativePartnerships at its Geneva headquarters to promoteinnovative partnerships for supporting governance andlocal development processes already underway inseveral countries. The Hub is responsible on behalf ofthe UNDP for international coordination of the ARTInitiative programmes and activities. It forms part of theBureau for Resources and Strategic Partnerships (BRSP)in New York and provides support to the UNDP countryoffices. The World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty(WACAP) also operates within the Hub framework.

• Christophe Nuttall, Director of the Hub, Geneva:christophe.nuttall@undp.org

• Mohand Cherifi, Coordinator of WACAP, Geneva: mohand.cherifi@undp.org

• Giovanni Camilleri, ART International Coordinator,Geneva: giovanni.camilleri@undp.org

ART Scientif ic Committee for humandevelopment cooperation

The ART Scientific Committee for human developmentcooperation, promotes country framework programmesand disseminates the culture of human developmentand innovation at the international level. It is in contactwith the UN and national research and traininginstitutes and also draws on an international network ofexperts from the worlds of science, culture andinternational cooperation.

• Gustavo López Ospina, Coordinator of the ScientificCommittee:cs.art@unops.org

• Luciano Carrino, Executive Representative of theScientific Committeeart.sc@undp.org

JANUARY 2008

the initiativeART