URBAN NEXUS: Sustainable Policy + Cross-sectoral Governance achieving resource efficiency through integrated policy design.

Medellin, ColombiaIntegral Urban Projects (PUI’s)

Linköping, SwedenBiogas Busses

Sao Paulo, BrazilCities Without Hunger

New Delhi, IndiaSulabh International Social Service Organisation

Vancouver, CanadaRegional Food system strategyA unique administrative level of the province of British Columbia in Canada, Metro Vancouver is a regional district comprising 21 municipalities, one electoral area and a Treaty First Nation. It provides the ideal platform for a food strategy based on local production and self-sufficiency, as it brings together urban and rural municipalities in a holistic plan that would not have been possible at the municipal level. At the same time, it requests legislative actions from the provincial and federal governments, mobilizing its function as a mediating level of administration.

Medellin was known in the 1990s as one of the most dangerous cities of Latin America. Integrated urban planning through the creation of Integral Urban Projects (PUIs), in which different stakeholders collaborated to reach common goals, allowed for great improvement in quality of life, a stark diminution of violence and the improvement of public space. To that end, the Company of Urban Development was created, gathering different city departments (public works, education, social welfare, health), academic institutes (e.g. Metropolitan Technological Institute), and public and private enterprises.

The project is a successful attempt to integrate agriculture with energy production and the public transport system, through integrated organic waste management. A waste to-energy plant converts waste from agriculture and slaughterhouses and fuel Linköping’s public transport. The Linköping Biogas AB, an umbrella organization, was created to manage the project. It facilitates cooperation between the abattoirs, the farmers and the city of Linköping. The project is easily replicable, and its success has pushed the city to upgrade its plant to face greater demand for biofuel.

Cidades Sem Fome, a Sao Paulo-based NGO, promotes urban agriculture in poor neighborhoods of the city through a community garden project to end Sao Paulo’s poverty cycle. Using existing legal and financial frameworks, it helps develop urban farming as a means to improving the living conditions of Sao Paulo’s inhabitants. The urban agriculture project enhances self-sufficiency and sustainability through the improvement of food security, employment opportunities, nutritional a wareness, green spaces, waste management and recycling.

In its aim to emancipate manual scavengers who worked in degrading and unhygienic conditions and were socially stigmatised due to their profession, Sulabh International has revolutionised the sanitation sector in India. The organisation designed cost-effective, eco-friendly and socio- culturally acceptable toilets which do not need manual cleaning. The scavengers were then engaged in social upgrading programs and given vocational training for employability, a holistic social inclusion strategy. Sulabh Public School was established to impart free education to the children of the scavenger castes.

THE URBAN NEXUS CHALLENGERapid urbanisation, resource scarcity and a changing climate are some of the growing challenges facing cities today. However, a conventional siloed approach does little to address these challenges and can no longer suffice. In light of this, the Urban Nexus is a concept which responds directly to these concerns. A ‘nexus’ by definition, is something that connects or links two or more separate

entities and in coming together, forms a stronger foundation from which to achieve multiple policy goals through a single initiative. Principally focused on Governance, it seeks to improve and enhance communication between usually separate Government bodies and agencies, in addition to others to address key policy challenges. In this regard, the nexus can be seen as a stabilising force in turbulent times, improving the resilience of urban systems by

creating new institutional links between public actors, private enterprise and civil society across metropolitan areas. For example, the prioritisation of a coordinated approach to projects from conception to delivery, positively influences project outcomes, which can potentially boost profits while adding to a project’s security by having more actors invested in its success. At the same time, policy in the national interest may negatively impact

local social and environmental outcomes. Furthermore, the sustainable grounding of the concept secures the projects environmental credentials. Above all then, one can view the urban nexus as an opportunity to fundamentally change the way public policy is conceived and implemented in contemporary times.DEFINING THE NEXUS‘‘In brief, as a method of city management, the Urban Nexus approach guides stakeholders

to identify and develop ways to achieve multiple urban policy objectives through single investments, projects, or programmes’’ (Jeb Brugmann - ICLEI, GIZ & The Next Practice). The Urban Nexus can thus be seen as a management approach that is guided by the principles of sustainable and resilient urban development, using the vehicle of urban local governance and focusing on cross-sectoral institutional interdependencies.

SUSTAINABLEDEVELOPMENT

URBANGOVERNANCE

INSTITUTIONALSYNERGIES

SCALES SILOS SYSTEMS SERVICES SOCIAL

This project was developed as part of a capstone project conducted for ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, funded by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Sciences Po Capstone Team: Martin Abbott, Angele Cauchois, Louise Cousyn, Chaitanya Kanuri and Victoria Vital Estrada.