Colombia, DEALS, Governance of Inclusive Green Growth in Cities
In Pereira, the programme focused strongly on circular economy and the inclusion of informal waste pickers. An agreement between stakeholders led to the launch of a circular economy laboratory and strengthened cooperation between the municipality, private sector actors and recycling organisations. A partnership investment was established with the private sector foundation CEMPRE.
The programme supported the formalisation process of informal waste recyclers through route georeferencing maps, support to Recycling Tax Fund projects and census activities for waste pickers associated with recycling organisations. Additional activities included circular economy training courses, neighbourhood and school recycling competitions, a municipal waste management website and a study visit to MedellÃn for municipal officials. As part of the programme, 291 waste pickers received official identification cards.
Programme Design:
The design of the DEALS programme is modelled on the concept of City Deals. These are agreements between Dutch cities, national government agencies and other stakeholders under the Dutch Urban Agenda that aim to strengthen the growth, innovation, and quality of life in Dutch cities. These all unite cities, central governments, businesses and civil society organisations in innovative arrangements to tackle new urban challenges, such as the energy transition, mitigating and adapting to climate change, and healthy urban living. Ideally the DEALS programme can contribute to the urban governance capacity to participate in similar multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Programme Outline:
The programme starts with an inception phase (september 2017-february 2018) in which the following deliverables are expected for each of the cities:
- Identification of urban development challenges
- Identification of sustainability challenges and transition path
- Political Economy Analysis
- Inclusiveness Analysis focussed on gender and slums
- Organisational Capacity Analysis
- Baseline DEALS city;
- DEALS City ToCs
- DEALS City Annual Action Plan (CAAP)
- DEALS communication and visibility plan
- DEALS M&E&L plan
After the inception phase deliverables may vary per city and can consist of:
- TA for City Annual Action Plans which include integrated sustainable urban governance initiatives
- On demand support facility for City Annual Action Plans which include multi-level and multi-stakeholder cooperation initiatives (‘DEALS’)
- On demand Q&A facility for city-to-city learning
- Influencing urban policy
- Learning and innovation
- Flexible response mechanism
More information
In a series of podcasts we interviewed people involved in the DEALS programme.
In podcast #3 we interviewed Carolina Cardona, Secretary of Rural Development and Environment of the City of Pereira, Colombia. Together with VNG International, the DEALS programme, she works on an inclusive governance approach for the formalization of informal waste recyclers.
In podcast #4: we interviewed Bert Keesman, councilor of the municipality of Weesp. He visited the city of Pereira, Colombia, to co-facilitate a debate on integrated waste management amongst candidate Mayors to the city of Pereira. He facilitated the debate together with Fernando Umaña, journalist for El Tiempo. Mayors elections are held at the end of October 2019. It was a first time such a debate took place