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This indicator measures the progress and willingness of elected officials, urban managers and planners to integrate resident and civil society participation in urban planning and management at various levels.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) make a difference in international development. They provide development services and humanitarian relief, innovate in service delivery, build local capacity and advocate with and for the poor. Acting alone, however, their impact is limited in scope, scale and sustainability. CSOs need to engage in government policy processes more effectively. The development of sustainable human settlements calls for the active engagement of all key stakeholders with particular attention to project/programme beneficiaries and vulnerable groups. Therefore local and national governments should strive to: a) facilitate and protect people’s participation and civic engagement through independent civil society organizations that can be from diverse backgrounds - local, national, and international; b) promote civic and human rights education and training programmes to make urban residents aware of their rights and the changing roles of diverse women, men, and young women and men in urban settings; c) remove the barriers that block participation of socially marginalized groups and promote non-discrimination and the full and equal participation of women, young men and women and marginalized groups.

Ministry of Natural Resources

Ministry of Labour, Local Government and Rural Development 

Ministry of Natural Resources

Ministry of Labour, Local Government and Rural Development 

Triennial

Percentage (%)

Civil society and public participation fosters a positive relationship between government and the public by communicating effectively and solving the conflicts in a cooperative manner. In many cases when urban planning decisions are made without consultation, the desired results are not achieved and there is a negative impact on society, due to inefficient allocation and use of resources. Ensuring that wide varieties of opinions are considered assists the decision makers with understanding the interlinkages and nature of problems and potential solutions facing different urban settings.

Urban development is a reflection of ideology and national institutions. Public participation means a broader consensus is built and this greatly enhances political interaction between citizens and government and enhances the legitimacy of the planning process and the plan itself. A plan is more effective if a broad coalition supports the proposal and works together to deliver it.

Civil society and public participation in urban management and governance also shows respect to participants’ opinion, needs, aspirations and assets. It can boost their enthusiasm for citizenship and politics and strengthens their influence in urban planning and public life. When conflicting claims and views are considered, there is a much higher possibility that public trust and buy-in increases in the outcome. This has broader implications for building an active, inclusive and equitable society and more inclusive and sustainable urban environments.

• City as defined by its Urban extent. Urban extent is defined as the total area occupied by the built-up area and the urbanized open space.
• The built-up area is defined as the contiguous area occupied by buildings and other impervious surfaces, but excluding urbanized open space, both public and private, as well as vacant lands.
• The fringe open space and captured open space together, make up the urbanized open space in a given study area. In other words, the urban extent consists of all the buildings and the small open space areas (<200 ha) that are surrounded by buildings and the open space fringe that is within 100 meters of urban and suburban areas.
• Democratic participation: Structures allow and encourage participation of civil society representing a cross-section of society that allows for equal representation of all members of the community with equal rights for participation and voting.
• Direct participation: Structures allow and encourage civil society accessing and actively engaging in decision-making, without intermediaries, at every stage of the urban planning and management process.
• Regular participation: Structures allow and encourage civil society participation in urban planning and management processes at every stage, and at least every six months.
• Marginalized groups: Groups of people that are not traditionally given equal voice in governance processes. These include, but are not limited to, women, young men and women, low-income communities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, people with disabilities, the elderly, and sexual and gender identity minorities and migrants.
• Structures: Any formal structure that allows for participation of civil society. This can include, but is not limited to national or local legislation, policy, town council meetings, websites, elections, suggestion boxes, appeals processes, notice period for planning proposals etc.
• Civil Society: The combination of non-governmental organizations, community groups, community-based organizations, regional representative groups, unions, research institutes, think tanks, professional bodies, non-profit sports and cultural groups, and any other groups that represent the interests and wills of the members and wider community.
• Urban Management: The officials, including elected officials and public servants, that are responsible for city-management, across all sectors, such as roads, water, sanitation, energy, public space, land title etc.
• Urban Budget decision making: The process by which money is allocated to various sectors of urban management, including roads, roads, water, sanitation, energy, public space, land title etc.
• Urban Planning, including Design and Agreements: The technical and political process that concerns the development and use of land, how the natural environment is used etc. Design includes over-arching and specific design of public space, as well as zoning and land use definitions. Agreements refer to specific contract/arrangements made with various groups in regard to their land, e.g. Indigenous groups, protected natural environments etc.

Potential Disaggregation:

 Disaggregation by city characteristics;

              by regularity of participation,

              by nature, and typology of existing structures.

A scorecard approach will be used to evaluate the available structures for civil society participation in urban planning and management, as evaluated by five (5) local experts from government, academia, civil society and international organizations. The identifications and selection of these 5 local evaluators/experts will be guided by local urban observatories teams that are available in many cities. In the pilot exercises, these urban observatories as local custodians of urban data at the city level can coordinate the assessments and check for consistencies and relevant local references that guide the decisions and scores of the evaluators. A questionnaire with a 4-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree) will be used to measure and test the existence of structures for civil society participation in urban governance and management.

The indicator measures the availability of structures for civil society participation in urban planning and management, which reflects structures for citizen participation.

The evaluators’ assessments sometimes do not reflect a full analysis of the effectiveness or accessibility of these structures in its totality but gives a local idea of how these evaluators view the inclusiveness and openness on these structures to accommodate the participation of citizens and civil society.

Civic society engagement in urban planning and management involves overlapping pathways, and goals as well as a mix of planned and unpredicted elements.   Advancing toward a measurement frame is intended to help sort out theories and pathways – not to set hard boundary lines, but rather to help both urban managers and communities better understand what they are trying to achieve, and how they are getting there.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.