BISSAU 2030: integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into Bissau's Urban Development Plan.

#SDGAction42883

Description

Intro

This initiative aims at integrating the revision of Bissau's Urban Development Plan with national plans and global agendas, creating a platform for the local implementation of 2030 Agenda. Through a participatory approach, the most pressing challenges are mapped, and strategies to tackle them are identified.<br />
Such strategy provides a vision 2030 for the city and goals that localizes the urban targets of the SDGs and creates a platform for coordination of projects and investments among development partners and relevant stakeholders.<br />
The initiative started in April 2018 and shall continue during 2019.

Objective of the practice

The main objective of this initiative is to assist Bissau's City Administration on building a Strategic and Spatial Development Plan integrated with national strategies, the 2030 agenda and other relevant global agendas for this context, such as the New Urban Agenda, the SAMOA pathway for Small Island Development States, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development). The specific objectives involve: bringing together city leaders along with local, national and international stakeholders to localize the 2030 Agenda at city level; providing a common monitoring framework for the 2030 Agenda at city level together with other relevant national and global frameworks; providing a coordinated framework for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda through local urban development plans, allowing for collaboration between stakeholders, donors, private sector and local and national authorities.<br />
A distinguish feature of the initiative is its participatory process to build a shared vision 2030 for the city of Bissau and to validate all relevant steps of the plan. The main challenge of this process is coordination and awareness of the 2030 Agenda and other relevant global agendas at local development and this was overcome by a project communication strategy to sensitize key stakeholders at earlier stage and will be complemented in 2019 by a broader action planning at neighborhood level which will allow local communities to prioritize pilot projects through participatory budgeting exercises.

Partners

The initiative has been implemented by the City Administration of Bissau with the technical assistance of UN-Habitat (MoU signed in November 2018) and under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator, a UN Joint Programme for the Sustainable Urban Development of Bissau is under discussion with other agencies in Guinea-Bissau. The development process of the initiative is collaborative and included the private sector, the national government, donors and the civil society. The initiative was funded by the Booyoung Fund (South Korea) and also included in-kind contributions from Bissau City Administration and staff time by UN-Habitat.

Implementation of the Project/Activity

1) Preliminary work: analysis of existing literature and information provided. Results are later validated during the first workshop. 2) First mission: on-the-ground assessment of existing conditions, collection of data and validation of the preliminary work through participatory workshops. Participants involve civil society organizations, national and local governments, local and international NGOs operating in the context and international donors. The mission covers two main topics: (a) development of a vision 2030 for the urban development of Bisssau and establishment of goals through localization of SDG targets as well as targets from the National Development Plan and other global agendas, and (b) identification of current priorities to achieve the proposed vision and spatialization of the identified priorities. 3) Studies and planning: UN-Habitat and City Administration review attained results and develop updated diagnostic maps (urban growth, environmental risks, street network, public space, land use map, etc.) to be discussed during the second workshop. 4) Second mission: second workshop as a platform to a more practical debate where results of the first mission are presented, including the vision 2030 with its 10 goals and 30 targets. The objective of the workshop is to validate and start building a common monitoring framework for these targets that includes SDG indicators and indicators from the National Development Plan and other global agendas. Also, the participants are divided into thematic and focal groups to identify catalytic projects to implement the 10 goals and 30 targets. By the end of the workshop, a draft version of an action plan is elaborated. 5) Completion of planning documents and delivery: all inputs from the participants are incorporated into a consolidated report, including the diagnosis of current conditions, the main urban challenges, the main issues and opportunities geographically identified in maps and the intended vision for 2030. 6) Support to implementation: this phase includes the action planning process and participatory budgeting exercises at neighborhood level as well the creating of financial mechanisms for the implementation of the plan, which includes support to the City Administration to develop project proposals for Calls for Projects in line with targets and the UN Joint Programme for the Sustainable Urban Development of Bissau.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

The Plan further consolidated the collaboration of UN-Habitat and the City of Bissau, who signed a Memorandum of Understanding for its implementation in November 2018. Following up on this, the Plan generated great interest by both other UN agencies as well as other partners (e.g. European Union and the World Bank). It created a momentum for Joint Programmes to be identified and implemented, and UN-Habitat and the City Administration of Bissau are holding discussions on a series of potential projects, namely on participatory governance, transportation and solid waste management.

Enabling factors and constraints

Enabling factors: 1) Political commitment from City Administration, 2) Interest by participant stakeholders, 3) Leverage on political momentum created, 4) Ongoing communication with partners, presenting not only results but the process itself. Constraints: 1) Current political instability in the country at national level

Sustainability and replicability

The initiative already proves to be replicable in Ethiopia (cities of Hawassa and Bahir Dar) and in Sao Tome and Principe (Principe 2030). In Guinea-Bissau, a UN Joint programme mapping matrix is now to be develop to map, within the 10 goals and 30 targets, the UN agencies, the potential donors, the Government Institutions, the Implementation Partners and the Key Stakeholders to be bring on board for the initiative. The costs associated to trigger this initiative in Bissau was very low (USD 50,000) and counted with an important in-kind from the city administration. There is a commitment from the Secretary of State of Planning to include pilot projects identified by Bissau2030 in the National Budget of 2019.

Conclusions

Integrating the 2030 Agenda in Bissau's Urban Development Plan created a framework for the local implementation of the SDGs at city level in Guinea-Bissau. Bissau hosts one third of the total population of the country and it is the right space to pilot such an initiative, specially in a context of political instability at national level. The participatory approach generates commitment and buy-in from key stakeholders. The spatialization of the plan facilitates the understanding of the identified issues and actions for the achievement of the SDGs and the inclusion of key target SDG indicators in the plan monitoring system is also going to contribute for the overall monitoring of the SDG achievement in the country

Other sources of information

The MAPS mission to Guinea-Bissau in 2018 identified the Bissau2030 initiative as one of the initiatives already mainstreaming and accelerating the integration of the 2030 Agenda in local plans.

SDGS & Targets