Introduction to CDS
A CDS is a City Development Strategy. It refers to a planned development process for a particular city. The aim of a CDS is to produce a multi-dimensional development framework, with wide-ranging stakeholder support, that will improve city governance, enable ...
A CDS is a City Development Strategy. It refers to a planned development process for a particular city. The aim of a CDS is to produce a multi-dimensional development framework, with wide-ranging stakeholder support, that will improve city governance, enable sustainable economic growth, reduce poverty and improve the urban environment.
City Development Strategies (CDS) have been used by cities, donors and international agencies since the late 1990s. A CDS is not a tightly defined planning methodology but rather an approach to strategic planning at the city (or in some cases regional) level which has certain general attributes.
The CDS approach is a framework, or guide for planning and action. Any city can use it. As a general approach to integrated planning it can also be used by other levels of local governments, including Provinces, as a “ Comprehensive Development Strategy” However each city is different, each is at a different stage of development and each faces different issues. For these reasons, each city’s CDS will be different. A basic principle of the CDS approach is that it can be adapted to the needs of the city that is using it. This means each city and community will decide exactly what their CDS looks like, how it is developed and what issues it addresses. The city leadership and stakeholders will build up their CDS in a way that addresses local issues of importance and is appropriate for local conditions. There is no single ‘right way’ to design a CDS – each one will be different.
A CDS will be based on:
- Broad input and support
- Reality and opportunity
- The city’s initiative
While all CDSs will vary, there is normally an expectation that they will provide:
- A consensus-building process to establish priorities, strategies and actions;
- Urban poverty reduction and sustainable urban development;
- Economic growth linked to employment and to regional and national development objectives;
- A need for local authority financing and investment list; and,
- Capacity building.
CDSs tend to use a common set of ‘building blocks’. In addition, most cities will define a list of themes or issues that they intend their CDS to address. The building blocks and themes are discussed below.
The eight building blocks are the kinds of work that make up a CDS.
Five of the building blocks are steps or stages that you carry out to do a CDS. They are shown as shaded blocks on the Building Blocks diagram:
- Process design and preparation
- Initial or updated assessment
- Vision, objectives and strategies
- Action planning
- Implementation and integration
The remaining three building blocks are cross-cutting, and these building blocks present processes that are used in each of the steps or stages.
- Consultation and participation
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
Ideally, a CDS should include all these stages. However, they can be carried out in various combinations and in different orders. This is why the stages are referred to as ‘building blocks’ – a city will need to build a CDS that suits its own needs and they can fit the building blocks together in whatever way they choose.
There is no single starting point for a CDS, as the model recognises that different cities will need to, or choose to, start at different points. For example, a CDS may build upon early studies or plans that have been carried out in the city, such as an economic development strategy. Or, they may complement an existing plan by using some of the ‘building blocks’ to add some components that are missing from the existing plan (such as an implementation strategy). For these reasons, the best way to think about the building blocks is as parts of a cycle (see figure below).
Figure 1: The CDS Building Blocks - five steps or stages (shown around the outside) and three cross-cutting building blocks (shown in the centre)
CDSs generally explore a number of issues or themes. Typical themes include:
- Shelter (housing and basic services, health, safety)
- Social development (social integration; support for disadvantaged groups; gender equality, culture)
- Poverty reduction/eradication
- Environmental management
- Economic development (productivity, employment, investment)
- Infrastructure provision and improvement
- Good governance (decentralization, inclusion/participation of all groups, civic engagement, accountable, transparent governance, financial management).
Each city will need to determine which are the most important themes. The meaning and interpretation of the themes will vary from one city to another and some of the themes may be more important than others for different cities. The emphasis on the different themes is likely to change over time for each city. Decisions on themes will be determined by the city’s vision for its future, including special assignments from central government to the city/region (see Vision, objectives and strategies) and its assessment of the current situation (see Initial or updated assessment).
Viet Nam has developed Vietnamese Development Goals (VDGs) to identify how the United Nations developed Millennium Development Goals can be applied in Viet Nam. Cities preparing CDSs can refer to the VDGs when developing CDS themes, strategies and city level indicators for success.
Viet Nam Development Goals (VDGs)
1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Although world poverty rates have declined since 1990, 1.2 billion people still live on less than $1 a day. Viet Nam has already met the target of halving poverty by reducing the proportion of people living below the poverty line to approximately 35% in 2000. Viet Nam commits to reduce the poverty rate by a further 40% by 2010. While these are impressive achievements, the challenge now is to reduce increasing disparities and reach deep pockets of poverty in each region of the country.
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
Globally, 113 million children do not attend school, but this goal is within reach. Viet Nam, for example, is very likely to achieve full primary enrolment by 2015, given its high 95% net enrolment rate in primary education in 1999. However, improving the quality of education, expanding basic education towards international universal primary education targets and reducing disparities in access and coverage present major challenges.
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Two-thirds of the world's illiterates are women. By setting the target to eliminate gender gaps in primary and secondary education by 2005 and illiteracy for women under the age of 40 by 2010, Viet Nam re-states its commitment towards this goal. However, girls comprise 70% of all drop-outs, often due to their expected role in family economic activities and geographic disparities persist.
4. Reduce Child Mortality
Worldwide, 11 million young children die every year, but that number is down from 15 million in 1980. Viet Nam has successfully reduced its under-five mortality rate from around 58 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to some 48 per 1,000 live births, but reaching the full target of a two-thirds reduction by 2015 will require much greater efforts and assistance.
5. Improve Maternal Health
In the developing world, the risk of dying in childbirth is one in 48. But virtually all countries now have safe motherhood programmes and are poised for progress. Viet Nam has reduced maternal mortality rate from 200 per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 100 and set the target to reduce the rate further to 70 by 2010 with particular attention to disadvantaged areas.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
HIV/AIDS threatens to erase a generation of development gains in many nations. Countries like Brazil, Senegal and Thailand have shown that we can stop HIV in its tracks. Viet Nam has set the target to slow the increase in the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2005 and halve the rate of increase by 2010. The challenge is to take urgent action against the epidemic in a multi-sectoral manner now. Continued leadership is needed to avert a potential crisis.
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
More than one billion people worldwide still lack access to safe drinking water, but during the 1990s, nearly one billion gained access to safe water and sanitation. Viet Nam has increased the share of its population with access to safe water from 48% in 1990 to 56% in 2000 and set a target to increase the share a further to 85% in rural areas by 2010.
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Poverty reduction and sustainable development are clearly linked to trade, debt relief and aid. Fair terms of trade for developing countries are necessary to generate employment opportunities and income. In this regard, Viet Nam faces some significant challenges in light of the country's planned accelerated integration into the regional and global economies. Ensuring social equity and sustainability of the country's development process will require great efforts.
http://www.un.org.vn/mdg/mdg.htm
CDS in Viet Nam
CDS has been used widely by cities in Asia and East Asia. The trend in urban growth and level of poverty in Viet Nam indicate potential for development through the CDS objectives of reducing urban poverty and sustainable urban development. The urban population in Viet Nam already constitutes approximately a quarter of the total population and is projected to reach 45% by 2020. It has one of the highest densities of urban population for a country with an agricultural based economy. Rapid urban growth has led to a high concentration of urban poor living in informal settlements where there are problems of poor health and sanitation, services, housing and infrastructure.
CDS is particularly applicable to Viet Nam during its economic transition to a socialist market economy and the passing of increasing responsibility over decisions and resources to province, cities and local governments under the decentralisation process. CDS helps increase cities’ competitiveness and helps them to choose the most strategic options for the future. CDS is also appropriate for the new climate for greater consultation and participation emerging with the Decree on Grassroots Democracy and other initiatives under the agenda for Public Administration Reform
City planning in Viet Nam is characterised by extensive long term strategies for socio-economic development, construction and various sectors. CDS offers a complementary means of addressing three of the acknowledged flaws in the Vietnamese systems:
- Plans are not integrated, often leading to inconsistency;
- Poor implementation of plans resulting from failure to link strategies and objectives to resources or prioritise when resources cannot match intentions;
- Little ownership of the plans by those responsible for implementation.
Despite its potential, CDS is still relatively new and untried in Viet Nam. It has been applied in seven cities since the late 1990s, with varying degrees of success
The CDS for Ho Chi Minh City completed in 1998 was one of the first five undertaken globally and was conducted by an international team of consultants.
Success was hindered by miscommunications between the consultant team and the city leadership. The process was complicated by the political structure as there was little decision making power in the local government and the Central Government (which was not directly involved in the CDS) was the ultimate decision maker in most instances. The absence of local authority limited meaningful outcomes of the process and precluded any strategic planning. The only identifiable outcome was the creation and donor funding for an urban coordination centre which was intended to coordinate donor activity.
The northern coastal City of Hai Phong has used the CDS process twice. In 1998, an initial CDS was solely conducted by visiting international experts under the auspices of the World Bank. However, it had marginal impact and was not recognised by city officials.
The second CDS was jointly sponsored by the city and UNDP’s Public Administration Reform Project and implemented under the direction of the City’s Department of Planning and Investment and the Urban Management Coordination Council.
This 2001 CDS assessment was carried out through participatory SWOT analysis workshops involving 150 local participants facilitated by a Task Force from different sectors and government departments. A leadership change resulted in draft proposals never been formally approved by the Hai Phong Peoples' Committee. However, the CDS vision and goals were retained in the socio-economic development plan and the priority projects of the Committee. Five major strategies from the proposal were implemented over time. Hai Phong officials extended and replicated the CDS methods for developing strategies for internal departments and socio economic development strategies at district level.
A CDS was conducted in Da Nang between 2002 and 2003 with the support of the Asian Development Bank. However, it was managed by external experts over a short period of time with only one substantive visit to the city. The mission, objectives and main targets give due attention to poverty reduction, however priority actions were general statements only addressing physical infrastructure and the CDS did not include specific actions or projects. The overall strategic and/or comprehensive planning approach was not familiar to city officials and delays in providing training prevented the officials from engaging in appropriate public consultation.
Dong Hoi is a class 3 city, and much smaller than the three described above. Dong Hoi conducted a CDS between 2004 and2005as a part of a longer term Urban Development Project SDC. The CDS was an external consultant driven process that followed a predetermined methodology previously used in Indonesia. It followed the steps of Atlas (compiling information from available data on existing conditions and trends), Agenda (visioning and planning strategies). A third step, Application (implementation) was never completed. The agenda was integrated with the Socio-Economic Development Plans (SEDP) for the city and was consistent with the infrastructure priority in the SEDP. Dong Hoi’s status as Class 3 city, meant that all decisions and plans were required to be approved at the provincial level. Conventional planning practice in Viet Nam does not include extensive public consultation not prescribed in law, so there was little in the CDS and little integration between Departments.
The Nam Dinh CDS was conducted over two and a half years, 2004-2006, also as part of the SDC funded Nam Dinh Urban Development Project (NDUDP). . The Nam Dinh CDS was conceived as a capacity building process and was heavily focused on stakeholder consultation. Nam Dinh started by creating a city vision based on a consultative process; and then using the vision as a framework for the development of each other portion of the CDS. A wide range of stakeholders participated in the SWOT process and an outside consultant from the CIEM was engaged to assess the economic situation and opportunities for the city.
The Nam Dinh CDS is not an independent strategy; it built on existing policies and plans. The principal building blocks were derived from the Party policies, socio-economic plans, and spatial master plans at city Provincial and State levels. The Nam Dinh CDS has been supported by the resolution of the Party Congress of the City of Nam Dinh.
The responsibilities and flexibility of Class II cites are limited. Therefore, Nam Dinh’s CDS focuses on action plans that emphasize capacity building and enhancement of government capabilities, while avoiding a list of capital projects dependent on external funding. Nam Dinh used the CDS process to identify and develop capacity for the City to take on additional responsibilities consistent with increasing Central Government authorization for decentralization.
The most recent CDSs were completed in Can Tho and Ha Long between2006 and 2007. These CDSs were funded by Cities Alliance and administered by the World Bank. The strategies were prepared by a team from the National Institute for Urban and Rural Planning; a consulting organisation attached to the Ministry of Construction and supported by a Project Management Unit (PMU) in each city.
The were prepared in two phases: the first focused on compiling and synthesising key development objects of existing plans and policies for the cities as well as developing a process for stakeholder consultation. Phase two was developed around analysis of six key themes identified by each city that reflect their specific challenges and opportunities. This analysis was used to identify the key development objectives which then framed proposed investment priorities. The final CDS was prepared after consultation on the thematic papers and the key objectives. The resulting CDSs for both Can Tho and Ha Long are made up of six “building blocks”: a City vision; a strategic overview; main themes and strategic objectives; investment priorities; action and implementation plans; and a monitoring and evaluation framework.
There is general agreement in Viet Nam, amongst this mixed experience, that the most successful CDS so far has been in the city of Nam Dinh. As with Dong Hoi, this CDS was undertaken as part of a broader urban development program. The very extensive consultation conducted at all stages of the CDS process has ensured that its outcomes are practicable within the constraints of city budgets and authority, but are widely owned and understood.
