NEWS AT IPA

International Workshop: "A Local Governance Approach to Post-Conflict Recovery." IPA, The United Nations Capital Development Fund, and The United Nations Development Program's Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Recovery are collaborating to produce a policy paper about the role that decentralization and local government capacity building can play in achieving peace and accelerating reconstruction in post-conflict countries. Separate papers will be written on the lessons learned about linkages between the improvement of local governance and peace building, the conditions for external assistance in post-conflict countries, and the Pilot Reconstruction and Recovery Program in Angola. The papers will be discussed at a workshop with participants from the United Nations, the World Bank and other donors on October 8, 2002, followed by the preparation of the policy paper. Click here to view the IPA papers.

IPA Senior Staff member Paul Smoke is working on decentralization projects in Cambodia and Indonesia. Building on work that he and former IPA Senior Staff member Leonardo Romeo completed on Cambodia's decentralization program, Dr. Smoke is preparing a report on decentralization as part of the World Bank's forthcoming Public Expenditure Review for Cambodia. In Indonesia, through the USAID funded Perform project in partnership with Research Triangle Institute, he is reviewing newly created local taxes. He is also helping to develop a conditional transfer system and to consider how to reform on-lending mechanisms for local governments, in connection with a World Bank urban development project in Indonesia.

IPA Associate Connie Hoffmann recently began work on the ATLATL project in Mexico, as part of a global USAID funded Government Integrity initiative. Connie heads a team that is helping the Sinaloa state government to implement its new Freedom of Information Act. She will also develop an inventory of public information that will be made available under the law and train state employees. IPA is performing this work under subcontract to Casals & Associates, Inc.

IPA Associate Drew Horgan is serving as Team Leader and Senior Decentralization Specialist for the Benin Decentralization Support Program, which will prepare central and local government officials and regional authorities to fulfill their responsibilities following local elections to be held in December 2002. IPA is performing this work, which is part of the USAID Decentralization, Participatory Government and Public Management Project, under subcontract to the Research Triangle Institute.

Former IPA Senior Staff member Leonardo Romeo was Chief of Party for the Support for Strengthening Decentralization and Local Democracy Project in Morocco (2001-2002). He led a four-week field investigation of 17 local government units in the Tangiers and Marrakech regions, after which he wrote a diagnostic report on local capacity for good governance. Websites for the two regions were designed to facilitate policy discussion forums.

In June 2002, IPA Associate Winston Evans made his fifth trip to Zagreb, Croatia as part of the USAID Local Government Reform Project, where he conducted a workshop on program budgeting for the finance, budget, economy and communal department staffs from the cities of Bjelovar, Crikvenica, Osijek and Varazdin. On previous trips, Mr. Evans trained finance directors and senior financial management staffs from these four cities on the implementation of a Financial Analysis Model, a software package for local government budget preparation and execution, accounting and financial reporting, and communal enterprise financial management. IPA performs this work under subcontract to the Urban Institute.

IPA Luther Gulick Scholar Annmarie Walsh is developing a book entitled Lessons from the Field, reflecting decades of IPA technical assistance and research overseas. The context will be current issues in public administration and public management interchange. Colleagues and partners who have been associated with IPA will contribute chapters. The focus is on the "supply side," building government capabilities for informed and open decision making, consensus building and professional competence for developing infrastructure, delivering services, and stimulating economic and political development. Topics include budgeting, accounting, executive leadership, public service systems, public-private partnerships (including procurement and contracting), legislative staffing, planning, information systems, policy evaluation, and local and regional institution building. Questions that the book will address include: How can "new public management" approaches be adapted to countries with limited information resources and weaknesses of ethnic and regional consensus? How can classic civil service reform or current human resource management trends be reconciled with enormous underemployment and entrenched support for what the West has termed "patronage"? How can expatriate "experts" with their local counterparts help make sustainable changes in the short time frames of international aid projects, achieve flexibility, and come to grips with the debilitating and pervasive effects of corruption? What are the links between government competence, particularly in financial management-budgeting, accounting and intergovernmental finance-and development of democracy and transparency? The book will also examine the differences between public administration reform approaches within donor countries and reform strategies for developing and transitional countries. The professionals working on public management reform in the United States, for example, are attempting far more complex applications of "managing performance" than the strategies of international technical assistance. The discussions in the book will address both factors that seem to contribute to useful change and common obstacles to change through assistance.

The Local Government Development Project in Uganda, funded by The World Bank, was designed to provide technical and financial resources for the development, testing and application of participatory planning, budgeting and resource allocation procedures, and program management systems in local governments. In February 2002, IPA Senior Staff member Ernest Leonardo conducted a mid-term review of the project, which included assessing the effectiveness of the project's design and implementation as well as developing strategies for its remaining activities.

IPA supervised a Wagner School International Capstone Project, which focused on the role played by local governments to alleviate poverty in East Africa. The first task was to improve the World Bank's annual Intergovernmental Fiscal Reform and Local Financial Management Course, held in December 2001 in Kampala, Uganda for participants from countries involved in the Bank's Poverty Reduction Strategy Program: Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda. The second task involved follow-up clinics to help participants take further steps in promoting reforms. The team of students conducted fieldwork in Kenya and Malawi for the World Bank Institute and the Municipal Development Program for Eastern and Southern Africa.

IPA Research Associate Yoshihiro Asano recently conducted a study of three U.S. urban revitalization projects, with a focus on public-private partnerships. Dr. Asano looked at New York City's Times Square Business Improvement District, Atlanta's Tax Allocation District and the Genesis LA Initiative in Los Angeles. This work was performed for Japan's Housing and Urban Development Corporation under a subcontract to the NLI Research Institute, a Japanese think tank.

Yoshihiro Asano is also conducting a study to help the World Bank develop its urban sector operational strategy in Indonesia. The study is designed to help cities alleviate urban poverty and encourage local economic development through more efficient use of land and other resources. Dr. Asano will analyze urban development and land management best practices and develop guidelines to help Indonesian cities to maximize their revenue.

Yoshihiro Asano attended the Fourth Asian Mayors Forum and Regional Workshop on Good Governance for Poverty Reduction and Social Development in Bangkok in July. The conference was sponsored by the Asian Development Bank; TUGI, the UNDP Urban Governance Initiative; UN-Habitat; UN-Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific; and the Asian Institute of Technology.

IPA was asked by the Japan Local Government Center to research land use practices at the federal, state and local government levels. IPA provided information on zoning, master plans and smart growth initiatives in the United States, and prepared case studies about Oregon (including Portland METRO), Minnesota, Washington, and Maryland.

The Highway Department of the Japan External Trade Organization's New York Office asked IPA to research U.S. road pricing systems, which improve regional environments and provide more efficient highway services. IPA prepared case studies about California, Florida, New York and New Jersey.

IPA is researching emergency management and response procedures in the United States and the governance structure of New York City for the Japan Local Government Center and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The DMZ Forum is now an independent nonprofit organization with twenty-one distinguished Advisory Committee members including David Mammen. Seung-ho Lee, who conceived the project at IPA, is the Forum's President, and IPA Associate Bill Shore is its Secretary. With support from the Asia Foundation, the Forum held a conference in Seoul in May with South Korean NGOs. The Forum is working with NGOs and local governments in the Cholewon Basin of South Korea to organize a migratory bird festival that will demonstrate the value of preserving the habitat for birds and lead to an environmental plan and nature preserve in this important wintering area for endangered birds. The festival is expected to help win local support for preserving the DMZ as a Peace Park and environmental laboratory, the Forum's primary goal.

IPA Associate Bill Shore has been working with Polytechnic University Chancellor George Bugliarello to promote economic development in New York City's outer boroughs, a project initiated by the Sloan Foundation. York College of the City University in Jamaica, Queens is a partner in this effort. An FDA regional headquarters and the largest U.S. FDA laboratory are on the York campus. The college is working with the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation to create an institute for training and research that might attract firms regulated by the FDA to locate in Jamaica or at least come to York for training. The first joint FDA-York College training program will be held soon. An Aviation Institute has recently been established at York College, given the eight-minute Air Train ride from Jamaica Center to JFK International Airport.

Efforts to involve four Bronx institutions - Wildlife Conservation Society (the Bronx Zoo), the New York Botanical Garden, Lehman College of the City University and Fordham University - in economic development have grown into an embryonic Center on Nature in the Metropolis. IPA Associate Bill Shore is sorting out the numerous activities suggested for the Center and trying to find it a permanent institutional home.

As Chair of the International Division of the American Planning Association (APA), David Mammen organized two panels at APA's Annual National Planning Conference in Chicago in April 2002. The first panel, 'International Perspectives on Smart Growth,' featured research findings on how smart growth is implemented in Japan, the U.S. and Germany. Topics included coordination, consensus building, dispute resolution, budgeting, performance measurement, legislation, education and training. The panel speakers were David Mammen, Christina Delius and Tadashi Matsumoto from IPA, Tomoya Kaji from Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, and Miki Yasui from the Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research (TIMR). The second panel, 'Opportunities in International Planning and Research,' featured Carol Thomas of Thomas Planning Services in Boston; Glenn Pearce-Oroz, Urban and Municipal Development Officer at USAID-Honduras; and Megan Lewis, a participant on APA's Central America Reconstruction Project. They discussed opportunities for participation in international planning as well as the challenges presented by differing expectations, intercultural misunderstandings and data incompatibility. As part of a panel entitled, 'Private vs. Public Sector Careers in Planning,' Ms. Delius presented findings from her book on International Careers in Urban Planning.

International Careers in Urban Planning was published in December 2001 by the International Division of the American Planning Association. Christina Delius, IPA Research Associate, co-edited the book with Sarah Bowen, a planner for Disaster Services at the Red Cross in Philadelphia. The book features interviews with planners and essays about planning education and international planning organizations and conferences. For more information or to purchase the book, please click here or contact Ms. Delius. In September, Ms. Delius spoke at the 46th World Congress of the International Federation of Housing and Planning (IFHP) in Tianjin, China as part of the Young Planners Debate. She focused on the planning process underway in New York City following September 11, 2001, with particular emphasis on public participation. More information about the Congress can be found on the IFHP website.

In April, Patrick Sommerville, IPA Manager of International Projects, attended the Tenth Annual Conference of the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe (NISPAcee). He participated in working groups on Better Quality Administration for the Public and Public Sector Finance and Accounting. The theme of the conference, held in Cracow, Poland, was Delivering Public Services in CEE Countries: Trends and Developments. Conference proceedings can be found on the NISPAcee website.