PARTNERSHIPS

Learning Objectives

1. To understand what a partnership is and who the key players are.

2. To be aware of partnerships in the context of international development and urban poverty.

3. To recognise the potential, limitations and challenges of partnerships.

4. To gain an understanding of the key skills needed for working in partnership.

CHALLENGING PRACTICE: MODULE HANDBOOK

Partnerships in City-Making Processes: an introduction

The notion of partnerships is indispensable for understanding the ways in which cities are shaped. A partnership is, above all, a relationship: an association between multiple actors that supposes a shared effort to negotiate and coordinate their differing actions, omissions, investments, norms, needs, interests and aspirations. Cities are shaped by processes that are always multiple, and therefore partnerships can be seen as vehicles to direct that multiplicity towards common goals. However, owing to the diverse interests behind them, partnerships are not free from contestation and complexity. This brief module examines some of that complexity and provides insights into how partnerships have been mobilised to advance agendas of social justice and inclusion in urban contexts.

For at least the last three decades, the notion of partnerships has been closely linked to debates around urban governance, particularly through public-private partnerships (PPPs). (Stoker, 1998) During the 1990s, PPPs were promoted as an ‘efficient’ delivery mechanism, and as instruments to advance neoliberal reforms such as the withdrawal of the state from the active provision of services. PPPs became a crucial tool in the local implementation of Structural Adjustment Programmes, usually as part of the IMF and World Bank requirements after the 1982 debt crisis. This included the opening of national economies to international financial markets, the privatisation of welfare services, the decrease of state’s attributions, and deregulation. (Mohan, 1996) Likewise, PPPs were encouraged by international agencies as part of a wider focus on urban management, promoted by declarations such as the Habitat Agenda of the United Nations in 1996 (United Nations, 1996).

In this context, ‘partnerships’ became increasingly associated with managerial notions of urban governance, with a strong focus on financial partnerships leading to the privatisation of service delivery. Partnerships have, however, been seen by many as detrimental to the interests of more disadvantaged groups, increasing collusion between public and private actors and leading to the production of more exclusionary cities. These concerns have been shared by advocates for agendas such as the right to the city (Mayer, 2009) and the social production of space. (Habitat International Coalition, 2016) [See module 10. Ethics in Built Environment Practice].

Over time, partnerships have taken shape beyond PPPs, making associations of different natures and among other kinds of actors. For example, still within what can be considered ‘financial partnerships’, the notion of the ‘co-production’ of services has been widely used to refer to partnerships that include inputs from citizens and civil society organisations. (Ostrom, 1996) Likewise, there are a range of experiences that draw on ‘participatory budgeting’ mechanisms, in which citizens have opportunities to decide how part of a public budget is spent. (Cabannes, 2004) Beyond financial decision making, partnerships and co-production has been extended to knowledge sharing, mapping, resource management and more. (Palmer and Walasek, 2016) Partnerships can also be seen as associations between actors in decision making processes of city-making, within what is labelled ‘collaborative planning’. (Healey, 2006) [See module 11. Participation].

In summary, ‘partnerships’ by themselves don’t necessarily promote a particular kind of value-based outcome. Even if PPPs and urban management approaches have been put under scrutiny, the importance of partnerships as vehicles for ‘working together’ is still central for international development agencies such as DFID; and understanding their value, limitations and opportunities remains crucial. (Reid and Rein, 2008) We now will discuss examples of how partnerships have become tools for tackling crucial urban challenges, and their potential to advance inclusive city agendas, particularly through the involvement of grassroots and civil society organisations. [See module 3. Social Exclusion, 4. Conflicts, 5. Disasters and Climate Change and 6. Migration].

Reclaiming the Notion of Partnerships

There are at least three strategic approaches to partnerships that enable them to become vehicles for furthering marginalised groups’ claims. The first approach is to understand partnerships as a strategy for dealing with structural constraints. In response to the privatisation of service provision, and as a way to navigate market pressures, some initiatives have established what has been called ‘pro-poor private–public partnerships’, leading to models for the participatory governance of urban services. (Frediani and Cociña, 2019) An emblematic example is the work of the NGO Orangi Pilot Project-Research and Training Institute in Pakistan, which developed a low-cost sanitation programme based on a partnership whereby sewerage systems inside houses and neighbourhoods are developed by communities themselves, while connecting these to the external sewer system is handled by local government. (Hasan, 2006) This project has informed many other experiences, such as the delivery of water through a ‘delegation management model’ in informal settlements in Kisumu, Kenya (Frediani and Monson, 2016).

Partnerships to deal with structural constraints also occur outside the state and private sectors. This is the case with initiatives such as the CommunityLed Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) in Mumbai, India, which was made possible through a partnership (“The Alliance’’) between the NGO SPARC and two Community Based Organisations, Mahila Milan and the National Slum Dwellers Federation. This community-led finance model worked with the urban poor at scale, providing access to commercial and public sector finance, and strategically dealing with powerful forces in the city. (Levy, 2015) The CLIFF example brings to the forefront a second strategic approach: partnerships as strategies to reach wider scales. Trans-local, civil-society and grassroots networks such as Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), and Slum/ Shack Dwellers International (SDI) have relied on multiple partnerships to increase their impact and advance their strategic goals. A good example is the association between SDI and Cities Alliance in the context of the ‘Know Your City’ campaign, which has created a repository of community-collected data about informal settlements across the world.

A third approach involves understanding partnerships as a strategy for diversify voices on key urban challenges. Diversifying the nature of actors is crucial for dealing with complex agendas. Tackling issues such as climate change and displacement requires spaces in which multiple interests are negotiated. (Crisp, Morris and Refstie, 2012) Partnerships can increase accountability, and advance the recognition of otherwise misrecognised claims. This is key for one of the most urgent challenges in cities globally: the upgrading of informal settlements. (Cirolia et al., 2015) [See module 7. Informal Settlements] An example of partnerships around this issue is the collaboration in Freetown between the Sierra Leone Urban

Research Centre (SLURC), the Federation of Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP), and a series of local and international NGOs. Together with local and national authorities, they have coordinated a City Learning Platform (CiLP) at which they meet regularly, which includes representatives of informal settlements of the city. The CiLP “is a space for learning and sharing, in which different actors can gather to discuss experiences, current urban issues and identify solutions, coordinate, and develop proposals for the upgrading of informal settlements in the city of Freetown”. (City Learning Platform, 2019)

Challenges: Dealing with the Asymmetric Nature of Partnerships

If we want to take partnerships seriously, it is important not to romanticise their nature. The examples provided so far do not escape the underlying power asymmetries that govern most urban processes. The construction of, and the negotiations and relationships within and between partnerships are moulded by unequal access to resources, assets, knowledge, political influence and media support. This is well articulated by the Indian activists Sheela Patel and Jockin Arputham, who commented on the negotiation for the development of Dharavi, Mumbai, questioning whether it was “an offer of partnership or a promise of conflict”. (Patel, d’Cruz and Burra, 2002) Navigating and challenging these power dynamics is a crucial challenge for practitioners that seek to work through partnerships to advance social justice goals in the city. In this regard, the urban development planner Caren Levy has proposed working towards ‘partnerships with equivalence’, “which recognise the diverse skills, knowledge and values brought by different urban actors, and which are formed with mutual respect, transparency and accountability, and a commitment to learn together”. (Levy, 2019) Practitioners working in such contexts will need to equip themselves with skills that go beyond the technical expertise of urban planning and design, and be able to engage with the politics of mutual respect and care.