sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

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The issues that the region’s cities will have to address in the coming <strong>years</strong> are rooted in the same
safety and environmental protection issues that it has grappled with in the past. And these issues are
compounded by the effects of climate change and the growing demand for products and services
attributable, among other factors, to rising incomes. The configuration of urban infrastructure and the way
in which investments (in the water supply, sanitation, waste management, energy mobility, food
distribution) are evaluated will go a long way towards determining the impact of human activity on the
environment and vice versa. At the moment, existing structures are not conducive to efficient resource
use; nor are they designed with any concern for disaster-resistance. The application of the concept of ecoefficiency
in the evaluation of investments (see box I.7) could serve as a useful frame of reference for
improvements in this respect. The same applies to mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into decisionmaking
criteria relating to public investment (see box I.3).
There is a great deal of interest —not only in the region, but around the world— in the extremely
promising possibility of reproducing the success stories of cities that have managed to encourage
investment in environmentally friendly, spatially and energy-efficient infrastructure. Many of these
successful innovations have been applied outside the bounds of formal urban planning systems, however,
because such systems have proven to be too rigid and resistant to change, this has limited their scope and
the ability to use them to bring about concrete results.
In order to take full advantage of the potential of urbanization to promote <strong>development</strong> and to
achieve an environmentally <strong>sustainable</strong>, equitable form of urban <strong>development</strong>, the region needs a longterm
strategic framework for meeting the many challenges that lie ahead and for forging the necessary
links between cities and their surroundings. This framework has been lacking in many Latin American
and Caribbean cities. The region has succeeded in devising acclaimed approaches to urban <strong>development</strong>
and planning and comprehensive neighbourhood improvement schemes (although little progress has been
made in comprehensive territorial analysis and planning (UNCRD, <strong>20</strong>10b)). One sign of its success at the
urban level is the fact that, over the course of the past two decades, the Meeting of Ministers and Highlevel
Authorities of the Housing and Urban Development Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean 24
has shifted its focus from housing per se to a broader approach to urban issues.
In order for these strategic planning processes to be viable and effective, they must be
integrated into compatible national and regional strategies that address demographic changes occurring
beyond city limits or local areas (see section E). In addition, while it is true that planning measures
must be implemented at the local level (see the discussion in chapter III on the role of local authorities),
these measures must still be viewed within the framework of processes that are taking place on a larger
scale. Coordination among authorities at the national, state, provincial and other levels is therefore
crucial (see section E).
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This forum supports intergovernmental coordination and cooperation in the countries of Latin America and the
Caribbean in the field of <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong> of human settlements. It is composed of cabinet ministers and
other governmental authorities responsible for the <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong> of human settlements in various
countries of the region. See [online] http://www.minurvi.org.