LA21 process and planning in the Bartava coastal region

1. LA21 process and planning in the Bartava coastal region Asoc. Prof. Ivars Kudreņickis, Presentation prepared by Diana Šulga, M.Paed. University of Latvia, Institute for Environmental Science and ManagementRaina bulv. 19, Riga, LV 1586, LatviaTel. +371 7034575; Email: Ivars.kudrenickis@lu.lv

2. In the context of municipal sustainable development in Latvia, last decade shows that: • development planning at the municipality level has been considerably advanced, • human resources related to planning tasks have been trained and • new modern planning techniques applied.

3. However, a number of significant problems was identified: • weak understanding of sustainable development (SD) concept both by municipal specialists and the most active representatives of local community • insufficient understanding of concept of development indicators and their role in monitoring, guidance and implementation of municipal development plans and action programmes • weak links, if any, between official municipal development plans (“top-down approach”) and actions initiated and proposed by local society groups (“bottom-up approach”) • the lack of systems thinking skills for those who are involved in the planning process is one of major obstacles for effective realisation of planning processes, both “top-down” and “bottom-up”.

4. Local community target groups and stakeholders and their involvement in LA21 process: • local politicians, • specialists from the administration of the local government, • professionals from state institutions located within the municipality, • forestry owners and specialists, • teachers of schools, • specialists from local health care institutions, • business sector representatives (shop owners, wood processing, food processing, etc.), • farmers producing for market, • representatives from rural cooperatives, if exist, • craftsmen, • high school and university students residing in the municipality, • local newspaper, library, • housewives, • pensioners, • the unemployed, • amateur groups - culture and sport activists, • NGO operating in the municipality, • representatives from congregations.

5. The elaborated principles for the selection of participants aimed to secure representation from: 1) target groups of the local community, 2) age groups, 3) to take into account the territorial structure of population by having representatives from all populated areas within the municipality territory.

6. Evidently, these are the main 18 target groups of the rural local community of Latvia and their participation at the workshop secures wide spectrum of opinions and maximally wide discussions on the proposed problems. In practice, the most of the above mentioned groups had been represented at the seminars and workshops.

7. LA21 process and products Within the project, • the common vision of Bartava-2020 region was developed, followed by • local community initiated set of sustainable development indicators (SDI), and finally • concrete proposals for sustainable development action programme (SDAP) of municipalities were created. The main focus was put on the workshop method as one of very effective instruments of SDAP creation. The average number of participants in workshops was 25-30. The following

8. LA21 process and products 1) Analysis of the current situation Concise analysis of present situation in the municipality was done on the basis of different hand-out materials (excerpts from local surveys and development planning documents from local and regional municipalities, minutes of different public meetings and hearings from the past) during the 1st workshop in the form of free discussion, conducted by the workshop moderator. As a result the identification and draft evaluation of on-going activities was performed. NGO “Bartava” organized also its own questionnaire. 1100 families were interviewed, and it was a very representative figure compared with the number of sub-regions’ inhabitants (~ 10 thousand). It should be emphasised that this questionnaire was not only the tool for obtaining information but played also an important role as a communication tool.

9. LA21 process and products 2) Elaboration of the vision of the municipality The task of participants working groupswas to offer their view on the vision of the municipality -2020: how you see your own municipality after 20 years’’ (practically after the change of one generation). The groups were asked to answer the following questions: • population and territory of the municipality, • family: size, number of generations, number of teenagers, children, pension age people, • structure of population: proportion of young people, adults, pensioners in the total number of residents of the municipality, • employment: how many members of a family are employed, where they are employed - within the municipality or outside it, • development of agriculture: which branches of agriculture - traditional, non-traditional branches of farming - are developed in the municipality, size of farms, do the farmers work in their farms only or also elsewhere, • tourism: towards what kind of tourists the tourism industry is orientated in the municipality: national or foreign tourists, • development of forestry and wood processing in the municipality, • development of other industrial manufacturing facilities in the municipality, • development of SME, • education: is there any school in the municipality, type of schools, is there any specialization of the school, • social care: does the municipality have its own social care system or is it “save yourself”, • transport and road system, communications, • development of culture and sports activities, • natural environment: are there any valuable areas where the additional natural environment protection requirements should be introduced, • unique selling point available based on coastal sub-region features.

10. LA21 process and products 3) Elaboration of SD Indicators in Bartava sub-region municipalities The elaboration of SDI included a one-day workshop in municipalities followed by • the expert work to summarise the results and to elaborate a joint list of Bartava region SDI and • the public opinion pull (questionnaire in each of 9 municipalities) - prioritisation of the proposed Bartava region SDI. Thus detailed stages in the elaboration of SDI in municipalities were as follows: • a one-day workshop hold in each of municipalities, inviting to participate all active local community personalities and representatives of local society target groups, • elaboration of logical clusters of the municipal SDI, • arrangement of the list of SDI for the concrete municipality (expert work to summarise and arrange the results of workshops in municipalities, • elaboration of a joint list of Bartava region SDI (experts workshop), • public opinion poll (questionnaire in each of 9 municipalities) - prioritisation of the proposed Bartava region SDI, • processing of the results from the poll (questionnaire) and preparation of the priority list of Bartava region SDI (expert work), • approval of the list of Bartava region SDI at the Board of Local Governments’ Association “Bartava”.

11. Formation of logical clusters of SDI After the workshop the expert work was started on systematising the results of the workshop. A logical clusters of the municipality SDI were formed and the list of indicators proposed by workshop grouped in using these clusters as the next step. The number of these clusters should not be too big to avoid the situation that the total list of indicators “collapses” into separate fragments and becomes not perceivable, at the same time this number should be sufficiently large to cover areas of the local development. The same clusters were adopted for all municipalities in Bartava sub-region thus giving an opportunity to have them mutually comparable. As the final result of the workshop and expert work each of Bartava sub-region municipalities have had the systematised list of SDI proposed by the local community representatives. On the basis of the results from the workshops it was concluded as useful to make the grouping of the indicators using the logical clusters. LA21 process and products

12. Elaboration of a common list of SDI for Bartava sub-region (expert workshop and public questionnaire) The results from the SDI workshops was the main source for this list supplemented with the results from the public opinion pull (questionnaire) performed also in each of municipalities. Likewise, during the elaboration of the list, the experience from the other elsewhere projects on SDI was taken into consideration as well as the materials from those municipalities which have already started the elaboration of their municipal development plan. The task of the experts’ workshop was to elaborate and to offer for public evaluation and selection of the priority ones the sufficiently vast list of sub-regional scale indicators which can be used when assessing the development processes in the region in the context of sustainable development. The experts’ evaluation of the indicators suggested for the list was done by using the criteria: • reliability of data today, the possibility of reliable data availability in 5 subsequent years, • data creditability, • possibilities for constant monitoring of indicator (incl. Financial possibilities), • possibilities to use the selected indicator in decision taking on sub-regional level.

13. 4. System thinking built into the LA21 process As the next, the case study describes the system-thinking tools applied during the LA21 process: • education tool - “The Sustain Game”, • project evaluation tool • the Sustainability Triangle”: • the checking matrix of the municipality SDI clusters Application of these tools was an important part of the LA21 process because they allowed to demonstrate for the participants all relationships among elements of the systems and show tangible and clear results of the LA21 workshop process.

14. “The Sustain Game” – understanding basic relations of sustainable development. “The Sustain Game”, Scottish manual simulation game prototype was used, with the permission of author Drew Mackee, to set up common language to lead discussion on dynamics and principal relations among local economy, social sector and environment quality.

15. The Work-Sheet - evaluating the single project The cluster of the selected criteria should give sufficient overview over the expected project’s impact. The selected criteria included: 1) the assessment of project impact (positive, neutral or negative) on the development of the both local economy, social sector and environmental quality; 2) number of new work places expected; 3) project implementation time; 4) assessment whether the municipality currently has specialists with corresponding knowledge and skills to be able to undertake the responsibility on the practical implementation of the project (the use of this criteria could make to re-estimate the initially suggested project implementation time, providing for sufficient time for capacity building and preparation of the qualified specialists).

16. “The Sustainability Triangle”: easy perceptible graphic form. The triangle’s apexes indicate the three spheres of sustainable development (economy, social, environment) and the different sectors of the triangle’s plane correspond to the proposed projects in dependence on their expected impact (Figure 2). Each project (by writing its number) is placed, in accordance with the evaluation given by workshop participants, in one of these sectors. It has to be noted, the evaluation given by participants, if the moderator does not agree to it, can be changed in a common discussion after the participants have finished the evaluations of all projects, therefore the moderator in this phase is the active participant of the workshop.

17. Description of sectors Sectors No 1-3: projects with expected positive impact only in one of sphere (No1 - in social sphere, No2 - in economy, No3 - in environment quality), Sectors No 4-6: projects with expected positive impact in two spheres (No 4 - in economy and social sphere, No 5 - in environment and social sphere, No 6 - in economy and environment), Sectors No 7-9 : projects with expected negative impact in one of sphere (.No 7 - negative impact in social sphere, No 8 - negative impact in the economy, No 9 - negative impact in the environmental quality). Sector No 10: so called ‘’pure’’ sustainable development projects having expected positive impact in all three spheres (economy, community social sphere and environment quality) The Sustainability Triangle

18. The checking matrix of the municipality SDI clusters - identifying the gaps The idea of the method is to identify links and gaps among the set of indicators and the set of proposed actions. It means, there cannot be “indicators without actions” or “actions without indicators’’. This method allows identifying efficiently those clusters which will not be influenced by the implementation of the proposed projects. As a result the supplementary project proposals are elaborated in order to close identified gaps.

19. The checking matrix of the municipality SDI clusters - identifying the gaps