Localisation of the 2030 agenda in Mexico City : a territorial approach

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MSc in Political Science

Public Policy and Governance

2016-2017

Ana Montaño Medina

SN: 11224614

Localisation of the 2030 Agenda in Mexico City: a territorial approach

Master Thesis Political Science Specialisation Public Policy and Governance Supervisor: Dr. Rosa Sánchez Salgado Second reader: Dr. Abbey Steele Assessment Date: June 23rd, 2017 Email: anamontanom@gmail.com

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Acknowledgements

This thesis is the completion of a one-year long process that has entailed more experiences than I can write in these pages. The thesis itself and the whole year have been collective endeavours that wouldn’t have been possible without the help of uncountable people.

First, I wish to thank my parents and my families for their restless support and care in all of my decisions. To the many friends in Mexico that have remained close in despite of time and distances and that have represented my anchor in this side of the Ocean. To the many other friends I have made or reencountered during this year and that have been my safety net in multiple circumstances.

To the University of Amsterdam for giving me the opportunity to come to Europe and acquire a new vision of the social sciences that will undoubtedly mark me forever. To my teachers and my classmates, for the learnings inside and outside the classrooms, and particularly to my fellow pals, who have both peer-reviewed my works and shared countless stories with me.

To my supervisor, Dr. Rosa Sánchez Salgado for her guidance and consideration and to my second reader, Dr. Abbey Steele for accepting the task. To the Hans Jongstra Fund for supporting my research.

To my interviewees for the availability and disposition. To UNDP ART Initiative for the unexpected experience of moving to Brussels and working at UN. To David Razú for always giving me advice.

To every one I have met in this process and has contributed to my life in a personal, professional or academic way, making me a better person.

To life.

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Abstract

This research work aimed to understand the ‘localisation’ process of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in Mexico City. To do so, three main academic procedures were enacted: first, the definition of localisation and its main elements; second, the theoretical conceptualisation of these elements by the abstraction of two methodologies and two dimensions of localisation; and third, the content analysis of three documents regarding development in Mexico City.

Localisation is an incipient concept which definition required a prior study of different approaches and clarification of multiple ideas and notions. After some theoretical revision through a discursive analysis, I hold that there are three main elements for the localisation of the 2030 Agenda, namely: decentralisation, capacity building and multilevel governance. This statement, nevertheless, delved from an initial conceptualisation of sustainable human development and territorial approaches, an understanding of the two dimensions of localisation (as an adaptation of the global goals to the local level and as a local implementation strategy) and recoding existing methodologies into the three elements.

To answer the question regarding Mexico City’s environment, the three elements and the general principles of the paradigm were reviewed and identified into three official documents that outline Mexico City local development process. The findings of the research reveal a clear but incomplete pathway towards the localisation of the 2030 Agenda that can be enhanced through some recommendations to support the process.

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List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

100RC 100 Resilient Cities

ART /

UNDP ART

Articulation of Territorial Networks Initiative from the United Nations Development Programme

AMEXCID Mexican Agency for International Cooperation and Development Agencia Mexicana para la Cooperación Internacional y el Desarrollo

CA Capability Approach CDMX Mexico City

Ciudad de México

CSO Civil Society Organisations

CNADS Mexico’s National Council of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Consejo Nacional de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible CONAGO Mexico’s National Conference of Governors

Conferencia Nacional de Gobernadores CONAMM National Conference of Mexican Municipalties

Conferencia Nacional de Municipios de México

CTEODS Mexico’s Specialized Technical Committee of the Sustainable Development Goals

Comité Técnico Especializado de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible ECLAC /

CEPAL

Economic Comission for Latin America and the Carribbean Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe GTF Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments HDI Human Development Index

INEGI Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática

LED Local Economic Development LG Local Government(s)

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MAPS Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support for the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda

MLG Multilevel Governance

OECD Organisation for Economic and Cooperation Development PGDDF General Development Programme for the Federal District

Programa General de Desarrollo del Distrito Federal SD Sustainable Development

SDG(s) Sustainable Development Goal(s)

SEDEMA Mexico City’s Secretariat of the Environment

Secretaría de Medio Ambiente de la Ciudad de México SEDESO Mexico City’s Secretariat of State for Social Development

Secretaría de Desarrollo Social de la Ciudad de México SEDESOL Mexico’s Secretariat of State for Social Development

Secretaría de Desarrollo Social de México SHD Sustainable Human Development

SME(s) Small and Medium-sized Enterprise(s) TA Territorial Approach

UCLG Unites Cities and Local Governments UNDG United Nations Development Group UNDP /

PNUD

United Nations Development Programme

Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo

VNG International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities

Van Nederlanse Gemeenten

ZMVM Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico Zona Metropolitana del Valle de México

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List of Tables

Table 1 Documents contexts 28

Table 2 Interviewees 29

Table 3 Events where participant observation method was held 29 Table 4 Discursive elements of sustainable development 32 Table 5 Recoding of the variables of the localisation as adaptation component

into the three elements

42

Table 6 Recoding of the variables of the localisation as strategy for implementation component into the three elements

45 Table 7 Mexico City’s development challenges as related to SDGs and targets 49 Table 8 National and local institutional frameworks for development 50

List of Figures

Figure 1 Methodology Explanation 25

Figure 2 Empirical elements of localisation 38

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“Localisation - something done by the people, not something done to them” Colin Hines (2000, 31)

Introduction

Within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals time limit, the United Nations General Assembly launched “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” in September 2015, a resolution that stated both the member States’ view of the current global situation, and a plan for the following 15 years to achieve their idea of the desired status. The document, backed up by the international community, presents 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets that aim to shape public policies around the world to end poverty and hunger globally, as a first step.

At the same time, the relevance of local policies to achieve global goals has increased during recent two decades and continues to follow this trend for the next ones. In fact, the relevance of local level action in the 2030 Agenda is remarkable. According to the organisation United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), 65 per cent of the 169 targets comprised in the SDGs relate to local governments and local actors, and all of the 17 SDGs have a local dimension essential to their achievement (UCLG 2015a).

Following this, the debate of the global development agenda among scholars pointed at the need of considering the local contexts while designing and planning the development strategies. In this regard, two of the main concepts that have evolved are localisation and decentralisation. The first one is mainly consented to refer to the opposite to globalisation (Scruton 2007, Hines 2000, Shuman 2000, Parker et.al 2007) in terms of homogenisation of the global agenda,and the second one refers to the process of delegating power from central (national) governments to the subnational and local governments (Faguet 1997, UNDG 2013, Boex and Yilmaz 2010).

In general terms, the localisation of the 2030 Agenda is about its adaptation in terms of the goals and the implementation mechanisms to the local dimension (LOGIN Asia 2017). In fact, the localisation of the global agenda itself comprises notions of decentralisation, local development and local governance, amongst others (UNDP 2016). As well, international cooperation and the territorial approach must be undertaken (UNDP

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ART 2017, UNDP 2015). Since localisation is a concept of very recent use in political science, and the 2030 Agenda was launched less than two years ago, the literature for its study is still incipient. Nevertheless, the research will use notions of Local Governance for Local Development (LGLD), via UNDP’s framework (2016) and other related, as the bottom-up approach for development and endogenous development (Palavicini 2012, Vazquez Barquero 2009).

Not only the UN, but many of the transnational organisations1_{consider the local} actors as key contributors to development policies. This can be seen in regional organisations such as the European Union, or other organisms like the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank, whose strategies for development also focus on the coordination of local authorities for reaching their objectives.

Another reason for putting the local governments at the centre of the development debate is the call for democratisation and legitimacy of the 2030 Agenda. It has been learned that development cannot be seen as an intangible issue, held by the national authorities in order to accomplish the international organisations’ requirements, but quite the opposite, these objectives need the contribution of the population as a whole, and the proximity of the local governments encourages this approach (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs n.d.).

As the key component of the 2030 Agenda, sustainable development can be depicted both as a process and an outcome, whilst local development, which entails territorial and endogenous development, is one of the strategies to tackle it (Palavicini 2012, Romeo 2015, CEPAL 2015). Thus, this research will propose that the localisation of the 2030 Agenda comprises three main elements: decentralisation, capacity building and multilevel governance.

Concerning the decentralisation role for local development, a large debate has occurred within academics that differ in their opinions of its effectiveness (Boex and

1_{According to Samuel Huntington (1973), transnational organisations can be defined through three}

main characteristics: (1) bureaucracy, (2) specialized and technical functions and (3) operation across international boundaries

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Yilmaz 2010, Faguet 1997, Faguet et.al 2014). Nevertheless, it is precisely the localisation of the agenda that provides with accountability means and improves its implementation for being more directly related to the population within the local context (Romeo 2015, Morphet 2004, Bahl 2005 and Boex 2008). In the same sense, endogenous development appears as an important element and requires governance mechanisms towards the coordination between public and private local actors, NGOs and International Organisations (Costamagna 1999, Dansero and Scarpocchi 2013).

The present thesis aims to depict the localisation of the 2030 Agenda in Mexico through international decentralised cooperation mechanisms as the best strategy to achieve global sustainable development. To do so, the research will consist in analysing how are the elements of localisation (decentralisation, capacity building and multilevel governance) inserted in the legal and institutional frameworks of Mexico and Mexico City.

The significance of Mexico City as a critical case comes from the fact of it being one of the biggest metropolis in the world in terms of population, its political and geographical relevance, but also to its recent political reform and the consequent publication of its first Constitution, which entails a very interesting decentralisation process and has been described as a parameter for the sustainable development approach and the achievement of the SDGs (Molpeceres 2017).

In order to investigate these issues, the following research question is posed:

How is the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development being ‘localised’ in Mexico City?

The main source of information for the present thesis has been my work at the internship in the ART Initiative’s headquarters at UNDP offices in Brussels, Belgium, whose mandate is to implement the localisation of the 2030 Agenda globally. The internship worked as an ethnographic research based on its opportunities for observing the Initiative’s operation and for conducting the interviews to the former facilitators. In addition, the research includes an in-depth document analysis of several official texts regarding the topics.

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Moreover, I will perform a combination of hermeneutic discursive analysis and ethnographic content analysis on three documents: Mexico’s Federal Government statements, Mexico City’s government documents for development and Mexico City’s novel Constitution. Also, some interviews to territorial development experts and relevant actors in Mexico City, from government agencies, legislative bodies and transnational institutions were held.

The first Chapter provides an explanation of the research frame, including a literature review on the topics and main concepts, a theoretical conceptualisation to tackle the sub-questions and a more specific description of the methodology. The second chapter will depict the theoretical framework for the research, by portraying a discursive analysis to explain the academic foundations of two concepts: sustainable development and territorial development, and establishing the link between them. In the third chapter, I will analyse the two dimensions of localisation and recode them into the three elements. Later, the fourth chapter will consist in the analysis of Mexico and Mexico City three main documents: the guidelines for the National Council of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the General Development Program of Mexico City and the newly published Mexico City’s Constitution. Finally, in the fifth chapter I will provide the research conclusions, considering the role of the new constitution and the political environment for the 2018 federal and local elections in the localisation process; as well, I will depict a proposal for the ART Initiative to be implemented through these frameworks as a localisation strategy for Mexico City’s government.

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Chapter 1. Research frame

The present chapter sets up the structure for the debate of the topic. It will begin with a brief description of the literature regarding the 2030 Agenda localisation approach, followed by a literature review about how this approach has evolved. Afterwards, the research question for the thesis, its relevance and academic contribution will be discussed. Finally, I will elaborate on the theoretical conceptualisation and methodological tools used for this research and its conclusions.

1.1 The new global approach for development

The 2030 Agenda is a global agenda for development that entails 17 goals (SDGs) to be accomplished by the signatory countries as UN members. Its main focus, as defined by the UN General Assembly (2012), is to eradicate poverty and to strengthen universal peace. In this sense, the Agenda seeks for and supports a new approach for development, which refers not only to economic growth, but in fact to human development as a holistic perspective; it is, the equal distribution of its benefits, the regeneration of the environment and the empowerment of people (UNDP 2016).

Some of the most important resolutions obtained in the Paris Declaration are the five new principles of development: ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability (OECD 2008). In short, the shift entails a more horizontal vision for development, overcoming the traditional idea of developed versus underdeveloped countries, and assuming all of them as actors and partners for development (Dansero and Scarpocchi 2014).

The paradigm of human development (HD) was introduced in the 1990s to the international debate by UNDP based on the capability approach from Amartya Sen (Biggeri and Ferrannini 2014). Since then, the concept has evolved into a more integrated and universal one, which considers economic growth as a means for well being, instead of a goal itself and implies that people’s influence must be the driver for development processes (UNDP 2016c). Besides, it comprises the acquisition of skills for people to be

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involved and enjoy the benefits of citizen participation, by tackling social exclusion (UNDP 2004b).

This shift in the conceptualisation of development entails itself several new acknowledgements; such as the recognition of unregulated economic growth as the main cause of inequality and environmental damage; the need to involve not only developing countries but also developed countries in the actions; the recognition of the diversity within rural and urban contexts towards their development; the need to involve non-State actors; the inevitability of international solidarity; and the need for inter-related, integrated and coherent policies to reach development, among others (UNDP 2016b, UNDP and World Bank 2016).

As 2030 Agenda’s champion, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) holds this vision too. They consider that sub-national institutions are important actors for approaching development in the decision-making processes that are directly relevant to people’s lives (2016). In this sense, and based on the results of the largest consultation process held by UN, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) point directly to local actors, both in the public and private sector, as key stakeholders on the pursue of global development. The development objectives, also referred as the post-2015 agenda, represent one of the crucial priorities in the transnational arena, and one of the main issues within the studies for political sciences.

1.2 Literature Review

The localisation of global agendas has been a topic of constant debate among academics. First of all, contrasting with globalisation, localisation is a response to the universalisation trend for public policies and governing systems held in the last two decades (Palavicini 2012). In this sense, localisation advocates hold that globalisation focus on international trade, open markets and economic growth (Globalization 101, n.d.) has created local inequalities by promoting trade liberalisation based on the production comparative advantages. This has lead to making certain countries, and more specifically, localities, dependent on products whose prices aren’t under their control (Parker, Fournier and Reedy 2007, 161).

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Therefore, localisation supporters advocate for self-sufficient communities where more equitable forms of development can be fostered. Accordingly, some academics consider that globalisation and sustainable development have been presented as similar and simultaneous processes, but that in fact they go in opposite directions since they are founded in different principles and values (Bakari 2013, Hines 2000, Bello 2002). Mohamed Bakari (2013) enlightens the false similarity of these two terms by pointing at the contradictions between them about state intervention, the top-down versus bottom-up approaches and the value of diversity, among others. Also, they point at the neoliberal view of ‘unsustainability’ as an economic problem, rather than considering environmental and people-centred issues (Bakari 2013).

In this sense, academics have proposed to address localisation as a potential way out from the contradictions depicted -Colin Hines even portrays globalisation as the problem and localisation as the solution (2000)-. Through the shift to the local approach, which has also been named ‘deglobalisation’ (Bello 2004) they argue, governments could be ‘catalysts’ (Bakari 2013) and enact interventions to maintain the social standards (Blewitt 2008).

Two main perspectives of localisation may be found in the literature. From the economic approach, localisation then stands for the need to look at local alternatives as a way to promote local economic growth based on local production for local consumption and small scale-production (Parker, Fournier and Reedy 2007). As well, this entails the notion of endogenous economic development, which considers economic growth as a territorial phenomenon and local actors as the main developers of the economy (Palavicini 2012, Vázquez Barquero 2002 and 2016).

On the other hand, localisation is also seen as a democratising process, considering the “empowerment of people through the empowerment of their local governments” (Bahl 2005, Romeo 2015, Boex and Simatupang 2008). In this sense, endogenous development is defined not only in economic terms, but as the mobilisation of place-specific resources through political and institutional arrangements that promote local governance (Romeo 2015, UNDP 1999).

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This last consideration, which will be one of the main approaches of the present research, involves decentralisation as a necessary condition for local development. Nevertheless, this remains as a contested topic among scholars2_{. Whilst some academics} advocate for decentralisation based on empirical studies as the input for improving participation, people access to central government resources, and the administrative and technical capacity of local organisations (Faguet 1997 and 2014,), its critics point at the tendency of local elites to play an disproportionate role in decentralised contexts (Faguet 1997) and at the politics-driven nature of the processes (Romeo 2015, Gaulè 2010), amongst others.

Arguments in favour of decentralisation portray it as a response to authoritarianism. In this sense, the need for a national framework to promote decentralised governance is presented as a response to power concentration and political overcentralisation, which is seen also as a source of corruption and dictatorship (UNDP 1999, Romeo 2015). Therefore, democratisation processes require decentralisation as a necessary condition to succeed (UNDP 1999). But on the other hand, some authors also hold that allocating more power at the small scale may lead to local elites empowerment in the pursuit of their own interests (Cohen and Peterson 1999, Faguet, Fox and Poeschl 2014).

The debate on decentralisation may even be tracked in other disciplines and go back to discussions on democracy versus autocracy, federalism versus centralism (Faguet 1997, Treisman 2007) and even globalisation versus nationalism or regionalism, where the alleged trade-off between democracy and efficiency is addressed. As mentioned before, the arguments in favour tend to highlight the benefits of democratisation, checks and balances and accountability (Faguet, Fox and Poeschl 2014, Treisman 2007), whilst arguments against focus on inefficiency, generated inequality and dependency on political will (UNDP 2016, Romeo 2015).

2_{Just to give a broad idea of this debate, it can be looked at Cohen and Peterson’s (1999) study,}

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Following, literature points not only at the differences of the arguments, but also to the argumentation coherence and accurateness. For example, Faguet (1997) considers that the arguments in favour of decentralisation lack generality and a clear distinction of the assumptions that make it work. At the same time, the arguments against mostly have to do with the economic principle of the aggregation of preferences and resources as a precondition for efficiency (Faguet 1997), which is pondered as ideologically biased and problematic itself.

Another classification is seen in Harold Wolman’s work. He addresses these issues and comprises them in three main values: political, governance and efficiency. The first ones refer to the political power spread as a means for democratisation; the second ones entail arguments on responsiveness and accountability and the third ones refer to the idea of decentralisation as a fosterer for competition and effectiveness (Wolman 1990).

Moreover, other contestations arise among decentralisation advocates, varying on the economic and political approaches. Some literature is highly focused on fiscal decentralisation (Boex and Yilmaz 2010, Boex and Simatupang 2008, Bahl 2005) while other is more linked to local governance and centred on administrative and political decentralisation (UNDP 1999, Romeo 2015, Gaulè 2010). Though, a more comprehensive approach involving these three types of decentralisation (UNDP 1998a) should be addressed.

The 2030 Agenda agreement has been to create a multi-level, multi-stakeholder and multi-sectorial framework for development (UNDP 2016, Biggeri and Ferrannini 2014). In this sense, the relevance of incorporating the local governments into the framework not only as receivers of the Agenda, but as active participants in its adaptation, has been addressed by international negotiations (Devin and O’Dell 2013, UN General Assembly 2012). Thereby, the need for national governments to take into account the actions of the regional and local governments as deliverers of the public policies that actually put the goals into action, and non-State actors to reach all of the actions that impact and shape social processes has been addressed by researchers lately (Böhling 2010, UCLG 2014, Varela 2015).

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In this sense, governance processes need to be addressed to avoid high concentration of power (Boex and Yilmaz 2010, Wolman 1990, Romeo 2015). Following the idea of decentralisation as a means to enhance democracy and people’s power over their representatives, the transfer of power from national to local governments requires also more efficient, responsive, and accountable public services (Boex and Yilmaz 2010, 4). The most important input for governance, therefore, is the institutional framework, both formal and informal, since it shapes political and policy outcomes (Wolman 1990, UNDP 2016).

Though, if designed incorrectly, institutional framework can lead alleged governance to empower some interest groups more than others, which would contradict the aforesaid values (Hoppe 2010, Kemp, Parto and Gibson 2005). Hence, in order to effectively include all stakeholders, the building-up and transformation of institutions of policy networks is crucial (Hoppe 2010). If established correctly, networks will help achieve four outcomes: enhance legitimacy, reduce risk of conflict, broadens the sources of ideas and information and fosters citizen’s learning about policies (Kemp, Parto and Gibson 2005).

The network type, its degree of institutionalisation and the articulation mechanisms needed for each policy problem is another unresolved question, since it depends on the structure of the problems and involves several factors depending on each context (Hooghe and Marks 2003, Hoppe 2010). In terms of Rhodes, studying network governance implies determining “how the informal authority of policy networks supplements and supplants the formal authority of governments” (Rhodes 2007: 1247).

During recent years, the relevance of local governments and initiatives in international development has been addressed by transnational organisations, since it has been noticed that public policies for sustainable development planning, implementation and evaluation should take place within the local frameworks (Varela 2015, Proyecto ALLAS 2016, Guevara 2015). More specifically, cities have acquired higher relevance when it comes to global agendas, since more than 54 per cent of world’s population lives in urban areas, according to United Nations (Böhling 2010, UNDP 2016).

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The internationalisation of the LRG and their roles in the global agendas has acquired academic relevance as well (Romero 2014, Fernández de Losada Passols 2014). In this sense, some literature argues that the topics in the international agenda have shifted too, moving towards ones with more impact in local policies, which have acquired more influence in the last decade (Proyecto ALLAS 2016, UCLG 2015a, Fernández de Losada Passols 2014).

Thus, this new paradigm consists in innovative standards for partnerships and cooperation, such as decentralised cooperation and South-South and Triangular Cooperation (UNDP 2016, UNDP 2011), which consider territorial development cooperation in a way that goes beyond the donor-receiver notion, including knowledge exchanges and capacity development (UNDP 2016, UCLG 2015a) and involving civil society and the private sector in the framework.

The localisation of the Agenda refers precisely to the process in which the global goals and their implementation are translated to the local level (LAMG 2015, 3). Accordingly to the shift of the approach to development, it requires a complex understanding of the local contexts that comprises social, environmental, economic and institutional insights in the internal side, and also the linkages to sub-national, national and international levels of these aspects.

The present research aims to compel all of these concepts to delve in the localisation approach formulation and to understand its components.

1.3 Research Question

In order to understand what does the localisation of the 2030 Agenda mean, which elements does it entail and how does it impact the implementation of the SDGs at a global level, the research question for this thesis is: «How is the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda

for Sustainable Development being ‘localised’ in Mexico City?». To answer it, I will assess its main three elements, which are: decentralisation, capacity building and multilevel governance, which unfold themselves into several other notions.

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a) What is needed to achieve the implementation of the 2030 Agenda at a local level? b) How is decentralisation integrated in the institutional and legal framework of Mexico

City?

c) How is capacity building integrated in the institutional and legal framework of Mexico City?

d) How is multilevel governance integrated in the institutional and legal framework of Mexico City?

e) How is territorial development enacted in Mexico City?

To explain the proposed elements and also to address the research sub-questions, the theoretical conceptualisation will be presented in the next section.

1.4 Theoretical Conceptualisation

The localisation, local dimension for development, or local development, can be seen both as a process (the programmes enacted towards the improvement of life quality) and as an outcome (the desired objective or completion of this process) (UNDP 2016, 10). The new approach considers that local development involves not only the local governments but also a series of components that comprise local governance actors (civil society, community leaders, private sector leaders and special interest groups) and local development actors (national advocacy groups, private actors, development partners and regulatory institutions) (UNDP 2016, 11).

In this sense, and in order to better categorise the multiple factors needed to localise the 2030 Agenda both as a translation of its goals and as a translation of the implementation strategies, the following sub-questions must be analysed.

a) What is needed to achieve the implementation of the 2030 Agenda at a local level?

To tackle the most urgent challenges within their territories, local governments need ownership, to be able to perceive, measure and address them with their own resources (Faguet 1997). Devolution mechanisms will help localisation by the transfer of priority areas including territorial and urban planning, access to basic services for all,

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social safety nets and promotion of economic opportunities, allow local governments to raise own revenue, among others (GTF 2016)

One of the main focuses of the thesis regards the implementation of the Agenda as a consented programme, which involves the creation and execution of public policies both at the national and local level. Fixsen et.al (2005, 5) define implementation as “a specified set of activities designed to put into practice an activity or programme of known dimensions”, and distinguish it from intervention according to several characteristics, mainly regarding the stakeholders to which they are directed to. The current academic debate in this regard mainly questions the traditional view of implementation as a one-fits-all recipe and points at a need to look at the context and specificities of each policy destination (Willis et.al 2012, Williams 2010). The present research will take this view into account to make the analysis of the implementations revised.

In this sense, the localisation of the SDGs implies translating the global agenda to the local dimension both in the goals and the implementation mechanisms (Global Taskforce 2016, UCLG 2014a, UNDP 2017). Though, it is still under debate whether local governments should implement national goals at the local level -only by allocating the national targets into local ones- or if context-specific goals should be produced at the local level (LOGIN Asia, 2017).

Literature on localisation holds to the idea of the multi-level approach (UNDP 2016) by pointing to international cooperation as needed for governance processes. According to some Dansero and Scarpochi, “dealing with local development means considering a complex sequence of global-local interactions, between economic trends and processes of redefining political space” (Dansero and Scarpocchi 2014: 345).

Following the same logic, localising the 2030 Agenda entails a new framework for international cooperation, which allows local and regional governments (LRGs) to develop partnerships with international actors, the latter being foreign LRGs, intergovernmental organisations, foreign national governments’ representations (such as cooperation agencies) or LRGs associations, among others (Dansero and Migliardi 2014, UNDP 2011, UCLG 2014a). SDG 17 mandates to “Strengthen the means of implementation and

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revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development”, which implies itself the need for bringing together development actors at the global level.

b) How is decentralisation integrated in the institutional and legal frameworks of Mexico City?

Decentralisation processes should not only be studied within isolated cases of local governments but as systems at the national level. In this sense, some research refers to decentralisation as a “mixture of administrative, fiscal and political functions and relationships. In the design of decentralisation systems all three must be included” (UNDP 1998b, 1).

Institutionally, Mexico City is a very particular case. Constitutionally, Mexico has three levels of government: municipal, state and national, but Mexico City doesn't correspond to any of them. Before 1997, it was a federal district, governed by a regent and 16 ‘delegados’ (borough regents), who were appointed and accountable directly to the Federal Government. Unlike other countries with established federal districts, the size of the city implied a huge democratic deficit for circa 7 per cent of the national population. Mexico City’s Political Reform has been a long historical process and one of the most important milestones was achieved in 2016, when more autonomy for the city was recognized and its own Constitution and Congress were established, but it is still legally considered a ‘federative entity’, not a state (Federal Government of Mexico 2016). It is called a city, but in terms of its population, land and economic size, it is more comparable to a Mexican state. At the same time, the city is further divided into sixteen boroughs (which are named ‘alcaldías’ after the Constitution) with elected heads of government.

c) How is capacity building integrated in the institutional and legal frameworks of Mexico City?

Taking the SDGs as a global agenda, some organisations have come with more specific definitions for its localisation. For example, the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments consider that “localisation relates both to how local and regional governments can support the achievement of the SDGs through action from the bottom

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up and how the SDGs can provide a framework for local development policy” (Global Taskforce 2016: 6). As well, one of the UCLG documents defines the term as “the process of defining, implementing and monitoring strategies at the local level for achieving global, national and subnational sustainable development targets.” (UCLG 2014a: 42)

The most common critiques and observations to Mexican institutions are based on the levels of corruption and inefficiency, as well as the lack of coordination between government agencies and the absence of CSO involvement in the policy development (PNUD 2016a). In the case of Mexico City, the Federal District status implied a lack of capacity to plan and implement several policies, delving in obstacles for sustainable initiatives. Also, issues such as the professionalisation of public servants and the improvement of public services delivery must be undertaken soon (OECD 2015).

The Constitution of Mexico City proposes a very interesting legal and institutional framework that will introduce institutional innovations to foster development and Human Rights as the approach for government (Yanes 2017). The new institutions, particularly the Planning Institute and the Autonomous Council for Evaluation, are expected to take a key role in the organisational design of the city and the integrated development approach.

d) How is multilevel governance integrated in the institutional and legal frameworks of Mexico City?

Governance is seen as a response to globalisation processes (Hoppe 2010, Cheema and Rondinelli 2007) and is defined in several forms, but most of them agree in the idea of it being and a mode of social coordination (Kemp, Parto and Gibson 2005) for the articulation of interests and mediation of differences within citizens at the local level (UNDP 2004a), entailing participatory systems of institutions and procedures for public decision-making (Cheema and Rondinelli 2007, Hoppe 2010) As a complex concept, when talking about governance, scholars identify among its components: participation, partnerships, multi-sector capacity, institutions and accountability (UNDP 2004a and 2009), all of which should be framed in the rule of law and held with transparency (Cheema and Rondinelli 2007).

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In this regard, Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks have studied the reallocation of central power to the local level and power and authority diffusion. After listing some of the theoretical alternatives provided by scholars, they conclude that a widely accepted notion in the debate is the incorporation of the international sphere in the analysis, holding to the concept of multi-level governance (Hooghe and Marks 2003).

According to Hooghe and Marks (2003), multilevel governance is often considered as a way to tackle the commonly assumed bond between a territory and its authority, allowing different actors to go through decision-making processes and partnerships regarding specific topics through more flexible jurisdiction. Following this, the authors propose two types (I and II) of multilevel governance, depending on the flexibility of the system and the extent to which the jurisdictions are tied to territorial boundaries.

Institutional challenges to foster local development comprise multi-stakeholder and multilevel coordination for more inclusive and egalitarian policies are needed in Mexico City (OECD 2015). Although some efforts have been already made, there are three main issues: to improve the collaboration with the governments of the ZMVM, to improve the coordination with the Federal agencies that implement public policies in Mexico City and to better involve the private sector and CSO (100RC 2015, Romero-Lankao, et.al 2015).

e) How is territorial development enacted in Mexico City?

According to Romeo (2015), the concept of territorial development involves not only a spatial feature, but also a notion of how and by whom development is promoted. In this sense, it is relevant to “understand local development as an expression of territorial development”3_{, which has a crucial characteristic of involving formal social structures} (local governments) and identified areas of intervention (municipalities).

The notion of territorial development entails a structuralist approach for development, which is based in four principal ideas: (i) development is a relational process, (ii) inequalities are generated and reproduced by structural conditions, (iii) development is also influenced by territorial endogenous factors and (iv) territorial

3Consultant, UNDP ART Initiative, interviewed by author

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inequalities are multi-scalar, complex problems that affect development processes (CEPAL 2015). Following this, Boisier (2004) considers territorial development as a meta-policy, which comprises four policy elements: (i) territorial ordering, (ii) decentralisation, (iii) fostering territorial economic growth, and (iv) fostering territorial social development.

It has been noticed that both the Constitution and the General Programme of Development of Mexico City entail the notions of territorial order, multi-sector development and also foresee the multilevel and multi-actor approaches (Molpeceres 2017). The document analysis will provide more insights and will look at the national framework for territorial development, which is a needed feature for the local enactment (Romeo 2015).

1.5 Methodology

For the purposes of the thesis, the research question and the sub-questions will be tackled in two ways; first, by presenting the elements and sub-elements of the localisation of the 2030 Agenda and second, by assessing these elements for Mexico City.

The methodology for this research is a qualitative, ethnographic study with a mix of inductive and deductive reasoning, and has been done in two different stages: the research to portray the theoretical framework and the analysis of the documents. Since the concept of localisation and moreover, the localisation of the 2030 Agenda has few academic specialised support yet, the theory was constructed by the author adding up three elements: (i) the participant observation during the internship in UNDP ART Initiative, (ii) the Sustainable Human Development discourse and (iii) the Territorial Development discourse. Afterwards, having developed the theoretical framework and defined the elements of the localisation of the 2030 Agenda, I performed a deductive technique to analyse the presence of these elements in Mexico and Mexico City’s documents through ethnographic content analysis and hermeneutic discursive analysis as explained by Bryman (2012) and Berg and Lune (2012).

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It is very important to highlight the reflectivity feature of the ethnographic approach (Berg and Lune 2012) to understand the nature of this research. Acknowledging that the document analysis is very influenced by empirical knowledge, which is very difficult to externalise, it was necessary to make use of the discursive elements to categorise and define the further elements.

Then, the research design entailed a confirmatory strategy to be enacted in Mexico City’s documents (Gerring 2004) and I hold it to be a case study since it goes for the detailed analysis of a single unit to understand its complexity (Bryman 2012). In terms of Yin (cited by Bryman, 2012), it can be depicted as a critical and intrinsic case for the intention to have a better understanding on which are the circumstances and to what extent, in which the hypothesis will or will not hold. As well, more than making a generalisation from Mexico City’s case, or establishing a relation between its variables, the purpose is to understand the city’s particular conditions for localisation, following Della Porta’s definition for a case-oriented strategy (Della Porta 2008). It is, I do not aim to make an inductive reasoning from the results in Mexico City, but to see how the proposed elements are contextualised there. Therefore, I will focus more on the internal than the external validity of the research.

Figure 1. Methodology explanation

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a) Mexico City

Latin American actors have been a crucial factor in the construction of the new approach for development and the notions of territorial development (CEPAL 2015), but also a very important ground set-up for UNDP ART interventions. As Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary General for Iberoamerica (SEGIB), has mentioned, the new approach for development emerged from the contributions of African and Latin American regions to development debate (Grynspan 2017).

As a region that has historically been a “receiver” of development aid, both from international organisations and countries as the United States through the Washington Consensus, Latin America has been one of the major critics of the prior approaches to development, pointing at its structural failures: inequality, conflict and low State capacity (Comim 2015). Besides these insights, the region contributed in the formulation of the 2030 Agenda and has been crucial for its global adoption (Barcena 2016, UN General Assembly 2014).

The rapid urbanisation global processes and the city governments’ role in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda have been seen as crucial factors for the achievement of SDGs worldwide (LOGIN Asia 2017). Furthermore, SDG 11 is related specifically to sustainable cities as hubs for social development (UNDP 2017).

Mexico City is the 12th_{populated urban area worldwide, counting more than 20} million inhabitants within its metropolitan area of 2,072 square meters (Demographia 2017). Moreover, its geographic location gives it a strategic position as a midpoint between North and Latin America, but also with easy access to Asia and Europe. The city is recognized by its cultural and historical richness, as well as by its large diversity and plurality, its progressive political views and the focus on Human Rights among its laws and institutions.

Although Mexico City ranks for a very high Human Development Index -0.830 in 2012, according to UNDP- (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo 2015:

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6), there is no clearness on how the city ranks in the issues tackled by the SDGs. Therefore, a revision on the local actions for development is needed, but also a better coordination of the different agencies to plan and work on the bases of the SGDs and the post-2015 agenda.

In February 2017, Mexico City published its first local Constitution, which entails a very important reformulation of the democratic pact among its society. The text, which has been pointed by UN agencies as a replicable document and as a guide to fulfil the 2030 Agenda (Mexico City Government 2017, Molpeceres 2017), commands new institutional frameworks and public policies to achieve sustainable development, but also to improve the internationalisation of the city and its insertion in the global agendas (Hernández 2017, Mexico City Government 2017). The analysis of the Constitution and its linkage to the localisation of the 2030 Agenda will be crucial for the present research.

b) Documents for the analysis

The analysis of official documents can be an important source of valuable data, since they provide a great deal of information and mostly, can serve as an input to look for the specific views of the entities that created them. From the hermeneutics approach, not only the text of the document, but the context in which they were created, are an element for the analysis. According to Bryman (2012), the researcher has to consider documents as a representation of the reality of the organisation that generated them, so the analysis should ponder three moments: the social-historical (contextual aspects), the formal (structural aspects) and the interpretation-reinterpretation (mix of both).

Beyond further explanation in Chapter 4, the following table contains basic contextual information of the three studied documents, as a preliminary analysis:

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Table 1. Documents context

Guidelines for the National Council of the 2030 Agenda for

Sustainable Development General Development Programme for Mexico City 2013 – 2018 Mexico City’s Constitution

Government Level Federal Local Local

Generating Body Federal Government Local Government Local Constitutive Assembly

Type of Body Executive Executive Legislative Year of creation 2017 2013 2016-2017 Intentional recipient National Council of

the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Local Government’s Agencies (Secretariats) and Municipalities Local Government and Municipalities (Alcaldías)

Source: Own elaboration.

As mentioned before, the unit of analysis for this research is Mexico City, but it is pertinent to clarify that I am using the federal government’s strategy to understand whether the elements of localisation are embedded in a national framework, which has been argued to be highly relevant for the process (Romeo 2015, Boex and Yilmaz 2010). In this sense, I selected the document for it being the basis of the national body to monitor and assess the 2030 Agenda achievement in Mexico.

Data Collection

For the extents of this research, the data was collected in three ways. First, I performed a content analysis from three documents: the guidelines for the National Council of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the General Development Programme of Mexico City and the newly published Mexico City’s Constitution. As defined by Berg and Lune, a content analysis is “a careful, detailed, systematic examination and interpretation of a particular body of material in an effort to identify patterns, themes, biases, and meanings” (Berg and Lune 2012: 349).

The second technique for data collection was a series of five semi-structured interviews to relevant actors of the studied processes. As seen in Table 2, these actors

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have a specific knowledge and inputs on the topic, varying from the perspectives and experiences for the research, which was very useful for the broadness of the topic.

Table 2. Interviewees

Name Position Institution Inputs

Johannes Krassnitzer

International Coordinator

UNDP ART Initiative Historical view and relevant information on ART’s methodology and cases Sol Sánchez Rabanal Manager of Democratic Governance

UNDP Mexico Country Office

Mexico’s perspective on ART Initiative, UNDP activities for local development in Mexico

Juan Carlos Díaz Cecilia

Consultant UNDP ART Initiative Empirical information from Ecuador and Colombia, general information from interventions

Braulio Díaz Castro

Communications coordinator

Euro-latinamerican Alliance for Cities Cooperation (Proyecto AL-LAs)

Mexico City’s internationalisation and institutional framework

Tobyanne Ledesma Rivera

Former Mexico City’s Constitution Legislator and activist

Constitutional Assembly of Mexico City

Constitutional process and historical view from the

development processes in Mexico

Finally, other technique4_{for defining the elements of localisation of the 2030} Agenda was performed by the participant observation method at three main events in Brussels regarding the 2030 Agenda localisation. The events are mentioned and described hereunder:

Table 3. Events where participant observation method was held

Event Date(s) Participants

Meeting of the Executive Committee of the World Forum of Economic Development

April 10th_{, 2017} _{Executive Committee Members, Local and Regional}

Governments Associations, Cooperation Agencies, International Organisations

UN Global Goals – Triggering a Wave of Local Actions

May 29th_{, 2017} _{International Organisations, European}

Organisations, Local and Regional Governments Associations, Civil Society Organisations European Development Days June 6th_-7th_,

2017

European Commission, International Organisations, Civil Society Organisations

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Chapter 2. Discursive analysis

One of the hermeneutics tools for analysing political conversations is discursive analysis. For this thesis, I will use John Dryzek’s framework on discourses for sustainable development, which argues, from an epistemological perspective, that power is exercised through a set of shared values and perspectives. His analysis states that the definition and implementation of environmental policies is mostly about discourses and cites Foucault on his statement of discourses embodying power “in the way they condition the perceptions and values of those subject to them” (Dryzek 2013, p.10). Seeing environmental issues as highly complex problems with a big number of plausible perspectives upon them, the analysis takes into account not only the dominant discourse, but also the balance of competing discourses (Dryzek 2013, p. 8).

Therefore, the present chapter will consist in depicting Dryzek’s study of sustainable development as a discourse, setting the bases to follow with Biggeri and Ferrannini’s (2015) comparison between sustainable human development and the territorial approach. The latter derives itself from Sen’s comprehension of Human Development (2000), which I will complement with the works of Bakari (2013) and Guevara (2015). From all of these theoretical outsets, I will conclude by portraying the elements of the localisation of the 2030 Agenda.

2.1 Sustainable Development as a Discourse

Dryzek (2013, p. 10-11) sees environmentalism as a fight between political positions. By having a historical review of the different political decisions in this topic and understanding that they are always attached to an specific context in terms of place and time, he states that there is no reason and no single truth but several ways of apprehending the world. In saying so, he remarks that discourses both enable and constrain communication between actors depending on their shared values and therefore they also coordinate action towards a specific issue, such as environmental problems.

This perspective is very useful for academic analysis, since it recovers the concepts of discourse and meta-knowledge and provides the framework to study the

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underlying reasons that lead to political decisions, instead of assuming that there are right and wrong ways of addressing an issue. In this way, to understand how decision-making processes are shaped, Dryzek (p. 17-19) suggests, the four elements to analyse environmental discourses are: (1) Basic entities whose existence is recognized or constructed, (2) Assumptions about natural relationships, (3) Agents and their motives, and (4) Key metaphors and other rhetorical devices.

According to Dryzek, sustainable development is one of the discourses for environmental issues and is currently the global discourse of ecological concern, which main approach is to meet currents human’s material aspirations without compromising the future ones (2013, 147). Historically, it comes with the acknowledgement of the impossibility to have an infinite economic growth due to a finite amount of natural resources and has a particular view on poverty as both a cause and a consequence of environmental degradation and unlimited industrialisation.

Going through his study’s elements for analysis, Dryzek states that the basic entities for the sustainable development discourse entail a nested and networked social system, assuming the capacity and potential of political decisions to shape human behaviour regarding production and industrialisation. In this same sense, to meet sustainability challenges, shifts in power between different levels are required (Dryzek 2013) and therefore not only the global approach, but also regional and local levels must be tackled, including international cooperation and non-State actors.

For sustainable development, natural relationships between economic growth, environmental protection, distributive justice and long-term sustainability are mutually reinforced (Dryzek 2013). However, it portrays the hierarchy of human activity among environmental issues by implying that the former should be undermined to lower its impact on the latter. Thus, international cooperation must be held to assure that environment is protected and taken care of.

Accordingly, the agents are motivated by the superiority of nature as a public good at each level (global, national and local). Though, Dryzek argues that the State is not seen as the main agent but as an articulation mechanism for local and international actors

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in one hand, and private and public stakeholders in the other, to achieve sustainability. Finally, the discourse’s metaphors regard seeing development as organic growth; it is, political-economic capacities go through a process of self-conscious improvement to enhance the learnings on sustainability. Moreover, Dryzek points at the metaphors of nature as natural capital and the reassurance rhetoric embedded in the discourse. Sustainable development has an economistic view of environment, seeing it as a resource for human progress. As well, it has a presumption of perpetual holistic development in terms of a positive sum game that involves social, environmental and economic features.

Table 4. Discursive elements of sustainable development Basic Entities Assumptions about

natural relationships

Agents and their motives

Key metaphors

Nested and networked social and ecological systems

Cooperation Many agents at different levels, transnational and local as well as the state; motivated by the public good

Organic growth

Capitalist economy Nature subordinate Nature as natural capital Ambiguity concerning existence of limits Economic growth, environmental protection, distributive justice, and long-term sustainability go together

Connection to progress

Reassurance Source: Own elaboration based on Dryzek’s Box 7.1 (2013, 160)

Beyond the discursive elements definition, Dryzek considers sustainable development as a piecemeal approach, which requires global commitment to be achieved. In this sense, he argues, civil society’s role can lead the switch from a managerial, specialised approach into a democratic one.

2.2 Sustainable Human Development and the Territorial Approach

As it has been seen, Dryzek’s conclusions on sustainable development as an approach that comprises not only environmental issues, but also social and economic

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dimensions, together with his remarks on the multilevel and multi-stakeholder notions of the discourse, go along with the previously revised definitions of the localisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Correspondingly, Mario Biggeri and Andrea Ferrannini have postulated a very useful input for studying the linkages between Sustainable Human Development (SHD). Following with the hermeneutics view of development, they study how the territorial approach may provide with either enabling or disabling factors for local systems evolution. At the same time, this evolution facilitates people’s freedoms or capabilities (in terms of Amartya Sen) and consequently, their well-being (2015).

The territorial approach involves the notion of the economic and social actors activities as embedded in geographical, relational, cognitive, organisational, institutional, social and cultural contexts or spaces (Biggeri and Ferrannini 2015, 2). In this sense, they summarize the defining features of the local development perspective in four main concepts: specificity, inter-sectoriality, cross-disciplinarity and dynamism. It is, the local development approach involves the notions of place-based contexts in which economic, social and political processes are interrelated and therefore should be analysed by a multiplicity of disciplines and a dynamic understanding of a changing reality.

Within their analysis, Biggeri and Ferrannani also point at the lack of academic attention to institutional and governance mechanisms as fundamental features of development with intrinsic value for individual and collective well-being. It is in this sense, they argue, that the capabilities approach (CA) coined by Amartya Sen gains relevance for its conception of human development as a “process of expanding the capabilities – abilities and opportunities – of people to lead the kind of life they have reason to value” (Biggeri and Ferrannani 2015, 4).

The capabilities approach meets the territorial development in the field of the collective freedoms and agency as embedded in the individual well-being. However, they remark that Sen’s work mentions democracy as a desirable condition for enhancing human capabilities, but, mistakenly, does not look at the local level participation as the most important feature to achieve freedoms. In this regard, they cite

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Mherotra (2008, cited in Biggeri and Ferrannani 2015), who portrays deep democratic decentralisation as a necessary condition for local participation.

Hence, they see territorial development as enabler or constrainer of SHD, which they argue within four main rationales: (a) human development as a place-based process, (b) participation and agency freedom as locally experienced, (c) the expansion of human capabilities as linked to local governance and a multilevel perspective, and (d) capabilities enhancement as territorially-embedded. Furthermore, they define four structural elements of SHD processes at the local level as follows:

• Local institutional structure

• Social capital in territorial systems

• Synergies and feedback loops between economic and social dimensions • Trans-territorial relations of Local Development Systems

By concluding that the enabling environment for human development must be found at the local level, Biggeri and Ferrannani set the bases for the localisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. After adding up some other discursive considerations on the topic and including the ethnographic element of this research, this thesis will depict a proposal of the three main elements of localisation.

2.3 Globalisation as opposed to Sustainable Development

In addition to Dryzek’s discursive framework and Biggeri and Ferrannani’s comparison of CA, SHD and territorial development, I will address some other related notions from the academic inputs and outsets.

After revising the theoretical approaches of the social, economic and political transformations of the Latin American cities, Tomás Guevara (2015) presents the following analytical perspectives: (i) globalisation, global cities and dual cities; (ii) social segregation; (iii) gentrification and urban diffusion; and (iv) territorial restructuration. For the latter, he points at the raise of the private actors and their interests in the global sphere as one of the explanations of the Nation-states slope. At the same time, the urbanisation

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and the consequent emergence of the cities as relevant actors responds to the geographical over accumulation of capital in urbanised and industrialised areas.

These factors, Guevara states, let us understand inequality, one of the most visible phenomena in Latin American cities by addressing two structural problems: the precariousness of the productive insertion of large sectors of the population and the simultaneous partial industrialisation in other areas (2015, 18). The over specialisation of the production and the geographical concentration of the high value jobs in the ‘developed’ world have taken the ‘developing’ countries and their cheaper labour costs to the opposite results.

For this reason, the key to tackle the inequalities derived from capitalism and globalisation is the enhancement of local governments and local actors as performers of local development. Territorial approach is therefore seen as the only way to undermine inequalities, through an integral, endogenous and place-based perspective for development that can boost autonomous and democratic processes at the local level.

Accordingly, Bakari’s contraposition of globalisation and sustainable development addresses this argumentation. He holds that neoliberalism as a theory entails an inherent notion of ‘unsustainability’ for its focus on economic growth in despite of environmental and social costs. As well, he makes a remark on broad social alliances for tackling neoliberal globalisation trends, which should include CSO and wide public participation but should also be combined with decentralisation processes, accountable institutions and strong local governments to be effective in this endeavour (Bakari 2013).

By undermining State’s sovereignty to international institutions, what globalisation has done is to remove value from local processes by viewing the Nation-state only as a representative of private economic interests and a guarantor of free trade and geographical productive concentration. In this sense, localisation is indeed the counter-strategy to undertake the inequality generated by globalisation.