ASSESSING —ORDENAMIENTO TERRITORIAL“ AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL IN BOLIVIA CASE STUDIES: SAN RAFAEL AND PUNATA Carlos Humberto Troche Souza February, 2004 ASSESSING —ORDENAMIENTO TERRITORIAL“ AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL IN BOLIVIA CASE STUDIES: SAN RAFAEL AND PUNATA by Carlos Humberto Troche Souza Thesis submitted to the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation, with specialisation in Planning and Coordination in Natural Resource Management. Degree Assessment Board Chairman Prof. Dr. Ir. W . vd Toorn ITC External examiner Dr. G. Nijenhuis Utrecht University Internal examiner MSc. M. Kuffer ITC First supervisor Dr. D. van der Zee ITC Second supervisor Drs. E. Dopheide ITC INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION ENSCHEDE, THE NETHERLANDS I certify that although I may have conferred with others in preparing for this assignment, and drawn upon a range of sources cited in this work, the content of this thesis report is my original work. Signed Disclaimer This document describes work undertaken as part of a programme of study at the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation. All views and opinions expressed therein remain the sole responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of the institute. Acknowledgem ents I wish to express my sincere reverence and thanks to God, my Lord for the moral and spiritual encouragement and guidance I got during my stay in the Netherlands and all my life. I wish also to thank to my beloved parents, sisters and brother for their encouragement during these 12 months. Particular thanks and gratitude is due to my main supervisor Dr. Van der Zee, for guiding me, during the thesis writing. I have benefited so much from his constructive suggestions and critical comments. Special thanks to my second supervisor Drs. Emile Dopheide for helping me and gave me very useful suggestions and new ideas during the course of this work. I am very thankful to Alejandra Larrazabal for her wholehearted support. I thank all my colleagues and fellow students at ITC specially to my —amiga“ Trang, and my —en serio?“ friend Amani,, for bringing happiness during my studies at ITC. I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Carlos Valenzuela, for give me the chance and supporting me to pursue this course. Finally, I wish to send a sunbeam to all several individuals that contributed to my studies and success in one way or the other. Abstract The concept and policy of sustainable development and the decentralization process, that both attracted serious attention for more than ten years now, after the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro / Brazil (1992) and after the creation of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in Bolivia (1994), contributed strongly to the development of a new planning tool in Bolivia. This newly introduced tool was —Ordenamiento Territorial“ (OT), a type of land use planning common in a number of Latin American countries (e.g. Colombia, Venezuela). This policy and planning tool was designed to address the spatial gap and the lack of integration left by previous traditional strategic planning and sectoral planning approaches prevalent at that time in Bolivia. The OT was introduced at three administrative levels (national, departmental and municipal) in order to establish territorial policies about land uses; to organize and coordinate the administrative units based on their biophysical, socio-economic and political-institutional characteristics; and to promote an integration or functional articulation of the national territory. Despite the theoretical advantages and benefits of OT processes and plans, the actual implementation in Bolivia still remains hesitant. At the national level there is no OT plan; at the departmental level 2 out of the 9 departments have an OT plan, but without formal approval; and at the municipal level only 51 out of the 316 have an OT municipal plan (OTMP) in elaboration or finished, but not approved. In order to find out the reasons behind the slow progress of the OT in Bolivia, especially at the municipal level, this study is focused to understand the general OT structure and to assess the OTMP as a plan and its process. The study is a first attempt to assess OTMP in Bolivia and develops a set of criteria for the evaluation of OTMP. Two municipalities with concluded but yet to be formally approved OT municipal plans are being used as case studies in this research: San Rafael, a municipality in the lowlands (Santa Cruz); and Punata, a municipality in the central high valley (Cochabamba). The study includes a review of documents and guidelines of OT in Bolivia, as well as related literature; interviews with key persons in the OT process; and interviews in seven municipalities at various stages of the OT process. The eventual set of criteria was developed and cross-checked by means of participatory tools including semi-structured, structured interviews and workshops in the two case studies municipalities. Criteria as relevance, feasibility, adequacy of method, coherence and format of plan were identified to assess the OTMP as a document and the ownership criterion to assess the OTMP as a process. According to the evaluation criteria the OTMP as a document as much as a process shows a relatively good performance among the key people involved in OT in the two municipalities. However both OTMP presented some relevant/critical issues (e.g. lack of time horizon, lack of an indication of possible areas for urban expansion) that could decrease the performance in the implementation stage. Besides, it should be noted that among the local stakeholders, knowledge and awareness of the OTMP was limited. Finally four main constraint factors were identified as possible reasons behind the hesitant process of OT at the municipal level: a) Incomplete legal and normative framework for OT; b) W eak awareness of its possible relevance due to a poor dissemination of information on OT benefits; c) Lack of financial support by the municipality to elaborate the OTMP as well as for its the implementation, and; d) Lack of continuity of line actions in stakeholders representatives. All in all there remain a lot of tasks or issues to be resolved in OT at the municipal level as a planning process (e.g. Strengthen and raise awareness among society about the OT; to review and improve the OT methodological guide, to ensure funds and capital to support the OT process) and as a recommendation for possible further study focus as well (e.g. assessment of the social feasibility of planning and implementation, to develop a collaborative spatial decision support system to improve the consensus in the OTMP elaboration). Finally, it is suggested to build up experience in the further development of a more structured evaluation process of OTMP to improve its effectiveness and efficiency. %eywords: Ordenamiento Territorial, Land use plans, spatial planning, evaluation criteria, municipality, Bolivia. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abstract List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................1 1.1. BACKGROUND....................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. PROBLEM FORMULATION (DISCREPANCY BETW EEN THEORY AND PRACTICE)....................................... 2 1.3. STUDY OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................. 3 1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ......................................................................................................................... 3 1.5. METHODS ............................................................................................................................................. 3 1.6. OUTLINE OF THE STUDY ........................................................................................................................ 5 2. PLANNING AND ORDENAM IENTO TERRITORIAL IN BOLIVIA ................................................6 2.1. DEVELOPMENT OF PLANNING IN BOLIVIA ............................................................................................. 6 2.2. TRADITIONAL PLANNING IN BOLIVIA..................................................................................................... 7 2.3. CONCEPTS OF ORDENAMIENTO TERRITORIAL..................................................................................... 10 2.4. ORDENAMIENTO TERRITORIAL IN BOLIVIA ......................................................................................... 11 3. ORDENAM IENTO TERRITORIAL AT M UNICIPAL LEVEL........................................................21 3.1. OT MUNICIPAL PLAN.......................................................................................................................... 21 3.2. FORMULATION OF THE OT MUNICIPAL PLAN ...................................................................................... 23 3.3. OT PROGRESS STAGE AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL........................................................................................ 30 3.4. IDENTIFICATION EVALUATION CRITERIA.............................................................................................