1. URBAN NEXUS:
Sustainable Policy + Cross-sectoral Governance achieving
resource efficiency through integrated policy design.
Medellin, Colombia
Integral Urban Projects
(PUI’s)
Linköping, Sweden
Biogas Busses
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Cities Without Hunger
New Delhi, India
Sulabh International Social
Service Organisation
Vancouver, Canada
Regional Food system
strategy
A unique administrative level of the province of
British Columbia in Canada, Metro Vancouver is
a regional district comprising 21 municipalities,
one electoral area and a Treaty First Nation.
It provides the ideal platform for a food
strategy based on local production and self-
sufficiency, as it brings together urban and
rural municipalities in a holistic plan that would
not have been possible at the municipal level.
At the same time, it requests legislative actions from
the provincial and federal governments, mobilizing
its function as a mediating level of administration.
Medellin was known in the 1990s as one of
the most dangerous cities of Latin America.
Integrated urban planning through the creation of
Integral Urban Projects (PUIs), in which different
stakeholders collaborated to reach common
goals, allowed for great improvement in quality
of life, a stark diminution of violence and the
improvement of public space. To that end, the
Company of Urban Development was created,
gathering different city departments (public works,
education, social welfare, health), academic
institutes (e.g. Metropolitan Technological
Institute), and public and private enterprises.
The project is a successful attempt to integrate
agriculture with energy production and the public
transport system, through integrated organic waste
management. A waste to-energy plant converts
waste from agriculture and slaughterhouses and
fuel Linköping’s public transport. The Linköping
Biogas AB, an umbrella organization, was created
to manage the project. It facilitates cooperation
between the abattoirs, the farmers and the city
of Linköping. The project is easily replicable,
and its success has pushed the city to upgrade
its plant to face greater demand for biofuel.
Cidades Sem Fome, a Sao Paulo-based NGO,
promotes urban agriculture in poor neighborhoods
of the city through a community garden project to
end Sao Paulo’s poverty cycle. Using existing legal
and financial frameworks, it helps develop urban
farmingasameanstoimprovingthelivingconditions
of Sao Paulo’s inhabitants. The urban agriculture
project enhances self-sufficiency and sustainability
through the improvement of food security,
employment opportunities, nutritional a wareness,
green spaces, waste management and recycling.
In its aim to emancipate manual scavengers
who worked in degrading and unhygienic
conditions and were socially stigmatised due
to their profession, Sulabh International has
revolutionised the sanitation sector in India. The
organisation designed cost-effective, eco-friendly
and socio- culturally acceptable toilets which do
not need manual cleaning. The scavengers were
then engaged in social upgrading programs
and given vocational training for employability,
a holistic social inclusion strategy. Sulabh
Public School was established to impart free
education to the children of the scavenger castes.
THE URBAN NEXUS CHALLENGE
Rapid urbanisation, resource scarcity and
a changing climate are some of the growing
challenges facing cities today. However, a
conventional siloed approach does little to
address these challenges and can no longer
suffice. In light of this, the Urban Nexus is a
concept which responds directly to these
concerns. A ‘nexus’ by definition, is something
that connects or links two or more separate
entities and in coming together, forms a
stronger foundation from which to achieve
multiple policy goals through a single initiative.
Principally focused on Governance, it seeks to
improve and enhance communication between
usually separate Government bodies and
agencies, in addition to others to address key
policy challenges. In this regard, the nexus can
be seen as a stabilising force in turbulent times,
improving the resilience of urban systems by
creating new institutional links between public
actors, private enterprise and civil society
across metropolitan areas. For example,
the prioritisation of a coordinated approach
to projects from conception to delivery,
positively influences project outcomes, which
can potentially boost profits while adding to
a project’s security by having more actors
invested in its success. At the same time, policy
in the national interest may negatively impact
local social and environmental outcomes.
Furthermore, the sustainable grounding of the
concept secures the projects environmental
credentials. Above all then, one can view the
urban nexus as an opportunity to fundamentally
change the way public policy is conceived and
implemented in contemporary times.
DEFINING THE NEXUS
‘‘In brief, as a method of city management, the
Urban Nexus approach guides stakeholders
to identify and develop ways to achieve
multiple urban policy objectives through single
investments, projects, or programmes’’ (Jeb
Brugmann - ICLEI, GIZ & The Next Practice).
The Urban Nexus can thus be seen as a
management approach that is guided by the
principles of sustainable and resilient urban
development, using the vehicle of urban local
governance and focusing on cross-sectoral
institutional interdependencies.
SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
URBAN
GOVERNANCE
INSTITUTIONAL
SYNERGIES
SCALES SILOS SYSTEMS SERVICES SOCIAL
This project was developed as part of a capstone project conducted for ICLEI-Local Governments
for Sustainability, funded by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the
German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Sciences Po Capstone Team: Martin Abbott, Angele Cauchois, Louise Cousyn, Chaitanya Kanuri
and Victoria Vital Estrada.