Informal Urban Development in Europe - Experiences from Greece and Albania

Closing date: Wednesday, 02 March 2011

BACKGROUND
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. More information is available at: www.unhabitat.org. UN-HABITAT aims to increase current knowledge in regard to legal frameworks for urban development, human settlements, slum prevention and upgrading. Legislation and the practice of law are critical to attaining sustainable urban development and the goals of the Habitat Agenda, as outlined in the Istanbul Declaration of 1996.

Objective and Scope of the Consultancy

The objective of this consultancy is to develop urban legal knowledge for UN-HABITAT to be able to better respond to the needs of Member States and local authorities. By urban legal knowledge, we mean the following: laws, acts, regulations, by-laws, governing various aspects of  urban management,  human settlements development, slum prevention upgrading, land management, etc;  ; instruments of implementing and enforcing.. This includes the holding of an initial scoping workshop, the development of a methodology to document good practice and lessons learned, identification of in-country target groups and in-country approaches to assist Member States and local authorities, the identification of good cases, the documentation of a number of these cases, among other things. This excludes undertaking an assessment of the existing capacity of the agency, assessment of its institutional structure and communications systems in regard to the objective, the development of a project proposal for a potential urban legal unit, which will be undertaken as a separate stream of activities. This consultancy is intended to be separate from, but linked to, and build on, the separate institutional reform work.
Special attention needs to be given to:-

• Issues related to developing countries and countries in transition
• Legal issues pertaining to land re-adjustment, re-parcellation/consolidation, land valuation and taxation, land use/spatial planning, land use zoning codes and development control, urbanism law, and decentralization of urban local government
• Using the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) approach as a potential model, see www.gltn.net
• The production of a methodology and report/s on good cases from different countries in different regions.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Below, an indicative list of activities and outputs is provided which the consultant should carefully review and produce a technical proposal of no more than 10 pages, to be sent with the application, outlining:-

• How they would approach this work.
• Detailed specification of activities and corresponding methodologies.
• Budgets and fees.
• The names of 3-6 potential reviewers of the outputs of this consultancy who would cover different regions and different schools of legal thought (e.g. Roman, Islamic, Civil Code, Common law etc) and their envisaged roles.
• If different consultants are used, clarifying roles and responsibilities of the different consultants with respect to the TOR requirements.

The time frame for this project will be 3-4 months spread over 9 months.  Emphasis in the technical proposal should be on the workshop, development of the methodology for documentation and most of all on the documentation of 3-4 countries.

The activities and outputs required are:-

Phase 1: Scoping

Review and analyse the current capacity and knowledge in UN-HABITAT: This is important to build on the existing knowledge of UN-HABITAT staff. This review would include:-

• The creation of an inventory of UN-HABITAT/staff experience with urban laws, regulations (national) and bye-laws (local authority) in general and in particular with regard to land re-adjustment, re-parcellation/consolidation, land valuation and taxation, land use/spatial planning, zoning and development control, urbanism law, land use zoning codes. This should include a list of projects with these kind of legal components and an assessment of whether these are good cases. The work of the Regional Offices would be important for this;
• The compilation of a list of publications which the agency has produced on urban law focusing on the legal priorities in areas indicated;
• Identification of potential international legal partners, champions, networks and organisations, which staff know of, and/or have worked with;
• An inventory of the different methodologies used by UN-HABITAT to document urban law, current and previous (e.g. best practices, enabling policies and legislation, template for decentralization, upcoming planning review of 3 countries, 8 country study of law, land tenure and gender review, upcoming workshop on urban planning legislation and a review of methodology);

Review and analyse GLTN for learning lessons for replication:  This is important to be able to use GLTN as a potential model to be able to replicate and adapt GLTN approaches for the production of legal tools. A range of lessons can be learned such as how GLTN:-

• Identifies partners;
• Achieved agreement on a shared agenda;
• Set criteria for identifying good cases;
• Works as a global network, with international partners;
• Documents at country level and develops tools;
• Builds and advocates global knowledge;
• Engages with professional bodies;
• Works with stakeholders at country level.
• Other as appropriate.

Identify and review potential key international legal partners, champions, organizations, institutions which also cover urban law. This is important for identification of participants at the planned workshop, identification of potential partners, knowledge management and for the creation of the planned urban legal network. In addition to the existing knowledge of the consultant, the review would include:-

• People and organisations identified by UN-HABITAT staff (e.g. UCLG, Urban Planning Network, IALTA, UINL, LGA of England and Wales, ISOCARP, Commonwealth Association of Planners, Institute François d’Urbanisme, African Centre for Cities, Practical Action, Oxford Brooks University, HafenCity University, Habitat Parliamentarians); Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme (BLP) network; Local Government Training Academy, Philippines.
• A web search;
• Stakeholders ranging from academia, development agencies, civil society, networks, professional organisations;
• A review of current communities of practice in regard to international players working at national level in this thematic area;
• Information gathered during the planned workshop;

Review and analyze some experiences/good practices about influencing urban legal issues and management at national and local authority level. This is important to the development of a strategy for UN-HABITAT to better assist Member States and local authorities in regard to the specified urban law aspects (land re-adjustment, laws related to urbanism etc). The review should include:-  

• A gap analysis;
• An identification of key target groups;
• Key activities and outputs;
• Type of knowledge required and packaging;
• Entry points (e.g. policy process, emergency etc)
• Issues related to the methodology of undertaking documentation of existing laws, adaptation of existing laws, piloting new laws.
• Learning lessons about: importing foreign laws and how to do it successfully; how different legal schools of thought are influenced (e.g. Roman, Islamic etc); the political economy of legal change (e.g. length of time, move to administrative processes etc); the gap between law, its implementation and rule of law issues and ways to address this; the relationship between law and policy development and implementation, and the role of international human rights law in post-conflict environments.

Coordinate a workshop on the issues.  This is important in order to get a range of views of what issues should be covered to attain the objective to get buy-in from key partners and champions, to identify gaps, and to get ideas on the way forward. The workshop should include:

• Development of a strategy for the workshop and programme with UN-HABITAT. Key aspects of the program to include:- the development of a methodology to document urban legal issues, the scope of the area of focus and what sorts of laws should be examined, the identification of potential countries with good experiences in the practice of the specific urban law, identification of potential international partners and champions, issues related to setting up a Global Network, how best to communicate with non-lawyers, way forward to document experiences of a number of countries represented by a range of regions;
• Identification of key partners and champions to attend. A proposed list should be part of the technical proposal;
• Preparation for roadmap of Phase 2 to document 3-4 countries representing at least 3 regions;
• Commissioning of papers to be presented at the workshop, if considered useful;
• A workshop report outlining the major findings as preparation for strategy report and Phase 2 roadmap;

If required, hold discussions with the UN-Habitat institutional reform team/s. This is important to be able to mainstream the urban legal knowledge and practice obtained in UN-HABITAT to assist Member States and local authorities in regard to this aspect of sustainable urban development. UN-Habitat will advise in due course.

Phase 2: Development of Strategy and Road Map

Develop Strategy for Way Forward. This is important in order to ensure that all the required outputs are identified and their sequencing and timing outlined. The strategy would need to cover, among other things:-

• What an adapted form of GLTN should look like for the network;
• Key urban legal issues that should be considered as the focus of the network’s work;
• Proposed partners and how to build partnerships;
• How to get agreed agenda by partners for legal tools;
• Proposed country level target group and approaches to engaging with national and local governments;
• A proposed methodology for documenting existing laws (see Phase 3 below);
• How the agency and partners should work with Member States and local authorities to introduce new appropriate urban law;
• How to engage with law globally but being regionally, and country level relevant, given the different country experiences and bodies of law that exist;
• Framework for documenting 3-4 countries in 3 regions;
• Suggestions for use of the material documented from the planned 3-4 countries.

Development of a roadmap to describe and explain how the country case studies will be carried out. This is important to ensure that the planned 3-4 case studies are comparable and will follow a sound methodology. At the minimum, the roadmap should highlight the following:

• The chosen countries and the criteria for the choice of countries;
• The thematic area which will be addressed;
• The entry points which will be used in country;
• Identification and potential sub-contracting of national consultants
• If available, the targeted laws which will be analysed
• The methodology which will be used to document the laws in the country;
• The expected range of activities and outputs;
• The potential national consultants who will be used;

Note:   Once UN-HABITAT has accepted all the reports including the roadmap for piloting into 3-4 countries, only then should the country case studies be started. In that UN-Habitat may adjust the consultant’s contract as per the UN rules and regulations.

Phase 3: Piloting and Documenting the Case Studies

Pilot the methodology (as specified in item 7 bullet 6 above) in 3-4 countries. This will test the robustness of the proposed country case studies roadmap.

Review and finalize methodology based on experience lessons learnt of the pilot. If necessary undertake some modifications to improve on the methodology and to incorporate lessons learnt.

Document the methodology piloting experience and make recommendations for sharing the same.

Provide recommendations for upscaling more cases studies.

Methodology for Undertaking the Assignment

The aforementioned outputs should be undertaken through a range of methods as suggested below:

1. A review of the literature in regard to urban related law in regard to case studies of how countries change their urban legal systems.
2. Interviewing staff, partners, champions and potential partners and other potential stakeholders.
3. Compiling information from email questionnaires sent to staff.
4. Reviewing and analysing reports already produced by UN-HABITAT such as GLTN documents, examples of best practices, enabling policies and legislation, template for decentralization, upcoming planning review of 3 countries, 8 country study of law, land tenure and gender review.
5. Coordinating a workshop. This involves preparation and presentation of the background paper and identification of participants. It does not involve funding the workshop.
6. Two missions including flights and per diem (as per UN rules and regulations) to Nairobi will be required and will be funded as part of the work. This will include the costs of attending the Nairobi workshop.
7. Presentation of final strategy report and summaries of country studies, through power points to UN-HABITAT staff.
8. The final strategy report including the roadmap should not be longer than 60 pages. It should include an Executive Summary of not more than 10 pages and a list of all those interviewed as well as key references as annexes.
9. The workshop results will provide guidance regarding the preparation of the methodology and roadmap for the documentation of the case studies.
10. The written outputs will be peer-reviewed by a panel of reviewers and UN-Habitat staff.

Outputs / Deliverables, Reporting and Payment  

Payments will be paid in three installments based on the following output delivery schedule:

First installment (20%) - one month into the consultancy

• Inception report - of 15 pages outlining the work plan, annotated table of contents, possible options

Second installment (30%) – timing to be agreed based on inception report

• Preparation of workshop strategy, program and list of participants
• Workshop
• Submission of workshop report
• Submission of interim strategic report
• Submission of strategic report with preliminary findings
• Submission of the draft roadmap

Third installment (50%) – timing to be agreed based on inception report

• Submission of all final reports including the country reports (3-4)
• Presentation of final strategic report and summaries of the documented countries in Nairobi
• Power point of final strategic report
• Power point of final country reports

The successful candidate will report to Clarissa Augustinus (clarissa.augustinus@unhabitat.org), Chief, Land, Tenure and Property Administration Section, and to Human Settlements Officer Solomon Haile (solomon.haile@unhabitat.org).

Summarized List of Activities and Indicative Timetable

More Information and Application Details