ABSTRACT
Removing the barriers posed by compartmentalization is an essential task for national and local authorities. It is part of the work of ensuring that the quest for environmental, social, and economic sustainability infuses all aspects of the planning for and management of a city or town, including financial planning. A further priority for local authorities is to work with other governments and agencies to ensure that their programmes favour broad rather than narrow approaches to local sustainability. International funding agencies could contribute to this end by consolidating the management of their urban programmes rather than maintaining separate programmes for sectoral areas such as transportation and water infrastructure.
A Framework that Promotes Broad Approaches to Sustainability The work of local authorities can also be hampered by the compartmentalized activities of national governments and international funding agencies - although these activities may not be such a serious impediment to progress towards sustainable development as the compartmentalization of municipal administrations. Programmes that are given limited aims by funding agencies are less likely to foster sustainable development than programmes that foster broad perspectives of local activities. Examples of programmes with limited aims are those that support road building without requiring assessment of environmental impacts, and those that require the imposition of environmental levies without assessment of their social or economic impacts.
