ABSTRACT
The conflict-stricken city of Dili holds circa 20 percent of the national population of Timor-Leste. The city is wrought with inequality and caters poorly to the needs of its ever-increasing population, stretching the city beyond its physical limits and pushing recent arrivals into areas of environmental vulnerability. It is a city now characterised, by government and civil society, as a cidade de lata (“tin city”) in reference to poverty and poor living conditions felt across it. Governance structures change with political cycles, impacting on the continuity of plans and strategies, as well as on the operative capacity of institutions. This chapter is the result of an analysis of project plans, programmes, legislation and policies, and it reflects upon interviews carried out with different actors. Results demonstrate that there is a need for integrated planning and strategy development, noting that such circumstances require governance to reflect the flexibility and an understanding of the value of the level of intervention while recognising the need to work across multi-sectoral processes. It also reflects the need for coordination of interventions and enforcement of legislation, and a need to focus on the national and local needs through processes across the different scales of governance.
