Case study of Water Governance Capacity in Bandung using the City Blueprint Approach
In a quest to compare the management of water-related challenges in Asian cities, Annisa Noyara Rahmasary, student at KWR, applied the City Blueprint Approach in Bandung (Indonesia). In this blog she shares her findings.
City Blueprint approach
Water and urban management were something very new to me at that time. As complex as they are, I was a bit overwhelmed at first to delve into the issue. The City Blueprint Approach is a comprehensive yet simple tool that gives a contextual understanding of challenges related to water, waste, and climate change in cities.
Overall, the tool offers a one-glance-visual shot of the story behind one city’s water waste and climate change management. The Trend and Pressure Framework (TPF) provides the background context while the City Blueprint Framework (CBF) captures the good and bad aspects of the city’s management. I had the opportunity to use the earlier version of the Governance Capacity Framework (GCF), which provides the city manager with insights for the improvements of the urban management. The main strength of the City Blueprint Approach is as said before – the simple appearance but based on such comprehensive, reliable data and information.
Case study Bandung, Indonesia
I did the data collection for TPF, CBF, and GCF in Bandung, Indonesia. I also did the data collection for Jakarta (Indonesia), Singapore, and Bangkok (Thailand). I supported the data analysis for Hohhot and Tianjin (China) also Seoul (South Korea). What I learned is that different city might have different issues to deal, which are sometimes so many andoverwhelming. The City Blueprint Approach offers a systematic approach to breakdown the challenges. It can be used by the city managers to plan and strategize the most effective and efficient way to address the challenge. Tools like City Blueprint Approach also enable people (esp. the city manager) to compare and learn from practices in other cities as well.
Results
I utilized the CBA for in-depth study in Bandung (Indonesia) on the one hand and as a comparison tool for cities in Asia on the other hand. The variations in findings support the potential for cities to learn and improve – provided that cities exchange knowledge, experiences, and best practices. At the end of the day, the answer often lies in the needed good governance of the city. Applying the City Blueprint Approach is part of the analysis that can bring a city one step closer in that direction.