Land use planning and development in Honduras is an ongoing process. Since the 70's we have been making efforts in the direction of knowing our territory, analyzing it from different perspectives and trying to take advantage of its potentialities in order to improve the living conditions of our compatriots.
We carried out, for a little more than a decade, National Planning attempts from the Higher Council for Economic Planning CONSUPLANE and the Secretary of Planning SECPLAN, which constituted important efforts by Honduran Technicians, specialists in various disciplines related to development, concerned with having an integral vision of our territory and its natural, economic and social resources to build from this platform coherent and articulated proposals for the sustainable use of our national attributes.
Protected by theories and fashions in vogue in the 90s, the rulers on duty resolved to close these central planning instances, assuming that the invisible market forces would be in charge of guiding and defining the strategic axes of national development.
From this moment on, it begins to be planned by the different ministries or secretaries of state, thus generating a number of proposals and interventions of public and private order, which, because they are typically sector-oriented, cannot articulate or generate a sustained impact on the different territorial units of the country. In this evolution we have found planning and development programs and projects in basins, sub-basins, departments, municipalities and villages that have not been able to take root as sustained options for regional or local development.
The absence of a planning entity in Honduras made it possible for this multitude of institutional, public and private and some international programs and projects to approach the subject of planning and territorial development from their particular point of view, generating various methodologies and instruments that To date, they have led us to a particular state of over planning that has generated waste of resources, overlapping and duplication of functions, exhaustion of the actors, as well as multiple and confusing territorial management tools for the authorities and other local actors.
The present administration of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice (SGJ), in its capacity as normative entity and leader of the processes of decentralization, governance and development in the national territory, and concerned with generating sustainable models of planning, ordering and local development, has carried out a study of the different planning models, both institutional and those proposed by different territorial management programs, finding that among all of them there are processes, products and tools with a high index of similarity and consistency.
As a result of this study and its various moments of socialization and consultation, the proposal for a model of land use and territorial development presented here has been reached, which takes as its main platform the so-called "NEW REGULATION" for the preparation and updating of Plans Municipal Development (PDM), product of the comprehensive and proactive work of local governments, international cooperation agencies, government institutions, non-governmental organizations, planning specialists, Directorate for Citizen Participation and Local Development, among others. (See annex 5)
Based on the new regulations for municipal strategic planning and based on the need to create a “model that unifies” the different planning processes that have been running at the municipal level in an uncontrolled and to a certain extent anarchic manner, the General Directorate of Territorial Planning (DGOT) presents the methodological and instrumental proposal for the elaboration of "Municipal Development Plans with a Territorial Planning approach" (PDM - OT). This document should be considered as a general proposal resulting from the institutional effort (Ministry of the Interior and Justice –SGJ-), and must go through an interactive, proactive, participatory and consensus process that will allow validating or refuting the proposed critical path and instrument box.
Therefore, we call on the local government, international cooperation, government institutions, non-governmental organizations and planning specialists to evaluate this proposal and provide feedback in order to approach a consensual model where the main beneficiary is the set of public and private actors that interact in the process of promoting sustainable development in our territories.
Arch. Luis Manuel Maier Cáceres General Director of Territorial Planning (DGOT) Ministry of the Interior and Justice (SGJ)
CONTENT
Conceptual Operational Framework
The proposed methodological framework for the elaboration of the Municipal Development Plans with a Territorial Planning approach (PDM-OT) has been the product of a research, processing, analysis, creativity, proposal and development work carried out by the technical team of the General Directorate Territorial Planning (DGOT), with the conceptual and operational maxim of unifying management efforts in “municipal” territories (without excluding community, joint, departmental and regional territories) in a single territorial planning model. The proposed methodology coherently seeks to unify the two great models of territorial planning: the Strategic Municipal Development Plans (PEDM) and the Municipal Territorial Planning Plans (PMOT).Integrating the following approaches as transversal axes
1 Transverse Axes
Integrating the following approaches as transversal axes:
Identification of territorial potentials as a platform for Local Economic Development;
Identification, analysis and strengthening of Social Cohesion and Territorial Identity;
Comprehensive and sustainable management of natural resources;
Revaluation of intangible capitals as instruments of territorial reordering.
by means of a Record Point.
2 Multidisciplinary Team
On this basis, it is necessary to consider that the Municipal Development Plans with a Territorial Planning approach (PDM - OT) are prepared by a multidisciplinary team that is at least made up of:
A specialist in territorial management, development and planning;
A specialist in research, organization and social strengthening;
A specialist in Local Economic Development;
A specialist in Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Scenarios of "Municipalities"
Team with a different degree of incidence in the process of preparing the PDM - OT, depending on one of the five “municipalities” scenarios identified in the construction stage of the new methodological model, which are presented below:
Scenario 1: (Municipalities with elementary planning)
- Strategic Municipal Development Plans (PEDM)
Scenario 2: (Municipalities with basic planning)
- Strategic Municipal Development Plans (PEDM) Municipal Territorial Planning Plans (PMOT)
Scenario 3: (Municipalities with third grade planning)
- Strategic Municipal Development Plans (PEDM) Municipal Territorial Planning Plans (PMOT) Municipal Risk Management Plans (PMGR).
Scenario 4: (Municipalities with second grade planning)
- Strategic Municipal Development Plans (PEDM) Municipal Territorial Planning Plans (PMOT) Municipal Risk Management Plans (PMGR). Municipal Environmental Action Plan (PAAM) or Local Economic Development Plan (PDEL)
Scenario 5: (Municipalities with first grade planning)
- Strategic Municipal Development Plans (PEDM) Municipal Territorial Planning Plans (PMOT) Municipal Risk Management Plans (PMGR) Municipal Environmental Action Plan (PAAM) Local Economic Development Plan (PDEL) Integrated Management Plan for Hydrographic Basins Municipal Plans Forest Development Sector Thematic Plans (Tourist, Commercial, Forestry, Protected Areas, etc.)
Each of the municipal scenarios must be treated in a particular way, the consulting teams must respect, value and enhance each of the planning models previously carried out, having as a “conditioning factor” that both the Comprehensive Multidimensional Diagnosis (DIM) and the Municipal Development Plan with a Territorial Planning approach (PDM-OT) "NO" is the summation of information from the planning models, because in the proposed planning model, the identification of territorial indicators of both the Capitals is contemplated Tangible as the intangible capitals of the territory.
The in-depth ignorance of the Planning Model proposed by the DGOT - SGJ, as it is a territorial planning model even in the “construction and feedback” stage, does not allow us to understand that in reality the process of preparing the PDM - OT is divided into two moments in its elaboration, the first moment is the product of Phase I, II and III having as a product the "Multidimensional Comprehensive Diagnosis" known as DIM and the second moment is the product of Phase IV, V and VI that has product the Municipal or Departmental Development and Ordinance Plan (based on the PDM-OT unified model).
The following figure allows graphically observing the conceptual proposal of the two separate territorial management instruments
4 Advantages of this separation of products from the process:
- Firstly, the DIM is primarily a product of the Multi Variable Comparative Analysis (MCA), of the existing planning models in the municipality, trying to rescue previous works, which generally contain baseline or characterization information, which can be updated and supplemented depending on the conceptual, methodological and operational gaps identified during the MCA process. Secondly, the DIM constructed from the previous planning models, the information resulting from studies, research and consultative processes (individual and participatory)), can not only be used for the construction of the Development and Municipal and Departmental Planning Plan,but it would become the information platform and base line indicators that would be part of the future "Integral Monitoring and Evaluation System". Having a Municipal and Departmental Development and Planning Plan, as an independent document, the volume being in pages, Description, analysis and theory, it would be lighter, indigenous and native. And due to the above, easier for the true users of the "plan" to understand, making it a true operational "instrument" and not just consultative, a role that would be DIM.And due to the above, easier for the true users of the "plan" to understand, making it a true operational "instrument" and not just consultative, a role that would be DIM.And due to the above, easier for the true users of the "plan" to understand, making it a true operational "instrument" and not just consultative, a role that would be DIM.
The proposed methodological model does NOT propose the preparation of a single document, but of two (2), the Comprehensive Multidimensional Diagnosis (first document) and the Development and Land Use Plan (second document).
Considering that there is a methodological model established by the Ministry of the Interior and Justice (SGJ), prepared by the General Directorate of Territorial Planning (DGOT), as a means to operationalize the "Territorial Planning Law" (Decree 180 - 2003). The model establishes the execution of the Municipal Development Plans with a Territorial Planning approach (PDM-OT), for this technical operational "manual", as a result of the systematization generated in the follow-up process of the Multidimensional Comprehensive Diagnoses and Plans of Municipal Development with a Territorial Planning approach, four main characteristics have been identified that the territorial consultants should consider applying so that the process develops in a logical, coherent and scientific way.
5 These characteristics are:
Characteristic No. 1: The methodological model for the elaboration of the PDM - OT, should not look for the classic “clean slate and new account”, canceling or ignoring the previous planning processes, but first of all carrying out an exhaustive collection and analysis (through the Multivariate Comparative Analysis "ACM") of the studies, baselines, characterizations, comprehensive diagnoses - sectoral and the different municipal and departmental plans that have been developed to date, the "rescue" of the planning models that they should be considered as an “investment” not only financial but also “social”, they must be taken up again for the elaboration in particular of the “Comprehensive Multidimensional Diagnosis” product of Phase I, II and III,allowing to identify the methodological gaps (considering for it the 135 specific variables, 55 particular variables and 4 areas) and with this to establish those methodological processes (investigations) necessary to develop to complete the information for the DIM and later for the Development and Management Plan Municipal.
Characteristic No. 2: The methodological process is divided into two main moments and "products", Phase I, II and II that serve as the basis for the Multidimensional Comprehensive Diagnosis (DIM) and a second product is the "Development and Management Plan Territorial ”at its Municipal and Departmental level that will be the product of Phase IV, V and VI.
Characteristic No. 3: The proposed methodological model to be used does not conceive that the “PDM - OT” as the mere summation of the DIM and Municipal Development and Planning Plans, but rather an interrelated but independent process that seeks to complement the municipal visions in a great vision of regional (departmental) development, built through a participatory and articulating process through the Multisectoral Tables, Municipal Territorial Planning Councils (COMOT) and the Departmental Territorial Planning Council (CODOT), based on (conceptual and operational platform) the Mapping of Key Actors, which not only contributes to the identification of the Actors of Interest, Presence, Key and Strategic of the Development Multisectors, Municipalities and Department,the level of trust and territorial perception, territorial impact. But also to the "valorization" of the Human, Institutional, Social, Psychosocial and Cultural Capitals, which will contribute to determining the strategy that should be used to strengthen the "territorial identity and logically social cohesion".
Characteristic 4: The DGOT - SGJ model seeks territorial sustainability through the monitoring of planning processes, by creating decentralized (or decentralized) institutional structures that are called “Regional Technical Delegations” (DTR), as technical support for the Municipal, Joint and Departmental Councils, also having the functions of monitoring and evaluating the actions of the technical-consultants responsible for drawing up the Development and Municipal and Departmental Planning Plans.
The previous four (4) characteristics are the “methodological coherence” platform, which must be used for the theoretical - conceptual - operational platform of the processes for the “Preparation of the PDM - OT”.
In addition to the four "official" characteristics of the methodological model established by the strategy of unification of territorial planning instruments of the General Directorate of Territorial Planning (DGOT), it is necessary to consider that the PDM - OT, must consider in its methodological notion the need to evaluate the territory in an integral way from the role it plays as part of the "national, departmental, municipal and local economy".
Architect Luis Manuel Maier Cáceres
D.Sc. Marvin Melgar Ceballos
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