When referring to the role of ETOT, I must emphasize that it is necessary and evident to create a pattern of "empowerment", without this characteristic, the role of ETOT itself is substantially reduced, and may be considered unnecessary or accessory.
The etot must unite the paratechnical, technical and professional personnel of the platform organizations, so that they and not the consultant or planner take the baton, the consultant or planner must have a more secondary role and in the end almost unnoticed, the Mistake is to focus all the skills and functions on the consultant or planner, in fact I consider it as the biggest mistake.
Among the functions of ETOT, we can mention:
1. Be guarantors of the representativeness of the paratechnicians, technicians and professionals of the governmental and non-governmental organizations that will be used for the development and implementation of the Land Use Plan;
2. Create the database through the mapping of key actors of the institutional architecture that socially sustain the Territorial Planning process;
3. Conceive and design the critical route with which the Land Use Plan will be developed;
4. Through direct actions, meetings, micro-workshops and workshops, develop the interactive actions with which the supplementary studies (at the technical level) will be supported in a participatory way, such as decisions to redesign or restructure the territory;
5. Be guarantors and direct executors of the Supplementary Studies such as: Mapping of Key Actors (MAC), Diagnosis of Critical Areas (DAC), Study of Land Use Capacity (ECUT), Rapid Socioeconomic Characterization (CSR), Evaluation Environmental (EVA), etc.
6. Serve as a bridge between civil society, technical sectors and socio-political actors, to balance negative reactions on processes that put at risk the actions carried out in the preparation phase of the Land Use Plan, minimizing the risks when implementing the measures. to regularize territorial management actions;
7. Create and direct the models that will be used as a spearhead in the OT processes, it is important to conceive that it is necessary from the beginning of the OT process, they start with simple exercises that allow civil society to observe and perceive the medium-term benefits of the actions undertaken through the Planning of its Territory;
8. To be the public relations officers of the territorial planning process at urban, peri-urban and rural levels, conceiving the written, radio and television media as tools to develop an awareness and interaction campaign between civil society and the paratechnical team, technicians and professionals;
9. Guide the consultant and / or planner on the social, economic and cultural situation of civil society at urban and rural levels, thereby achieving a better level of interaction between him and society, this is important because psychosocial ignorance of the consultant can cause a negative impact on the land use process, and may cause negative reactions on the consultant and / or planner;
10. Evaluate the progress of the process by becoming auditors of the same process, since some studies or actions do not depend directly on them, but rather on consultants or contracted planners, with this, it will be possible to continue with the established planning of mutual convenience from the beginning of territorial planning actions;
11. Guide the monitoring platform for the operationalization and development of the Strategic Plan for Territorial Development, be it at the micro-basin, municipality, province, region or even country level.
A consultant or planner, who is in charge of a Territorial Planning process, or a restructuring of a territory, in order to maximize its potentials and mitigate the negative actions that intervene in economic, social and cultural growth, even more in stabilizing the environment. You must consider that he is a passenger or temporary, so it is necessary to set up a technical team, which is the platform with which to develop the "Land Management Process", for this it is necessary to set up a Team Territorial Planning Technician (ETOT).
The Territorial Planning Technical Team is constituted in the so-called Gray Stage of the OT process, the formation of the ETOT, it is the mixture of science and art, of the psychosocial knowledge of the operatives, technicians and professionals, who can form it, said team It will be the head of a process that will give rise to a series of social, economic and environmental synergies and therefore must be selected and trained in a very interactive way.
I consider that some characteristics of ETOT are:
1. Members or officials (operational, technical and professional) of the institution promoting the Land Use process or the Strategic Development Plan;
2. Self-motivated and aware people to interact for the benefit of their territory, society and people;
3. Although several authors provide that they are professionals on different topics, in particular I do not consider it necessary, because OT, although it is a technical process, is more about action, participation, reaction and implementation, therefore they may have generic careers but preferably related to development actions where the OT is developed;
4. Knowledgeable of the development sectors of the territory, with excellent interpersonal relationships, which ensure entry to the different social actors in the territory;
5. Able to perform before the public, because it is necessary that they participate from the beginning in participatory actions;
6. With availability to learn and desire to excel academically;
7. With flexible hours, since in the early stages of OT, the action schedule is very varied and divergent, adjusted to the needs and requirements of local actors and not of ETOT members.
Although it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to have a mixed team with the ideal and total capacities, it is important that the planner considers a very strict selection, because its temporality forces to visualize as the true executors and promoters of OT, the ETOT members.
