href="#ud1faa9d1-822f-54b2-b160-9fc493be7be6">Chapter V. Phases in the planning process.
13. For more information on the experience in this municipality, see the excellent book by Alberto Enríquez Villacorta & Marcos Rodríguez, Santa Tecla. Gestión participativa y transformación del territorio, Afán Centroamericana, San Salvador, 2009.
14. “Pequeñas Obras de Gran Impacto” pp. 193-196.
15. Those communities that were located closer to the local rubbish dump were compensated by the fact they received more money.
16. Information taken from: Rosa Pinto Berbel y Tomás Rodríguez Villasante: Kerala. La democracia en marcha. Los retos de la planificación participativa, El Viejo Topo, España, 2011, pp. 70-73.
17. Prime Minister between 1984-1989.
18. This information and what follows in the next few paragraphs have been taken from Rosa Pinto & Tomás Villasante, Democracia participativa en Kerala, 71-73.
19. Richard Franke contribute to clarify some concepts. We have taken this diagram from Rosa Pinto and Tomás Villasante, Op.cit. p. 110, and made some modifications to it.
20. “Many neighborhood groups (NHGs) became involved in settlement of family disputes, educational programs for children, health programs, cultural activities and rotating credit associations…. The representatives of NHGs often constitute a ward committee, which acts as an executive committee of the grama sabhas.” T.M. Isaac & Richard Franke, Op.cit. p. 185. The issue of the neighborhood groups is more fully developed in M.P. Parameswaran, Democracy by the People, The Elusive Kerala Experience (India: Alternatives Asia, 2008), pp. 121-144. It is impressive seeing just how many similarities exist between what Chavez proposed regarding the communal councils and the ideas of this Indian intellectual.
21[5]. See Richard Franke, Marta Harnecker, Andrés Sanz Mulas & Carmen Pineda Nebot, Estado Kerala, India, Una experiencia de planificación participativa descentralizada (Caracas: Centro Internacional Miranda, 2009) http://www.rebelion.org/docs/97086.pdf). Regarding this issue I would recommend reading T.M. Thomas Isaac & Richard W. Franke, Local Democracy and Development: The Kerala People's Campaign for Decentralized Planning (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) and Rosa Pinto & Tomás Villasante Democracia participativa en Kerala: Planificación descentralizada desde la base (Madrid, El Viejo Topo, 2011).
22. “In the first year of the campaign, 373 trainers at the state level taught 10,497 people at the district level, who in turn ran one-day workshops for more than 100,000 local community activists who became the backbone of the initial stage of the campaign. In 1998, 4,195 district educators received specialised training from 545 educators at the statewide level, and then ran workshops for 93,000 participants. In 1999-2000 there was more mass training, including a series of three-day workshops for women activists and elected representatives.” (Richard W. Franke, Marta Harnecker et. al., Estado Kerala, India: una experiencia de planificación participativa descentralizada (Caracas: C.I.M., 2009).
23[3]. What we have referred to as the territorial area.
24. Rosa Pinto & Tomás Villasante, p. 127.
25. Thomas Isaac and Franke, Op.cit. 2002, p. 91 y pp. 160-161.
CHAPTER III. LEVELS OF PLANNING AND TYPE OF PLANS
1. TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS AND LEVELS OF PLANNING
1) TERRITORIAL DISTRIBUTION AND CORRESPONDING LEVELS OF GOVERNMENTS
153. After having studied Kerala’s experience of decentralization and Venezuela’s proposal for territorial decentralization, as well as examining other Latin American experiences with regard to the geographical distribution of their territories and their corresponding levels of governments, we have seen that experiences vary from one country to the next, and that the terminology used to denominate the different spaces and government levels varies widely, making it complicated to do any direct comparisons.
154. We can broadly distinguish the following territorial subdivisions and their respective government levels:
■ Nation national government (whether centralized or federated).
■ Regions regional governments.
■ States, counties, departments: states that are part of a federated state (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico…); counties within a central state (Ecuador, Chile…); departments that are in turn divided into counties (Bolivia). Each of these generally has a state or department government.
■ Districts or metropolitan areas. Municipalities that cover a capital city within a state or a group of urban municipalities that cover a capital city.
■ Rural and urban municipalities or cantons. Subdivisions of the previous level. In some countries they are known as communes.
■ Communes, parishes, villages or rural towns. Subdivisions of municipalities. We have chosen to use the term “territorial areas” to denominate this territorial level. But here it is necessary to clarify that our concept embraces both rural and urban areas. Each of these should have a communal governments.
■ Communities, enclosures, small neighborhoods, sectors. Subdivisions of communes. It is within these spaces that we propose to set up community councils (See Appendix V)
155. Each governmental level should come up with a Development Plan.
156. According to the experiences that we have studied, it seems that the best way to begin the process of decentralized participatory planning is to geographically subdivide the territory into spaces that are sufficiently small enough, in terms of size and number of inhabitants, to facilitate the process of popular protagonism as much as possible. Then should come, territorial units which can become self-government spaces; that is, spaces that can take on an important number of responsibilities that were previously carried out at higher levels and, at the same time, create conditions to generate sufficient revenue that can allow them to operate as autonomously as possible. Chavez’s idea of the Venezuelan commune was that it would be the first level of self-government, the level of self-government that was closest to the people.
157. This autonomy will always be relative, since it will be necessary to work with the other levels of government.
158. For the purposes of this book, we will limit our discussion to the three levels of planning that are closest to the people:
(a) Planning at the first level, the community that, in geographical and demographic terms, is a relatively small territorial space (150 to 400 families in urban areas, more than 20 families in rural areas, and fewer in more remote areas) within which everyone knows each other and it is relatively easy to bring together the majority of residents to discuss the common problems. We have provided a general definition of a community in paragraph 72.
(b) Planning at the second level, the territorial area: a geographical space involving several communities that share common problems, aspirations and economic conditions; that use the same services; whose inhabitants are willing to work together on a common project developed in a participatory manner; and, most importantly, that is in the position to be relatively self-sustainable and self-governing.
c) Planning at the third level, the municipality or canton: a geographical space involving several territorial areas in the following step of the participatory planning process.
159. Unfortunately the term municipality does not mean the same thing in every country. In some countries it is used as a synonym for commune; in others, it is used to refer solely to urban territories, as is the case in Kerala. In others, the term canton is used instead. Here we are using it to