15.4. The multi-stakeholder planning process

In this context, a multi-stakeholder dialogue process was instigated in 2011 by RUAF and UDS as partners in the WASH alliance. The process is based on the multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning (MPAP) approach described below, developed by RUAF under the Cities Farming for the Future programme.¹ It initially considered the connections between waste management and food production. Of particular interest was the treatment of human waste for soil fertilisation and of drainage waters for irrigation, the latter particularly relevant in the light of the water constraints highlighted above. In 2013, UrbanFoodPlus – a research project on urban agriculture, in which UDS, RUAF and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) were also partners – was introduced as another umbrella under which these and other organisations, such as the Urban Agriculture Network (URBANET), could meet. Key stakeholders in this MPAP also included the two local government bodies that administer the metropolis, Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and Sagnarigu District Assembly, the latter formed in 2012 as the city expanded. Other government institutions also took part, such as the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Town and Country Planning Authority and the Ministry of Health. Initially they participated as independent government departments, and then as part of the Tamale and Sagnarigu Assemblies, as they were subsumed into these between 2014 and 2015 in the course of government decentralisation. Local NGOs participating in the process included the Campaign for Agricultural and Rural Development, the Community Life Improvement Programme and Presby Mile 7, another WASH member, which engages farmers in the application of agricultural technology. Private enterprises such as rural banks were invited to participate, and the farmers’ union was also involved (Figure 15.5).

The workshops followed the MPAP approach initially developed by RUAF to bring together urban agriculture stakeholders. RUAF and IWMI supported the development of a multi-stakeholder platform in Accra between 2005 and 2011. That process led to the formation of the Accra Working Group on Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (AWGUPA), which facilitated the development of a city strategic agenda for urban agriculture, a document in which stakeholders made commitments to facilitate urban agriculture. This is part of the overall objective of the MPAP approach, which is to achieve ‘long-term impact through the incorporation of [urban agriculture] in city planning’ (Amerasinghe et al. 2013, 22). Although MPAP was originally designed as a tool for planning and policy development about urban food production, the principles of participatory planning can be applied to any component of a food system. Stakeholders in the Tamale workshops, despite being primarily concerned with production and waste reuse, discussed interlinkages with other food system components such as market upgrading and consumer empowerment.

MPAP can be seen as a preliminary, institutional-level tool in urban planning, and planners are among the stakeholders. By definition, the distinction between MPAP facilitators and participants is blurred: the aim is for local stakeholders to act as leaders, taking ownership of the process. Different parties, including local government, NGOs, researchers and practitioners, engage in joint definition and analysis of issues to address and the planning of solutions. They identify ways to institutionalise improvements to the food system by incorporating them into their ongoing activities (Dubbeling et al. 2011). This provides an opportunity for them to undertake further ground-level participatory work, involving food system stakeholders as leaders in the planning process. Participation can thus be nested at different institutional and practical scales.

By 2016, the Tamale stakeholder process had reached the stage of having identified several areas for policy attention and produced a policy narrative (see Bellwood-Howard et al. 2015a). However, the process of participation involves complicated negotiations between different organisations. A lesson learned by the RUAF teams working in Accra as well as Freetown and Ibadan was that it is important to identify an appropriate local leader for an MPAP process, and this requires an understanding of the local institutional setup. In Accra, AWGUPA eventually handed over the role of facilitator to the Ministry of Agriculture, and this established a strong leadership role that is so far missing in Tamale. In Tamale, the newly reinforced Tamale Metropolitan and Sagnarigu District Assemblies would seem to be appropriate lead institutions, yet face accusations of inefficacy, particularly from the traditional authorities.

Authority for certain decisions rests with different bodies across locations, and gaining approval and legitimacy means engaging with different hierarchies in different cities. This observation is certainly relevant in Tamale, and is especially important as decentralisation takes place across Ghana. Therefore, there is a need to consider the power relations that come into play as stakeholders express their views during the MPAP process. Working through these is one of the processes inherent in any development effort that uses a participatory method (Cooke and Kothari 2001). While engaging with existing hierarchies, the MPAP processes in both Tamale and Accra found that these sometimes stood in the way of effective discussion and prevented engagement with the private sector and marginalised groups. Indeed, the disjunctures between the customary and legal land systems, and the formal planning approach and informal realities, are the main points of contention that need to be dealt with in this discussion about spatial and infrastructural planning (Yaro 2010). Zeeuw and Dubbeling (2015) mention that choices made in the initial phase of the (MPAP) planning process (for example the geographical focus, or position of the local authorities) strongly influence the scope and the result. They also identify other challenges to MPAP, including the need for stronger integration of more participatory and community-based approaches with planning-led and formal processes. There is a need to try to inculcate a sense of local ownership among all stakeholders. This was achieved to some extent in Accra: responsibility for hosting the meetings rotated around the different stakeholder organisations, and research was carried out by the stakeholders themselves (Larbi and Cofie 2010). In Tamale, outsider researchers did most of this work, making stakeholder ownership less successful. The current facilitator, URBANET, with funding from RUAF, is driving the dialogue. When local institutions make solid commitments in the city agenda document, they will be a step closer to owning the process. If local stakeholders are to become facilitators, they may need training on participation and groupwork alongside technical skills and knowledge development. Zeeuw and Dubbeling (2015) also indicate the need for a minimum package of indicators to permit effective monitoring. MPAP therefore needs careful and thoughtful implementation.

The meetings that took place between 2011 and 2016 in Tamale have revealed several issues that indicate the need for a middle, professional, tier of participation in planning discourse, between the grassroots and the institutional levels, and demonstrate the challenges that will be encountered in pursuing a participatory planning approach. We illustrate these through two key issues that motivated stakeholders in the Tamale workshops.