"reconstruction must not be at the expense of transformation"

Municipalities in the Reconstruction and Transformation
of Central America and the Caribbean
Consultative Group Meeting
Washington, DC
December 10-11, 1998

The tragedy caused by Mitch has created the need for massive recovery and reconstruction. It also provides a unique opportunity for accelerating and deepening the structural transformation process already underway in Central American countries.

The devastating damage caused by Hurricanes Mitch and Georges has focused international attention on the countries of Central America and the Caribbean that sustained the most harm . The estimates of the recovery costs of Hurricanes Mitch and Georges range from $7.5 to $8.5 billion. Not only does this huge sum of money surpass the financial wherewithal of the affected countries, simple replacement of infrastructure alone will not diminish the vulnerability to future disasters that these countries continue to experience. At the root of this vulnerability is the continuing poverty of these countries, the poor institutional capacity, and the lack of trained personnel.

Local government is a resource in waiting in many of the affected countries, an under-tapped resource that must be brought to bear on these basic, root causes of continuing vulnerability. Municipalities can play an important role in national reconstruction, future disaster mitigation, and economic and social transformation in ways that ensure greater participation of all segments of society. Moreover, Presidents from throughout the Americas re-affirmed their commitment to strengthen local and other sub-national governments at the 1998 Summit of the Americas and to study ways to transfer additional responsibility to sub-national levels.

Hurricanes Mitch and Georges illustrated the precarious nature of governments' abilities to respond effectively and the need to build a permanent capability not only to respond to crisis, but also to anticipate, plan for, and mitigate the damage from possible future disasters. As governments rebuild, they have the opportunity to "build back better"-- not only in the sense of building better housing or better bridges, but building permanent new capacities at the local level that can permanently improve the lives of those who live in the community.

This paper discusses the rationale for incorporating local governments into the reconstruction and transformation processes. It then discusses the basic capabilities that local governments must develop to prepare for and respond to disasters in the future. Finally, the paper suggests a number of concrete recommendations for the affected countries and the international donor community to ensure that the role of local government is valued and fully supported in this vital program.

Local governments have specific potential comparative advantages in preparing for and recovering from disasters that should be developed for a country and its people to capture and use resources most effectively. These include:

In times of emergency, local governments, especially mayors, can provide critical leadership in decisions on resource allocation. Their intimate knowledge of local resources, local needs and other community factors provide them with insights and capacity for making sound and more timely judgments than central government. Citizens look to their elected local officials for immediate disaster response, regardless of the financial capacities of the municipalities. This was demonstrated most clearly in the aftermath of Mitch’s devastation in Central America. Municipalities quickly depleted their available resources as they struggled to meet the most life threatening of the relief needs. The Washington Post, in a front-page feature (April 19, 1999), described how the mayor of Morolica, Honduras, "put [the] town back on the map" by mobilizing national and international resources, together with self-help, to help rebuild this devastated community.

The potential comparative advantage that local governments have in responding to citizens' needs and mobilizing and allocating resources wisely goes well beyond disaster recovery and reconstruction. In many arenas, local government executes certain expenditure programs better than national government. Its physical proximity to the community gives local governments a better capability to determine local interests and requirements. In short, citizens go first to local government for assitance, and local governmental leaders can best understand what needs to be done.

In the rush to provide disaster assistance quickly, resources from national and international sources are often provided to national governments for allocation. However, in many cases local governments can more cheaply provide services compared to central governments, even for projects that are more national or super-regional in scope. For instance, the contracting, implementation and supervision of public works and reconstruction programs, even in a small country, can often be much more effectively carried out and at lower cost at the local level. In the evaluation of the Municipalidades en Acción (MEA) Project in El Salvador, it was found that many public works were implemented by municipal governments at costs from one-third to two-thirds lower than when the same types of works were executed by central government agencies. Reasons for this include: closer supervision, greater control over work crews, shorter travel distances to work sites, scrutiny by the electorate and greater accountability by elected and appointed local officials. Similarly, in the aftermath of Mitch, the municipality of Choluteca, Honduras, rapidly secured the land where the victims of the flooding who have lost their homes will be located and where their new homes are being built. The mayor and municipal employees have helped coordinate the work of non-governmental organizations in the relief activities.

In addition, local governments may have a comparative advantage in providing services well during times of crisis and disaster because many of these services are routinely in their purview. The uniquely local capacity to provide street lighting, traffic control, trash collection, and urban land use is critical to draw on in emergencies. As local governments’ responsibilities and capacities increase, community groups and the national government will find them an important source of expertise and assistance for many short-term recovery and longer term reconstruction activities. In fact, the advantages of local level decision-making, service-delivery and control are beginning to be viewed in a more expansive context. Some countries are finding that water and sanitation services are best located at the municipal or sub-national level, as national institutions no longer are able to keep pace with growing demands and needs for change. Positive examples of decentralizing other government services, including education, primary health, and environmental protection, are proliferating in Central America, even though they are not yet widespread.

Because local governments can more accurately reflect local priorities and can often provide services more efficiently, they can also more readily develop a sense of accountability among their constituencies. USAID-financed surveys in Central America have shown that citizens have a higher degree of confidence in local governments than in other levels or institutions of democratic governments. In this context, property taxes and fees collected by local governments are a potentially important resource in rebuilding and transforming local infrastructure after disasters.

Citizens, local businesses and entrepreneurs can see the connection between their taxes and reconstruction and development projects in their own communities. This link is critical for generating revenue for local rebuilding efforts. In the long term, this ability of local governments to tax is essential to their fiscal health and their capacity to provide the ongoing services that citizens demand.

Good democratic practices at the local level greatly improve reconstruction and disaster preparation capabilities. Attuned to voters' needs and reactions, local governments have the potential to build community consensus around controversial issues, including land and water use, infrastructure rebuilding, and new environmental programs. Without a strong linkage between local government and citizen, support for instituting prevention measures may be weak, and public acceptance poor. In addition, citizens can more easily be brought into the process of setting priorities, implementing programs, and monitoring results at the local level. Organized civil society can more easily include wide community participation in assistance programs. In short, the decision-making processes about reconstruction are more likely to be democratic and participatory when the processes are at the local level rather than the national.

Municipal democracy has been expanding rapidly in the region. In 1980 only three Latin American countries elected their mayors. Today, every Central American country has direct local elections. As a result, citizens can hold governments directly accountable for their actions and abilities to respond. A new generation of mayors is serving as catalysts for local development, providing more and better basic services and ensuring that public decisions include wider public participation.

These potential comparative advantages of local governments in mitigating the consequences of disasters and undertaking recovery should be incorporated into any country’s program of hurricane reconstruction and transformation. Municipalities can often undertake investment projects at lower costs and more quickly than national governments. Their participation can ensure that local needs are more clearly articulated and their ability to rally local support and mobilize resources, especially labor and ideas, can contribute greatly to the huge task of recovery. Moreover, as a legitimate level of government, municipalities are now responsible for many of the same services that are to be restored in reconstruction, such as water, streets, and sewerage, and their expertise is needed.

The linkage between local governments' capacities in reconstruction and disaster relief and their capacities for routine good governance must be clearly made. Local governments with developed capabilities to assist in emergency assistance and long-term recovery will also be strong governments capable of providing excellent services and acting as catalysts to economic and social development generally. Clearly, municipal development requires fiscal federalism, an appropriate distribution of powers and responsibilities among the levels of government, adequate transfer mechanisms to localities and ample municipal taxation and fee-generating capacity. It is precisely now, in the aftermath of destruction and the start of rebuilding, if reconstruction programs are developed wisely, then by enhancing the natural comparative advantages of local government, countries in the region will end up with greater permanent capacity for good governance.

All aspects of local governance contribute to the capacity to prepare for and mitigate the consequences of disasters; a strong and competent local government will be in the best position to deal with any specific problem. Nonetheless, there are several basic areas of governance particularly pertinent for emergency preparedness and recovery. These include fiscal competence, land use planning, transparency and participation, local autonomy, and disaster planning management. Potential capabilities vary greatly among municipalities, of course, and local realities will determine the extent to which local governments act alone, or in concert with one another and with the national government.

Municipal finance has been a central issue in local government development and, therefore, is also critical to the role of local governments in disaster recovery. As long as municipal finance systems in the region continue to be weak, emergency relief and reconstruction responses will fall short of immediate needs and/or be unduly delayed by over-dependence on national and international reaction. Accordingly, the disaster recovery effort should not ignore the need to further modernize the municipal finance systems in Central America. Several of the pertinent concerns are:

1. Improvement in municipal resources transfer systems: There are two major concerns in modernizing resource transfer systems. First, systems should be restructured in compliance with best allocative and distributive practices. Basic premises of good systems are that many expenditures are better made at the local level, while most revenues are better collected at the national level. Transfers from national to local entities should not discourage local revenue efforts, should be made according to clear rules, and should serve a strong equity purpose, equalizing benefits among richer and poor areas. Second, central governments should implement and comply with their own transfer legislation. In Honduras, transfers have been completely under-funded since 1993. The constitutionality of the 1997 transfer law in El Salvador has been challenged on the grounds of usurping the executive branch’s budget preparation authority. Nicaragua is only recently considering legislation that would establish a transfer mechanism of 3% of the central government current revenues to municipalities.
      
2. Outmoded local tax systems:

a. Lack of taxing authority - Municipalities are frequently unduly limited in their ability to establish local taxes and fees. For example, the Salvadoran General Municipal Tax and Revenues Law of 1991 establishes that only municipal councils may propose tax legislation but only the National Legislature can enact municipal laws. The law sets general guidelines in conformity with good public finance practices, but does not sense mandate that tax rates be the same throughout the country. Municipal councils draft legislation for their own municipalities and submit the draft legislation to the Legislative Assembly. The Assembly's decisions may have nothing to do with best practices or the financial needs of the specific municipality.

b. Inadequate use of the property tax - The property tax is about the most ideal tax for municipal government financing, yet it is woefully under-exploited in Central America. In Honduras the property tax generates only about 20% of total municipal revenues. In Guatemala, only about 10% of municipalities actually collect this tax revenue. El Salvador has no property tax.

c. Unintended distortions - Some of the taxes used in Central American municipalities are economically inefficient, socially unfair, or biased against small and micro-enterprise development. For instance, the asset tax in El Salvador is regressive, discriminates against small businesses, and its base is inappropriate. In Honduras the gross receipts tax could be converted to a retail sales tax, which would eliminate certain distortions.

d. Need for municipal revenue codes - There is inadequate legislation with regard to how municipal revenue systems are to operate. National municipal revenue codes would establish the common terms; filing, collection, audit and record maintenance procedures; rights and responsibilities of taxpayers; and powers and responsibilities of local tax authorities. A model code developed for the region could be a useful instrument.

3. Greater access to bank financing and capital markets: Actions to improve municipal credit worthiness should be investigated. Priority measures would be to stabilize revenue and transfer systems and improve financial information systems to permit fiscal transparency and better financial management. Legislation needs to be reviewed in some countries to determine how it may impede bank financing or the issuance of municipal bonds. Cáceres (1999) illustrates that the legislation already exists for municipalities in El Salvador to borrow from financial institutions in the country, but very few have actually done so. Phelps et al (1997) point out that before Honduran municipalities can begin moving strongly into private financing of municipal investment projects their credit worthiness must be greatly enhanced.

While Hurricane Mitch was a disaster of national proportions for many countries, most natural disasters are local in nature: mud slides, fires, flooding, earthquakes, volcanos. It is local governments therefore which need the capability of undertaking land use planning, and the ability to implement such a plan once made. A good land use plan will provide the basic information needed to anticipate possible disasters and to carry out relief and reconstruction. By identifying vulnerable areas that post an environmental risk, for example, or knowing where contaminated water sources are, governments are prepared in an emergency to make better quick relocation decisions, or to anticipate possible consequences to rivers or hillsides. Many assessments of disaster recovery programs highlight the importance of having an existing urban or municipal development plan for rapid, sound decision-making during emergency clean up and recovery. Experts also advocate that at the community or municipal level, disaster mitigation and preparedness efforts be an integral part of an urban planning process and sustainable land use patterns be practiced. One of their most important recommendations, but too frequently unheeded, calls for greater attention to land use planning, preparing accurate maps of hazard zones, training planners, and strengthening land use and town planning laws.

Equally important, for large and small municipalities alike, is the lack of compliance even when urban plans exist that address vulnerability and risk management concerns. In many cities, the local capacity to enforce compliance to land use regulations is non-existent, reflecting political expediencies.

In very general terms, the problem can be summarized as follows:

1. urban plans can be useful tools in lowering loss of lives and property and for shaping and expediting recovery efforts;
2. only the largest cities in Latin America and the Caribbean have the skills and capacities to develop and maintain master plans;
3. not all of these municipalities have addressed disaster mitigation satisfactorily; and
4. compliance remains to be a serious impediment even when adequate plans exist.

Hurricanes Mitch and Georges have been grim reminders, even for cities having urban planning capacity, of the need to improve disaster mitigation planning. They also have underscored the challenge of bringing appropriate levels of disaster planning to the numerous small and medium sized municipalities having fewer resources.

In such a setting, the positive lessons currently being learned from local level experiences with citizen participation practices can be directly relevant to the dilemmas described. With the return to democratically-elected governments, a number of innovative approaches are being attempted in small and medium size cities to develop tools for participatory approaches to municipal planning, decision-making, and accountability. USAID and other donors are already supporting such programs. These experiences, including on-going Central American efforts, offer different approaches to municipal planning that may point to an emerging model of strategic planning appropriate to the multiple needs of small-and medium-sized towns having limited technical staff. The development of a cost-effective, replicable model for such towns would provide a useful vehicle for incorporating disaster planning and mitigation concerns at the local level.

In addition to stimulating self-help, one of the undervalued ancillary benefits of participatory planning approaches may be improved compliance with environmental, health and other norms that results from public involvement in identifying problems and determining the options for solutions. Accordingly, future efforts to incorporate disaster mitigation and disaster preparedness into urban plans should draw on the experience of the participatory practices currently being experimented with in a number of municipalities throughout the region.

The need to strengthen transparency of municipal activities and finances will increase with their substantive participation in reconstruction. There has been considerable progress made in terms of making municipal government more democratic and participatory and in terms of improving the transparency of its operations. Yet, there is still more to be done.

Transparency can be improved at a basic level through rules that mandate public hearings and frequent disclosures of proposed budget plans. More fundamentally, however, the transparency of the budget process depends on the strength of local democratic institutions. Active civic groups, clear rules for the financing of elections and political parties, a free and competitive press and an independent judiciary are all crucial to exposing and thereby discouraging lobbying or corruption in the budget-making process. When local democracy is weak, important areas of public life escape social scrutiny, interest groups exert undue influence, and opportunities for deficit spending increase. (Hausmann, 1998)

Fiscal transparency means being open to the public about the structure and functions of government, fiscal policy intentions, public sector accounts, and fiscal projections. Fiscal transparency strengthens accountability and is essential for sustaining citizen participation in local decision-making. It can therefore enhance credibility, the benefits of which will be reflected in lower borrowing costs and stronger public support for sound policies.

National legislation needs to ensure that municipal finances are maintained according to international standards; in particular, municipal financial data should be classified according to the economic and functional classifications provided the IMF (1986). In most countries of the region, national public finance data do not fully incorporate municipal finances in the accounts of the Non-Financial Public Sector (NFPS). For instance, in Nicaragua only Managua’s finances are included in NFPS accounts. In Honduras the NFPS accounts include only Tegucigalpa’s and San Pedro Sula’s fiscal data. This is inadequate, provides a faulty picture of the overall fiscal condition of a country, and can lead to inappropriate planning.

All the countries of the region have been moving to integrated financial management systems for central government organizations but, with some exceptions, lack such systems at the municipal level. (El Salvador has initiated the Municipal Integrated Financial Management System, SAFIMU, as a component of its national program). Other countries, such as Nicaragua, have moved toward establishing integrated systems of budget, accounting and improved audits, but, in general, these have been undertaken mostly independently of national-level integrated management systems development.

It is imperative that the reporting, accounting and audit responsibilities for municipal investment projects be strengthened, both within the municipal governments themselves as well as for national level general accounting and audit agencies. Strengthened and expanded municipal participation in national affairs must be accompanied by improved internal and external controls and reporting. Not providing adequate attention to this factor can eventually create disenchantment with the movement to greater municipal autonomy and impede the deepening of democratic practices.

Constitutions in Central America generally specify that municipal government is autonomous, both financially and politically. The movement for decentralization and municipal autonomy is summarized by Bidus (1995) as follows:

The Central American movement toward decentralization is an essentially home grown approach with no clear model from elsewhere in Latin America nor anywhere else in the world. In South America, for the most part, the decentralization movement has been centrally guided, focusing on transferring resources from the central to the local level, with limited initiatives to increase the revenue-raising authority of local governments. The Central American approach, while promoting increases in centrally financed resource transfers, has focused first and foremost on municipal autonomy by striving for greater local revenue-raising authority. One reason for the development of this "bottom up" strategy has been the initiative of mayors, who favor raising their own revenues and controlling their own destiny as opposed to receiving transfers, which are subject to continual second guessing and manipulation by central authorities.

National Associations of Municipalities, such as COMURES in El Salvador, AMUNIC in Nicaragua, and AHMON in Honduras, have played pivotal roles in getting the municipal interests onto the legislative agenda in their respective countries. Together with their regional federation, FEMICA, these associations of mayors have continued to fight for decentralized power, keeping the municipalities’ interests before national legislatures, defending local autonomy, and increasing the independence of mayors from national party politics.

At the same time, municipal support agencies, such as ISDEM in El Salvador and INFOM in Guatemala, have been important contributors to improving the technical capacities of municipal staff. In Honduras, a USAID-supported NGO, FUNDEMUN, collaborates closely with AHMON in providing demand-driven technical assistance and support to municipalities.

Clearly, there is an institutional and legal base in Central America that offers a strong potential for increasing the role of municipalities in disaster recovery and preparedness. More should be done by municipalities, not just for them.

Local governments need the specific capacity to manage disaster preparedness and relief efforts. In 1997, the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance carried out a comprehensive assessment of its long-term program in Latin America, the Prevention, Mitigation, and Preparedness Program (PMPP). The objective was to extract "lessons learned" that could be used to determine the shape of the LAC program in the future. One of its major findings was that its traditional reliance on national level efforts was misplaced. The report noted that

disaster management awareness and training no longer should be focused solely on national level institutions, but must reach down to provincial, municipal, and local levels to be most effective.

The assessment took into account a 1996 OFDA funded survey of disaster mitigation and response efforts of municipalities in seven South American countries. The survey was carried out concomitantly with disaster management awareness exercises in several South American municipalities, which enhanced the understanding of the problems and advantages of working with local governments. The conclusions of the survey and the exercises supported the growing imperative, driven by democratic decentralization, for more work at the municipal level.

A majority of the responding municipalities reported having at least some experience in disaster preparedness management activities. In most cases, however, their roles were within the limited confines of existing legislation that established centralized national civil defense organizations. Where municipalities have incorporated disaster management as a legitimate part of their own functions, such as land use management, public awareness, and training and education, they have nicely filled a void not being addressed by national civil defense organizations.

The same survey cites Colombia as a relevant example for a decentralized civil defense system that works through national, regional, and local inter-agency committees, as well as the relevant non-governmental organizations. It points out that cities such as Cali, Medellin and Manizales have Municipal Disaster Prevention and Relief Systems that are models for the rest of Latin America. It notes, however, that where municipalities do not have the capacity to carry out assigned responsibilities in decentralized systems, the vulnerability of the local population is very high and the civil defense operations lose efficiency and effectiveness.

Lack of financial resources and trained staff were the two limitations for the development of disaster management actions most frequently identified by the municipalities. Inadequate municipal financial systems are a major factor that is addressed separately above. Poor financing systems also limit the capacity of municipalities to hire or train specialized staff. Thus, these two key limitations are intertwined.

Mitch and Georges have dramatically increased the demand for disaster preparedness training at the local government level. The accumulated lessons learned by OFDA on disaster preparedness training in Latin America need to be disseminated rapidly and widely to municipal training providers and decision-makers. These lessons include both its training methodology and its knowledge of institutions with experience and expertise in working at the local level in Latin America.

More specifically, OFDA has adopted and tested a Disaster Training Program approach that has proven effective with national civil defense organizations in Latin America. (See annexes 5 and 6 of the OFDA PMPP (1997). This standard should be applied for any donor financed training program at the municipal level. Similarly, the information, experience, and skilled professionals available through the Disaster Prevention Social Studies Network in Latin America (La Red) offer experience and know-how that must not be ignored. This network, formed in 1992, involves 10 institutions in Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Canada. It is coordinated by the Intermediate Technology Group in Peru, the Secretary General of FLACSO (Social Science Institute) in Costa Rica, and the Mexican Social Science Council in Mexico.

OFDA has also worked with PAHO and the OAS in disaster mitigation and prevention in Latin America and the Caribbean, as is the US NGO, Partners of the Americas. The Partners linkage between Vermont and Honduras has provided local community leaders in the Department of Lempira with skills in disaster preparedness and rebuilding. The World Environment Center (WEC) has worked with OFDA in designing a Local Accident Mitigation and Protection Program in four countries worldwide, including Mexico. These and other organizations should be canvassed to determine what skills and experience they may have for supporting the development of municipal training programs in disaster management, including hazard assessment and mitigation.

One way to expedite and facilitate access to such information would be to build on incipient Internet communications efforts of the Federation of Municipalities of the Central American Isthmus, FEMICA. The website and linkages of this Central American federation of national association could prove to be an effective way to disseminate information, share information on plans and progress, and to document training efforts, achievements and problems for future use.

Donors and governments should develop reconstruction policies and strategies that recognize the vast heterogeneity among municipalities. Some are much more capable of managing complex projects and ensuring proper use of resources. It is important to keep in mind that not all municipalities are created equal. In the reconstruction program donors and national governments need to continue to recognize this diversity. Smaller or less well-managed municipalities should be encouraged to undertake joint activities and investments with neighboring municipalities. This could include the establishment of water authorities, construction of secondary schools, road repair, and other similar activities.

Donors, especially bilateral donors with grant assistance, should investigate the feasibility of channeling some of their resources for reconstruction directly to some municipalities. This is happening already, but to a very limited extent. Donors should investigate how some municipalities might more directly be included in their project activities in ways that will add to the capacity of municipalities to respond to the needs of their citizens.

Care must be taken to ensure that the rush to reconstruction does not set back the advances made in participatory municipal decision-making and planning, including open town meetings (cabildos abiertos). Donors and national governments are encouraged to take advantage of the capacities and the experiences of the municipal governments and their mechanisms for participatory approaches for project selection, development, oversight and implementation.

A comprehensive approach is needed to improve municipal systems throughout Central America, to provide municipalities with access to new sources of innovation, investment and financing, and power. USAID proposes that a Regional Municipal Finance Advisory Group be established for Central America comprised of leading development thinkers in the region. Institutions such as CABEI, with its PROMUNI municipal finance program, and FEMICA, with its network of municipal leaders, would help bring together private and public sector authorities to identify and address key issues. The Advisory Group would operate with close linkages to the newly formed International Forum for Cooperation on Local Government discussed and agreed to by the principal donors at a special meeting held in conjunction with the March 1999 Annual Meeting of the IDB.

E. Reduce the municipal debt burden.

International lenders and other bilateral assistance providers have been approached by the governments of the disaster-affected countries to consider debt forgiveness. It also may be appropriate to consider the feasibility of providing similar debt forgiveness on outstanding municipal debt with CABEI and other international lenders.

F. Concentrate efforts on improving financial management and resources.

1. To provide municipalities with the resources needed to undertake the tasks demanded of them, encourage central governments to comply with their own national laws on municipal transfers by conveying the full amount of revenue legally established, especially in the case of Honduras.
2. In addition, develop legislation allowing municipalities to administer property taxes and improve their revenue-raising capacity in other ways, making revenue authority a permanent part of the municipalities’ resource base. Reliance on municipal transfers can place municipalities in a vulnerable position as transfers are subject to political manipulation at the central level. Furthermore, the ability of municipalities to levy their own taxes, set and adjust user fees and raise their own revenues with the approval of their constituents is an essential, and often overlooked, aspect of participatory democracy.

G. Finally, support massive training and technical assistance to improve the administrative capabilities of local governments so they are capable of developing the strong and innovative programs needed by their constituencies.

Hurricanes Mitch and Georges have created disaster and chaos for thousands of citizens of Central America and the Caribbean. As donors and governments think through how best to assist in reconstruction and rebuilding, the opportunities in that process for permanently improving governance cannot be ignored. Administered heedlessly, new development assistance may provide temporary improvements in infrastructure and basic human needs. Administered with regard for reforms that will permanently transform the capabilities of government, this same assistance will multiply its effects many times over. Local governments are now important players not only in disaster relief and recovery, but in providing the democratic access and participation demanded by citizens, and in meeting their basic needs. We ignore their potential at our peril. By including them and strengthening them in the recovery process, nations will permanently increase their capacity to improve the development of their countries.

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For more information on the workshop, contact
Mr. Lionel Nicol (lioneln@iadb.org)
Inter-American Development Bank
(202) 623-1079

Nicaragua, May 2000   -   Honduras, February 2000   -   Stockholm, May 1999