By
Stephen Dockery
BEIRUT:
A new data-gathering project is attempting to organize sprawling amounts of
information about Lebanese cities in a more complex but easily visualized way.
The
program, backed by the United Nations Development Program, is aiming at
centralizing data so that local leaders can make more informed decisions on
where to locate urban projects and deliver services to residents. The end
product is a digital-layered map where mayors and municipal leaders can see
information about streets and population at the same time.
Najat
Rochdi from the UNDP said the project, which began to operate in Tripoli Wednesday,
will allow city authorities to be much more responsive to citizen’s requests.
“This
will help the planners and decision-makers and the local actors to know more
about what is going on in the city,” Rochdi said.
She
said the project would combine demographic and economic data that will let
leaders “better plan simple things like a bus stop, so they know there is a
need for a bus stop here, there is a need for a school here, there is a need
for a hospital here.”
Difficulty
in urban planning is a lingering malady. Due to bureaucratic and political
wrangling there is no publicly accepted building numbering or road-naming
convention, which impedes the development of programs such as an effective
postal system.
The
new organization program, if implemented in other cities, as the project
managers intend, could be the first steps in fixing that.
“Let
me say we were in dire need of this project,” said Nader Ghazal, the mayor of
Tripoli, about the city’s broad array of previously non-centralized data. “We
all know Tripoli is the second-largest city in Lebanon, and it needs new
technology to provide better services for its citizens.”
Through
the U.N. program, officials from the city of Malaga in Spain helped Tripoli
implement the data organization system.
The
city-to-city partnership is part of the United Nations’ effort to promote
decentralized development in its project areas, so that officials can share
information and implement projects without relying on a U.N. intermediary to
set it up.
“Given the needs and gaps
in north Lebanon, this intervention as well as other similar ones might be an
effective agent contributing to development and pulling out more communities
from the social and economic margins of the country,” said Luca Renda, a
visiting UNDP official.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/May-31/175211-un-project-looks-to-organize-urban-planning.ashx#axzz1wFjVYzRg
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