City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

City-Level Decoupling: Urban resource flows and the governance of infrastructure transitions

fully realized. Funding is needed to provide the stability and resources that will be required for staff to be motivated, trained, and feel rewarded throughout the transition. Without this long-term funding, the basis for an organisational commitment to the full cycle of transition will be compromised. 3. Trust and shared vision: Stability of organisational resources and commitment within the intermediary organisations and the participating city-level and non-local partners then provide the basis for mutual trust. To manage (potential) conflicts between stakeholders, intermediaries must be able to effectively 'plug in' to the networks of partners to enhance capacity from a shared organisational view. engage with one another to deal with the problems and challenges they face. Often developers, utilities, companies, communities, environmental or social justice NGOs, local governments, and researchers interact in ways that can over time generate new knowledge about what is possible. The adaptability and learning required by the intermediaries, means that they must constantly work at developing and re-developing their knowledge base. In addressing long-term, systemic and strategic issues a wide variety of technical, policy and local forms of knowledge and 4. Learning: The key to success is the mutual learning that takes place as stakeholders 5. Networks: Intermediaries often establish 'communication forums' that make it possible to negotiate and effectively integrate the different knowledge sets and priorities associated with multiple sets of social interests. They tend to cultivate a local presence and effective local networks and develop effective relationships with existing socio-technical regimes, national policymakers and potentially social interests at a supranational level as well. social interests need to be constantly negotiated and effectively integrated.

innovation and long-term strategic guidance/ management. Capacity refers to skills and staff time to help (co-)manage some or all aspects of a transition, from scoping through to research and innovation, and even into application and implementation over the long-term. University- based research units, for example, will tend to focus on knowledge services, while large consulting firms will tend to span knowledge and capacity services (preferring, of course, the lucrative implementation contracts). It follows that the perspectives of these intermediaries directly affect the nature and outcome of the transition. They enjoy significant power when it comes to defining what is possible. The organisational basis within which these social interests, their expectations and forms of knowledge are crucial to the development of active capacity and necessary capability to translate a vision into social and material action. Analysis of European intermediary practices 123 indicates six issues that are particularly important in constituting capacity and capability: 1. Funding: In order to develop a longer- term systemic programme of activities to address the approved 'vision' (no matter how wide or narrow the social base may be), it is necessary to secure sustained broad-based financial support for the work of the intermediaries. Although some intermediaries, like NGOs or multi-lateral agencies, fund their own involvement in transitions, most will need to be funded in some way for their skills and time. Consultants will normally be the most expensive, but often have the skills to demonstrate future value. If key players lack the financial resources to secure the services of the intermediary, the result will be ad hoc stop-start funding that will limit the capacity of the intermediary to contribute meaningfully. A secure long-term financial commitment reduces the risk of the priorities of the intermediary being dictated by the reactive chasing of funding. 2. Staff: Implementation requires creating staff posts within the relevant institutions before the benefits of the envisaged changes are

6. Communication: The role described above requires that intermediaries carefully

59