United Nations Development Program – PNUD

Center for Metropolitan Studies CMS/CEBRAP

The geographic information systems (SIG) are being increasingly used in the scope of public urban politics, reaching even the so-called social politics. In fact, in the 1990s, a large part of these applications were restricted to the tax sphere, being that such systems were utilized for means of organization of the territorial register of the contributors, containing the description of each lot (legalized) existing in a given city. Recently, other public policies began to demand that these types of systems, for example, allow the construction of indicators of territorial bases, in order to study the location of new public equipment (schools, health centers, bus stops etc.) and to assess the spatial distribution of city hall registration (income transference program beneficiaries, students, etc.). Unfortunately, while SIG has made large strides in diverse city halls for fiscal politics, especially with regards to the recent financing in the field offered by the BNDES and BID, the utilization of SIG for sector politics has advanced at a slower pace, due to a series of organizational and technical problems. On one hand, an important obstacle concerning the constitution of a digital base of public places also grasps the so-called illegal/informal city, which is a small part of the viewpoint of the logics of collection of the property tax, but crucial for the urban social politics, as poorer populations are concentrated in these types of spaces. On the other, there is little knowledge and technical culture in the local administrations on this matter. This workshop aims to advance the knowledge and the disclosure of initiatives and practices related to the utilization of SIG in public politics of final character, i.e., focused towards the broadest public, such as the politics of education, health, transference of yield, dwelling, sanitation, security, etc.

We are particularly interested in understanding the managers’ perspective of these policies in adopting and developing this kind of tool; the themes they are most interested in and the problems they face. Among these, a particular issue stands out: where to act? That is, the perspective of the demand for property and public services is as important as the location of its offer. It is imperative to identify the people who are the object—and, preferably, also the subject—of public policies, through social demographic data spatialized by not yet disseminated methodologies. These must be combined with information regarding the location of social equipment, physical infrastructure and environmental conditions. Considering those elements, the PNUD, which was recently developed the Atlas of the Human Development of Reef [a “reef” is something found in the ocean, where fish and other aquatic life might live. Is “Reef” perhaps a typo here?] project and CMS, has sought to transfer technology for different local governments, and decided to execute this workshop, with the aim to advance the knowledge and diffusion of successful practices in this field. Below you will find a detailed program of the event.

Invited Organizations:

Fundação SEADE, INPE, Ministério das Cidades, IPEA, BID, BNDES and the following prefectures: Campina Grande, Campo Grande, Guarulhos, Itapecerica da Serra, João Pessoa, Natal, Recife, Salvador, São Paulo (Secretaria do Verde e Meio Ambiente e EMURB), Suzano e Taboão da Serra.