The mechanism for selection is given to the respective nations. At the initial stage, each country are asked to implement their own national award for cities.
Then, from the winners, each country are able to nominate its best city or district to be forwarded into regional level. At the regional stage, all national winners are
presented in the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Environment. Lastly, the process will be used to refine and harmonize national award process and eventually towards
competitive process for ASEAN ESC Award.
Although the cities are placed as the center of attention in the project, in its very core, the mechanism is still considerably state-based. The main problem,
which still persists until now, is that the inability of ASEAN in creating a common benchmark due to the development disparities among the member states.
3. ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable Cities Model Cities
ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable Cities Model Cities is, considerably, the program in which we can examine the role of the cities in the best way possible. It is a
regional project conducted by ASEAN to initiate sustainable urban development. This project is funded by the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund to facilitate the capacity
building and training on how to build a sustainable city.
At the East Asia Summit Environment Ministers Meeting EAS EMM inaugurated in Hanoi, Vietnam in October 2008, the Ministers decided to support a
prioritized and phased implementation of the Singapore Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and Environment adopted at the 3
rd
East Asia Summit. The Ministers also agreed that Environmentally Sustainable Cities ESC was an
immediate priority area as an initial step of EAS environmental cooperation. To formulate concrete activities on ESC, the 1
st
High Level Seminar on Environmentally Sustainable Cities HLS ESC was held in Jakarta in March 2010,
where 5 activities for promoting ESC in the region were recommended. 1. An East Asian Model Cities initiative
2. A clearing house for ESC-related data and information 3. A Public and Private Sector Forum on ESC
4. ESC Capacity Building Program 5. EAS ESC Awards based on performance indicators
To realize these recommendations, a proposal for initiating the ASEAN ESC Model Cities Program as an umbrella program implementing the 5 points was
developed and submitted to the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund JAIF for funding in May 2010. While undergoing the approval process, the proposed program was
warmly welcomed by the 2
nd
High Level Seminar on Environmentally Sustainable Cities HLS ESC held in March 2011 in Kitakyushu, Japan where related progress
and development was shared by national and local governments and ideas for collaboration were expressed by supporting organizations. A year on from the 1
st
81
High Level Seminar on Environmentally Sustainable Cities HLS ESC, this program is now a reality.
In doing so, the program aims to support ASEAN countries in the creation of model cities to serve as examples across the region of how local governments can take
the lead in pursuing sustainable development at the local level. The program’s key features are:
•
Triple-tier approach: Creating a framework to leverage the strengths of stakeholders at the local, national and regional levels, as well as to facilitate
additional support from supporting organizations.
•
Demand-based: Assistance is provided according to proposals by local governments based on self-defined short- to long-term vision and
development goals and plans
•
Promotion and Reporting: Providing a platform to promote and report good achievements of local governments to high-level policy
makers and other key stakeholders
•
Synthesis and Collaboration: Collecting and studying good practices and models and fostering collaboration among relevant stakeholders for
their replication and scale-up
Figure 4: Policy flowchart of ASEAN Model Cities source: ASEAN Model Cities Website
The sharing of power from the regional authority ASEAN to the local governments cities is as follows. Firstly, with guidance and support from the
programs Regional Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, IGES, national governments establish national oversight
82
for the program by recruiting a National Focal Point NFP, a National Steering Committee NSC and a National Secretariat NS headed by a National Project
Manager NPM. The framework of the country-based ESC Model Cities Program is designed by the NSC who will detail the national aims of the program for a given
country.
The national program is announced and a Call for Proposals is issued, inviting local governments to submit proposals on becoming a ‘Model City’ based on
their long- term visions and action plans. The proposals submitted are evaluated by set criteria, such as the achievability of plans, past achievements, replicability of
good practices, potential to be a model for other cities, expected outputs and others. One or more cities are then selected to be Model Cities.
The selected Model Cities then implement capacity building and training activities for local government officers, as well as follow-up activities with support
from respective national governments and the Regional Secretariat. The Regional Secretariat may also coordinate additional support from collaborative partners in
parallel.
Monitoring and evaluation of the performance of Model Cities is conducted by national governments with support from the Regional Secretariat. The results are
compiled and analyzed to provide ideas to enhance the next cycle of the program and to assist in promoting international learning and collaboration.
Example: Smart, Humane, and Ecology City of Indonesia
On 2012, the Indonesian government set up a proposal on ESC Model Cities called the “Smart, Humane, and Ecology City”. The cities which are proposed to be
the model for the implementation are Surabaya and Palembang—which have successfully perform their outstanding abilities in sustainable development through
the national Adipura award.
This project is focusing on how the two major cities of Indonesia could handle the environmental problem, especially the solid waste management which is the
main concern of the project. In the project, The ASEAN ESC Model Cities Program worked with the Ministry of Environment in a nationwide initiative to replicate a
model Waste Bank originating in Bantul, Yogyakarta in these two cities and to build a national platform to facilitate mutual learning among waste bank operators.
The objectives are: 1.
Two national-level seminars 2.
Training for establishing waste banks in Surabaya and Palembang 3.
Training on systems for operating compost and recycle centers 4.
Workshop on community-based solid waste management In this project, the main stakeholders are the local government alongside with
the local NGO’s and relevant communities. National government—through the
83
Ministry of Environment—serves as the national focal point which delivers the progress report and the two-way monitoring towards the regional committee,
namely the ASEAN Working Group on ESC and the ASEAN-Japan Dialogue on Environmental Cooperation.
The expected results of the project are the establishment of two model waste banks one each in Surabaya and Palembang which will serve as a pilot model to
disseminate experiences for further replication within the two cities; City officers and residents trained in composting and recycle center management; A nationwide
network of waste bank operators, consolidated from existing networks at the provincial and city level. Now, both cities have been confirmed as the model city
representing Indonesia on the ESC Model Cities, alongside with the other 12 cities.
Measuring the Paradiplomacy
In the previous sections, we have seen how the ASEAN ESC is conducted as a form of environmental paradiplomacy in the Southeast Asian Region. Moreover,
we have also examined some of the projects, including the position of cities within. For a brief refreshment, we shall keep in mind that the core concept of
paradiplomacy serves as a political entity’s extra-jurisdictional activity targeting foreign political entities Grydehoj, 2014: 2. According to Grydehoj, there are three
actors we need to distinguish in order to understand paradiplomacy: 1 subnational entity; 2 national entity; and 3 supranational entity. In this case, the intended
“subnational entity” are the cities; “national entity” are the ASEAN states; and the “supranational entity” is the ASEAN.
Before we jump into the measurement of the project, initially we need to examine the degree of paradiplomacy. If we use the Three Layers of Paradiplomacy
by Andre Lecours in order to examine to what degree this activity is conducted, we are able to see that ASEAN ESC lies at the second degree, or the exchange of
knowledge. We can conclude this since from the very beginning, ASEAN has constituted that the aim of this cooperation is to maximize capabilities of its member
cities in managing urban problems. This can be seen in several points of the ASEAN ESC target. The keywords like “improve”, “share experience”, and “develop” are
key terms in the second layer of paradiplomacy. This layer is characterized by a cooperation that is more extensive and more multidimensional insofar as it is not
simply focused in economic gain Lecours, 2008:3.
Being in the second degree layer, ASEAN ESC is not a cooperation which only seeks economic benefit, nor does it serve as an arena where cities can contest
their political identity. It can be said that third layer paradiplomacy is unlikely to occur in the case of ASEAN. As codified in the Bangkok Declaration, the principle of
non- interference is still remaining integral in the cooperation of ASEAN states.
The Bangkok Declaration expressed that the member-states are determined to prevent
84
external interference in order to ensure domestic and regional stability Stubbs, 2008.
Yet, on the other hand we need to take into account that paradiplomacy is distinguished from the conventional type of diplomacy. In its very nature,
paradiplomacy is specific and targeted, often opportunistic and experimental Keating, 1999: 11. Therefore, it is important to see that even though no particular
political stance is held by the cities, there is a certain structure that shapes the direction of the paradiplomacy. In the ASEAN case, the direction is codified through
the six action target that were mentioned in the former section of this paper. I will measure the depth of this paradiplomacy from those six targets.
Progress Analysis 2005-2015
This first action target can arguably be perceived as achieved. We can see it from the number of cooperation that exist during the codification of the action
target. There have been five High Level Seminars on Environmentally Sustainable Cities HLS- ESC. Moreover, the expansion can be seen from the number of actors
involved in the mechanism. We can once again recall the involvement of the Governments of Japan and United States Agency for International Development
USAID in the seminar.
Even though we can still debate the depth of the cooperation, with the expanding actor, we can measure that this first target has been achieved. At least, it
has demonstrated that the initiatives of the governments to expand its cooperation scope have achieved the objective.
The next action target talks regarding the urban air and water problems. By2020, it is projected that as much as 50 of the ASEAN populations will reside in
cities. As the urban population increases, it is imperative to answer the urban environmental challenges. As the industrial activities bloom, as the result of the
more urbanizing region, the mostly impacted two factors are air and water. This second target aims to increase the quality of air and water as the standards of
livability in ASEAN cities.
At the national level, ASEAN have tried to tackle those issues pertaining air and water management. For example, ASEAN have conducted a Cooperation on
Transboundary Haze Pollution on 2002, and the ASEAN Strategic Plan of Action on Water Resources Management. However, there are still limited efforts regarding
how urban actors are placed as main stakeholders in addressing such problems. Now, state remains the most important in managing the water issue within the
region.
The sector that has been more successfully addressed is the air pollution problem. Through the mechanism such as Clean Air Project under the AIESC,
85
