Shifting Planning Processes. Learning from the South?

There is an increasing interest in the Global North among academics and practitioners for the notion of governance and its implementation in the field of regional and urban planning. At the same time, urban research in the Global South have for long explored urban planning processes in context of uncertainty, low financial means and multiple stakeholders. Especially, there is an important literature on urban project implementation processes in aid-dependent countries of the Global South (Pieterse, 2009). How planning processes are shaped by uncertainty and complexity? This paper starts from the idea that much can be learned from processes happening in the Global South, following Watson (2009). It is based on a postdoctoral research project that explores theoretical and practical contribution of urban research in the Global South to urban planning theory and practice. It also uses an extensive empirical material about urban planning processes in aid-dependent countries of the Global South, namely Benin, West Africa, where I conducted fieldwork for many years, and Haiti where I currently take part to an action-research project for an international agency. This paper is a theoretical contribution to the debate on spatial governance processes, illustrated with empirical cases. First, it will present the urban governance context in aid-dependent countries of the Global South, illustrated by the cases of Benin and Haiti. The following common features can be identified: multiple stakeholders (local associations, traditional chiefs, municipal and state authorities, international development agencies and NGOs, etc.), low financial means, and extremely unstable political and natural environment. In brief, in those countries planning has always encountered uncertainty and complexity. Second, this paper will review the recent literature that analyses planning processes in such countries. For example, Shatkin (2011) speaks about "existing urbanisms"; Watson (2009) develops the idea of planning as a "zone of encounter and contestation"; Roy (2011) proposes the notion of "subaltern urbanism". These authors have in common a subtle understanding of planning process that is not exclusively based on State power or community solidarity. I will argue that those concepts propose alternative perspectives of spatial governance. To conclude, I will discuss the conditions under which urban planning theory could really learn from the Global South.