Thursday, November 26 2009

GREATER involvement from the private sector is necessary in order to ensure there is proper planning and development that leads to sustainable development in a country. This was the view expressed by Minister in the Ministry of Planning, Housing and the Environment Tina Gronlund-Nunez when she addressed the opening of a Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP) seminar at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Centre in Port-of-Spain last Thursday.

“The Government of Trinidad and Tobago recognises that the participatory approach to planning and development is desirable and necessary. It is also of the belief that planning and development are not exclusively State activities,” she said.

“The State should and does engage in partnerships with private sector and civil society organisations to engage in planning and to carry out development.

In the dynamics of partnership arrangements there is a leveraging of resources for development from the private sector, by way of financing, while civil society lends expertise and knowledge, manpower and networking to the process.”

CAP president Christine Platt agreed it was essential to “strengthen links between planning and government.” She said planners and governments need to develop spatial plans which are both integrated and participatory, if it is to establish urban areas which are “fit for purpose in the 21st century.”

Platt stressed it was important to regard proper planning as “preventative medicine” rather than curative medicine in situations where the cost of the remedy may be prohibitive. She added that it was important that government see proper planning as an essential tool for development and not an impediment to it.