Management of Multidisciplinary Consultant Teams as the Prime and as a Subconsultant — Manage multidisciplinary consultant design teams preparing master plans for urban area redevelopment projects, outdoor recreation areas, as well as implementing initiatives like those listed below.
Decentralization
of governmental programs/services — Assist local, regional, and
national governments, and USAID in designing decentralized decision-making
authority systems to increase democratization of government.
Strategic Planning — Foster processes founded on civic engagement principles leading to development of strategic planning initiatives carried through to implementation for government, neighborhoods, rural communities, and NGOs.
Civic
Engagement (strategic) — Create local organizational structures to effect public involvement
in local government initiatives, leadership development.
Public
Involvement (operational) — Create public participation processes for projects developing
major public improvement master plans.
Rural Community Development Initiatives — Develop initiatives to redevelop rural communities using a combination
of all of the concepts listed in this section.
Commercial
Areas / Downtown Management Organization — Organize processes leading
to the creation of management entities from needs assessment, through
development of service plans, creation of boards of directors,
hiring of staff, to implementing the service plans.
Contract:
Citizen Development Corps (CDC), Washington, D.C.
Country: Lebanon
Funding Source: USAID
Project: Facilitated focus groups consisting or rural Lebanese residents throughout rural Lebanon as part of a needs assessment on the delivery of municipal and human services by USAID to rural Lebanese communities. USAID will adjust its service delivery program based on these recommendations. As most of the focus group participants spoke only Arabic, we facilitated communications via the use of a translator. We were able to engender respect and trust from Lebanese nationals to participate in focus groups. Please click here to open a 1-page PDF document providing more detail on this experience.
Contract: Citizen Development Corps (CDC), Washington, D.C.
Country: Guatemala
Funding Source: IMF
Project: In the first visit, performed a municipal assessment for the local government of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Department of San Marcos, Guatemala. Worked with staff of the UN and a local NGO in the performance of this task. On a second visit, guided the municipal staff to establish a municipal capital improvement planning budget planning process Worked extensively and closely with the municipal staff and members of the City Council and local NGOs.
Contract: The Services Group, Arlington, Va.
Country: Panama
Funding Source: The World Bank
Project: Panamá-Pacific Special Economic Area Agency Draft Environmental Regulations, Republic of Panama.
Function Performed: Prepared Draft Environmental Regulations for the Panamá-Pacific Special Economic Area Agency, a redeveloped U.S. Air Force base now under the control of the Panamanian government into a free-trade industrial zone.
Contract: State University of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY
Country: Bolivia
Funding Source: USAID
Project: An effort to make the Bolivian legislature more transparent in its operations, and its members more accessible to the public. Make public information about legislative actions readily available, and ensure that media coverage of the legislature is widespread.
Function Performed: Contractor for a team of nine professionals in La Paz, Bolivia performing democratization techniques with the national Bolivian Congress.
Contract: Ministerio del Interior, Secretaría de Relaciones con la Comunidad,
Gobierno de la República Argentina.
Country: Argentina
Funding
Source: Organization of American
States, Washington, D.C., USA.
Project:
This was the Second International Seminar over Frameworks and Policies
for Citizen Participation at the Municipal Level. The seminar's
purpose was for Latin American countries to exchange with each other
what they are attempting and achieving to bolster citizen participation
in the developing democracies in the hemisphere.
Function
Performed- Lecturer: Our President represented the United
States with the sponsorship of the Organization of American States
(OAS) at this seminar in Buenos Aires, Argentina in May 1999. He
presented the history and practice of citizen participation in the
United States, a citizen participation project in Austin, Texas,
and NAFTA and its Impact on the U.S.-Mexican Border Area. All presentations
were in Spanish.
Contract: Programa Bolívar, Lima, Perú
Country: Perú
Funding Source: Programa Bolívar y la Asamblea Nacional de Rectores, Lima, Perú
Project: Our President presented the topics of community development through strategic planning and business improvement districts to achieve enhanced downtown development.
Function Performed — Lecturer: El Programa Bolívar organizes a cycle of academic-business symposiums where Peruvians and invited professionals from other countries present economic topics. The program is specifically designed for university administrators and faculty from Perú. The symposiums allow presentations and dialogue between the lecturers and the participants with the expectation that the participants will learn and apply that learning to improve the quality of life in Perú. All presentations were in Spanish.
Participants included invited guests and economic professors from the following universities:
- Universidad Nacional
- Universidad Nacional de Trujillo
- LaBancaria, Sociedad de Empleados de Bancos, Cordoba
- The World Bank
- Universidad Privada de San Pedro
- Universidad de Piura
- The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
- Sponsor/Coordinator: Victor Urrunaga Diaz, Representante, Programa Bolívar
- Adam McEniry, Consultor, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Commerce, Canada
- Universidad de Lima
- José E. Martínez, President, José E. Martínez LLC
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This
image is of a closed-off street in downtown Buenos Aires,
Argentina late on a Sunday afternoon in May 1999. Due to an
excellent mass transit system, used extensively by residents
and visitors alike, and a very dense urban area, activity
at this level was common throughout the city. A woman artist
clad in blue clothing and blue paint stands motionless adding
even more attraction to the busy pedestrian street. |
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Villa
Salvador, Lima, Perú in the foreground in 1999. This
villa's origins in 1972 were squatters' cardboard
and tin huts in the sandy loam in the Lima foothills.
Starting in 1972, the villa used strategic planning
techniques to develop its municipal service systems.
It has now secured foreign investments to plan and
construct urban boulevards (in the planning stages
during my visit). The municipal organization created
urban villages with representation in a municipal
organization that would grant every citizen a voice
in its local government.
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Mr.
José Risconte Ramos, City Manager, Villa
Salvador, Lima, Perú. After
the Villa's residential neighborhoods became overcrowded
with entrepreneurs setting up shop in their residences,
the residential representative organization decided
to move commercial uses to an area reserved for
that purpose. Here Mr. Ramos stands before a furniture
factory and display during construction. Today,
residents from all of Lima travel to Villa Salvador
during weekends to purchase a multitude of merchandise
ranging from clothing to furniture to refurbished
auto parts. This is proof that entrepreneurship
is alive and well in Perú. What they need now is
access to the global markets.
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[GS-10F-0154S] An
SBA 8(a) firm 
