Commonwealth Local Government Forum

Americas \ Local government service delivery

Equitable and efficient service delivery is at the heart of local government’s mandate. The resources in this section focus on the management and delivery of key strategic, corporate and technical services, ranging from those for which local government has direct responsibility, to shared service provision, and services for which local government is a partner.

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Featured

Planning for Coastal Resilience in the Face of Climate Change and Environmental Hazards: Lessons from New Zealand adapted for Vancouver Island

The twenty first century has seen a rapid rise of urbanization and consumption, bringing many challenges to cities, including one of the most difficult challenges of our time - climate change. Climate change has exacerbated many natural hazards including storm surges, extreme precipitation, flooding, and sea level rise causing the loss of thousands of lives each year in addition to billions of dollars in damage. Coastal cities are especially at risk due to their vulnerable geographical location and rapid population growth. Cities also face other environmental challenges including earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes; which are often difficult to predict and can test a city’s resilience. This research analyzes the environmental hazards a coastal city may face and discuss the tools planners can use to increase a region’s resilience. Case studies of New Zealand and Vancouver Island, Canada are used to analyze disaster management and resilience strategies.

Author: Lainy Nowak Publisher: Vancouver Island University Publication year: 2019


Canadian city adds automated services, saves money with cloud solution

In effort to bring its technological capabilities in line with other major cities, the City of Regina, Canada, built a portal powered by Microsoft Azure to handle community sign-on for accessing city services and viewing public utility bills. The city also adopted Microsoft Office 365 to increase productivity of government employees and serve citizens more efficiently. As a result of its move to the cloud, the city enhanced municipal worker output and saved taxpayer dollars in IT infrastructure costs.

Author: Microsoft Publisher: Microsoft Publication year: 2018


Service Agreement Templates

These templates are meant to act as guides for organizizng a service agreement. Clauses will need to be altered, added and deleted to ensure that the agreement is best suited to fit the unique needs of your community. For example, the payment section of the template is only a suggestion; parties may wish to structure their payment for services differently based on the desired level of services and needs. Communications Protocol TemplateWater and Wastewater Service Agreement TemplateSolid Waste Service Agreement TemplateFire Protection Service Agreement TemplateRecreation Service Agreement TemplateComprehensive Service Agreement TemplateTransit Service Agreement TemplateAnimal Control Service Agreement Template

Author: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Publisher: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Publication year: 2018


Governing urban accessibility: moving beyond transport and mobility

Access to people, goods, ideas and services is the basis of economic development in cities. The better this access, the greater the economic benefits through economies of scale, agglomeration effects and networking advantages. The way in which cities facilitate accessibility also impacts directly on other key aspects of human development, social inclusion and well-being. Accessibility is created through a complex interplay of urban form and transport systems. Thus, governing urban accessibility requires moving beyond conventional urban transport considerations linked to mobility and movement. Such a re-framing implies a far greater recognition of urban form characteristics like land use, distribution of densities and urban design, in addition to transport characteristics like infrastructures, service levels and travel speeds. A new interface between these characteristics has emerged as a result of shared mobility systems, putting additional pressure on city governments to act as system integrators. Based on a literature review, empirical insights from a global survey and the case-study cities of London, NYC and Berlin, this paper explores the institutional capacities of shifting from governing urban transport to urban accessibility. The evidence shows that there are entrenched misalignments which may impact negatively on the capacity to pair planning and policies essential for delivering better accessibility. Furthermore, it is clear that “hierarchies” and “networks” are not mutually exclusive when it comes to integrated governance of accessibility. The findings also suggest that cities may be better equipped to integrate shared mobility and consider mobility as a service than to pursue more wide-ranging metropolitan accessibility policies.

Author: Philipp Rode & Nuno F. da Cruz Publisher: Applied Mobilities Publication year: 2018


Sustainable Cities: Canadian Reality or Urban Myth?

Although it is now over two decades since the Brundtland Commission report (1987) put sustainable development on the political map, concern continues in Canada that the federal government is failing to adequately implement its own commitments to tackling the ecological challenges posed by rapid urban expansion. Our analysis identifies a number of road blocks, missed opportunities and mistakes that have limited progress and many of these are traced back to the failure of national government to empower local municipal governments, as advocated by Brundtland and subsequent international initiatives, in particular ‘Agenda 21’ which we revisit in some detail as a basis for analysis. As well as reviewing the federal government’s role in Canada, the paper explores the potential for more sustainable urban growth in the context of broader reforms

Author: Christopher Stoney, Robert Hilton Publisher: Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance Publication year: 2009


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