Minneapolis had ambitious climate action goals, but was making no moves to upgrade its energy strategy to do so. Moreover, people of colour, renters, and low-income energy users were at a disadvantage both in terms of financing clean energy solutions for their heating (e.g. solar panels), and in getting jobs in the local clean energy sector. Community Power saw the need for a different model centered on equity and local benefits, ownership and decision-making power.

The initial aim of the campaign was to give the city the option to municipalize its energy utilities. The campaign stirred discussion within city leadership, which led to the crafting of the country’s first city-utility partnership, known as the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership (CEP). Community Power pushed to shorten the franchise agreement to 5-10 years for increased accountability, and established a 15-member advisory committee including representatives from diverse constituencies. In coalition with a black-led grassroots group it also defended the partnership’s and racial equity funding at City budget hearings.

After the establishment of the partnership, Community Power began to broaden these processes to support energy democracy and community wealth-building in a variety of ways, including continuing to influence the Partnership’s work plan and hold it accountable through the Partnership’s citizen advisory committee and grassroots members; building a movement around inclusive financing (a tariff-based financing model designed to require no credit score, no upfront capital, and savings starting day one); local access to community solar, and renter engagement, working for renters’ rights broadly, including energy access and affordability issues.

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us. Or visit  communitypowermn.org

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Minneapolis, Minnesota: Community Power appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The main strategy was to notify the speculators who did not reside on their land that if within the next three months they did not come to justify their absence or take up residence there (fulfilling land social function), the property would be put up for resale to poor and young families at original price, cutting owners’ land gains. The resistance from the ‘owners’ of idle lots who resorted to lawsuits and even violence was met with vigils. However, all the ‘owners’ eventually left unoccupied land in favour of poor families.

The initiative has ended speculators’ abuse, and allowed finance for a small library, that has been opened to help children with their schoolwork. Ties of solidarity based on Ayni (a concept of reciprocity or mutualism among people of the Andean communities in agricultural work, constructions of houses and others) and the collective work of building houses according to plan were also strengthened. Residents provided technical resources themselves, such as tools for construction projects, and labour for construction projects was provided by the women and men affiliated to the community council.

From the community share of the small profits from the sale of the land, and another neighbours’ contributions, around US$40,000 was generated. Together with community work, the money was used to finance neighbourhood development such as the building, expansion and improvement of roads and storm drains, and amenities such as a soccer field, equipment for the local library and land housing for poor people – all achieved with no external help.

“This is the first experience I know that is using plus-value capture strategies [capturing the value of land for public investment] in areas of “informal” urban development. The explicit reference to traditional indigenous people collective mechanisms of land control/management (i.e. ayllus) is also inspiring, as well as efforts to protect and guarantee women’s housing rights though self-organized initiatives and strong networking at local, national and international level.”

– Evaluator Lorena Zarate

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Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Cochabamba, Bolivia: Confronting speculators and financing community infrastructure appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Originally published on Transformative Cities

An estimated 52% of Bolivia’s population have no access to sanitation and 80% of wastewater is not treated before re-entering the environment. The Water and Sanitation for All project aimed to guarantee the right to sanitation in the San Pedro Magisterio neighbourhood by successfully building and running a wastewater treatment plant and strengthening community management of the entire water cycle through the neighbourhood’s Cooperativa de Agua San Pedro Magisterio.

Pollution in Cochabamba’s river reached such high levels in 2012 that the government declared it an “environmental disaster”. The Water and Sanitation for All project was born from a demand and a request from a community: the San Pedro Magisterio cooperative felt the need to treat domestic wastewater in its area to avoid polluting the Rocha River and the environment.

Assemblies with all cooperative members were held to discuss the technical design of the water treatment plant, improvements to domestic use of the sewerage system, and the introduction of a new tariff structure guaranteeing the system’s economic sustainability – all of which encouraged the community to take ownership of the initiative. The cooperative committed to taking on the running of the treatment plant once built, and environmental awareness activities were held in the local school.

But it was not all plain sailing. The municipality, through its water operator, attempted to sabotage the project, criticizing the technical design of the plant and refusing to issue the environmental permits required to execute the project. It also tried to divide the community.

But the community’s unity and determination overcame this, challenging the state-municipal authorities by defending their right to manage water as a community, establishing alliances (with other neighbourhoods and public servants) to resist political pressure, and strengthening their participatory and transparent internal decision-making mechanisms. The project is now responsible for treating the wastewater from 300 families, and for improvements to the hygiene and sanitary conditions in the San Pedro neighbourhood.

“The collective (community-based) management of the basic public service is certainly transformative and inspiring, and it deserves worldwide attention. It has the potential of redefining the meaning of “public” as truly commons/common goods.”

– Evaluator Lorena Zarate

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us. Or visit fundacionabril.org/ and plataformaapc.org/

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Cochabamba, Bolivia: Community-led response to water pollution crisis appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Since 2001 the Mexican government has been pushing municipal governments to privatize water. If this trend continues, 35 million people will be affected and community water management – with water systems built by the people and dating back more than a hundred years in some cases – will be destroyed. SAPTEMAC is challenging this through its Water School, giving local people the tools to defend their water supply.

Mexico’s Water School came about in 2016 when SAPTEMAC representatives saw the concept at work in Colombia. With the support of national umbrella group Water For All, Water For Life – and with no major funding – professionals including lawyers, engineers, accountants, geographers and teachers have been running training sessions in different locations to give people the professional and political means to defend themselves. Topics covered include water rates, account-keeping, billing, organisation and inventories, pipes and water pumps.

So far there are 25 systems involved in the project, and water users, students and academics who have participated in the project have volunteered to strengthen the school by contributing new theoretical and political tools for use in the second round of training sessions in 2018.

Water For All, Water For Life already runs a citizens’ initiative for a General Water Law, but SAPTEMAC is now complementing this with a campaign for local water laws with the same human rights approach in 16 states around the country. The most significant result achieved to date is that colleagues from other community water systems have expressed interest in participating in the Water School project in its second round of training.

“What inspires me about this initiative is its professionalization of a collective (community-based) water management mechanism and the explicit pedagogical dimension in the work they do. The national and international linkages of this initiative are also very inspiring.”

– Evaluator Lorena Zarate

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Or visit Tecámac Saptemac’s Facebook

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

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For nearly 20 years, Sintracuavalle (the Acuavalle workers union) has not only defended its workers’ rights, it has also become a fierce defender of water as a fundamental human right. Since 2009, it has successfully helped set up four community water systems based on the principles of the Platform for Public Partnerships of the Americas, and pushed the Municipal Council to shelve proposals for a public-private partnership to manage water in the municipality.

The union has achieved political and social standing as a result of its fight against privatization, and is now part of the political decision-making process. The union promotes improvements and investments in the supply of water, which have suffered from cuts, and has encouraged different social actors to join together to organize and actively defend water as a fundamental human right.

The campaign has organized community workshops, discussions with the Municipal Council and lobbied individual council members. This has raised community awareness of the importance of keeping water under public management and inspired other public sector workers worldwide.

This growing network to defend access to good quality public services is being taken forward through a Plan of Action for 2018-2022 with Public Services International (a global trade union in which Sintracuavalle is a member of its executive council) and led by Sintracuavalle and CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“What inspired me most is that this is a success story of a public service union that managed to (re)gain a positive image of its role by embracing the vision of water as a common good and by focusing on building strong partnerships with communities and civil society organizations.”

– Lorena Zarate

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Or visit sintracuavalle.org

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

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Residents of the northern highlands of Nicaragua were typically overlooked by modern infrastructure development. The Association of Rural Development Workers has changed this, securing access to electricity and clean drinking water for local people for the first time. Today the association is also generating enough profits from hydro power to fund US$300,000-worth of development in the region.

The Association of Rural Development Workers was founded when American engineer Benjamin Linder moved to Nicaragua in 1985 to help communities construct the first hydro project in the San Jose de Bocay region. Benjamin’s murder by Contra rebels sparked an uprising both locally and internationally, leading not only to the setting up of the association but also a renewed focus on development in the region.

The association has had great success in mobilizing residents within the region, including women, to participate in and take ownership of projects. Alongside a number of community scale micro-hydro projects that have provided electricity in the region for the first time, the El Bote Small Hydro project located between El Cuá and San José de Bocay supplies enough power to meet present demand in the region with significant surplus to sell or export to the national grid at the contract price of 6.8 cents per kWh. In three years, there will be an additional US $300,000 of revenue available that will be re-invested in further development projects for the region.

Before the construction of this plant, many generations of families had never had access to electricity. The plant has been the driving force behind the thriving economy of El Cua today. Moreover, drinking water systems that capitalize on pristine mountain water resources tapped into for the hydro-electricity plant has given families in the region access to clean drinking water. Thirteen separate installations have been made in towns within the region to date. Prior to this source, families predominantly relied on the contaminated Bocay river for drinking water, cooking and household needs.

“This project addressed basic needs for water and energy with a lot of local volunteer labour and some local democratic supervision based on local public ownership.”

– Evaluator David Sogge

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Or visit atder-bl.org/

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

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The four City of Cádiz priorities for the energy transition are savings, efficiency and renewables in public buildings; the fight against energy poverty; the promotion of a democratic energy transition; and the promotion of energy-related job creation.

These activities are carried out using profits derived from the local government’s 55% share of Électrica de Cádiz, the largest private-public electric company in the country, and are informed by two working groups on energy – both of which involve local people’s groups: The Mesa contra la Pobreza Energética (the Roundtable to Fight against Energy Poverty) and the Mesa de Transición Energética de Cádiz (MTEC, Roundtable on the Energy Transition in Cádiz).

MTEC has created a permanent space for the participation and collaboration of municipal specialists, environmental organisations, individuals, workers from the University of Cádiz and Eléctrica de Cádiz, and members of the Som Energía cooperative. It has also promoted the conversion of Eléctrica de Cádiz into a 100% renewable energy supply company, developed an energy literacy campaign, and enabled Électrica de Cádiz to improve the environmental rating of all its municipal building contracts (and of 80% of the city’s residents).

Eléctrica de Cádiz has managed to win the contracts of two other municipalities in the province, taking them out of the hands of oligopolistic companies. This was possible thanks to the inclusion of the requirement of 100% certified renewable electricity in the tender documents. MTEC’s initiatives are all taking the energy model debate to the street and to local institutions.

“The participation of different ‘groups of citizens’, from users to technical advisors, in the Mesas was inspiring, as was the chance to be in government and have both objectives: the energetic transition to renewable energy and the social policies to guarantee the “right to energy”.
– Evaluator Erick Palomares

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Or visit transicionenergeticacadiz.es

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

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The initiative started when a small group of members of Attac Berlin discovered that the Berlin Government had sold 24.9% of the shares to RWE and Veolia (each). The group organised a big event in a circus in Berlin to inform people, at the end of which an invitation was extended to those interested in founding an assembly of Berliner Wassertisch (Berlin Water Table). While many attendees were members of trade unions, political parties and other groups, as part of the assembly each person represented only themselves (a principle that remains to this day).

The five-year struggle (2006-2011) for the referendum was necessary because without it, the contract would have remained secret, denying campaigners the grounds to go to court. While no political party or media supported the fight, Berlin citizens were so outraged about the secrecy of the contract they voted in favour of the referendum.

To get the referendum granted in the first place, 25,000 signatures were needed, but the group got more than 36,000. Then the Berlin Government forbade the group to publish the secret contract on grounds that it would be against the German constitution, forcing them to go to the Berlin Constitutional Court, which ruled in their favour. And when the referendum was held, 98% of the more than 660,000 turnout voted for publishing the contract.

The pressure was so great that the Berlin Government bought back RWE’s shares in 2012 and those of Veolia in 2013. Thanks to the referendum, Berlin Water was remunicipalized in 2014.

Photo credit: Uwe Hiksch/Flickr

“The story here shows that a small committed citizens group can bring about a major change (remunicipalising water services in Berlin through  direct democracy). The fact that the referendum to disclose the private contract was not supported by political parties, unions, big NGOs, media and was a result of voluntary and unpaid efforts looks almost miraculous”

– Evaluator Satoko Kishimoto

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Or visit berliner-wassertisch.net

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

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For decades, citizens in the Spanish city of Valladolid had endured poorly run and expensive water provision. But in 2015, municipal elections ushered in a new three-party coalition government – and though each of the three had differing platforms, all included the remunicipalization of public water management in their electoral programme. As the contract (held by private company Aguas de Valladolid) was about to expire, water management emerged as a key political topic for the first time in 20 years.

Valladolid Toma La Palabra (VTLP), the municipalist movement running the environment department of the new City Council, held lectures and open debates, and, once the decision to remunicipalize through a public enterprise was reached, the 100% Public Water Management Platform (PWMP) was set up. Its member organizations were ecologists, neighbourhood associations and others.

Despite lobbying by the private sector, and laws restricting local government from ‘indebting’ itself by investing in water infrastructure, a new public company was set up and is now successfully managing the water supply in Valladolid. The management has been democratized through the composition of the board, new investment will start soon, and charges to customers remain frozen. The new public company will apply low tariffs according to income levels, resulting in a higher number of beneficiaries.

Other big Spanish cities such as A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Vitoria, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Madrid and Barcelona have requested information about the Valladolid case in order to start their own processes.

“ This reflects a well-focused and politically engaged approach. The initiative saw collective action concentrate on water ownership and access in cooperation with political parties to identify and seize a ‘window of opportunity’ politically.”

– Evaluator David Sogge

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Or visit  valladolidtomalapalabra.org/

The post Valladolid, Spain: Residents regain public control of water appeared first on P2P Foundation.