Governance Assessment Framework for Metropolitan Territorial and Regional Management (GAF-MTR)

The Governance Assessment Framework for Metropolitan, Territorial and Regional Management (GAF-MTR) and its two-step assessment tools present an analytical and practical vision of governance. They propose the understanding of governance as a complex process in which institutional solutions, decision-making and collective action must work together. Furthermore, the GAF-MTR defines governance factors that, when properly managed and improved, serve to enable and advance territorial management from supra-municipal scales.

The GAF-MTR draws from inspiring practices on the establishment of institutional and decision-making arrangements for territorial management at supra-municipal scales. Case studies include Valle de Aburrá in Colombia; San Salvador; Montreal in Canada; London; Barcelona in Spain; Bratislava; Johannesburg in South Africa; and Singapore. These examples show how to provide integrative territorial governance frameworks involving fit-for-purpose institutional solutions, representative decision-making processes and collective actions.

The GAF-MTR includes: i) The Metropolitan, Territorial and Regional Governance Assessment Tool; and ii) The Metropolitan, Territorial and Regional Governance Scorecard, as a two-step qualitative tool containing a series of criteria and guiding questions for assessing institutional, political and instrumental dimensions of territorial governance in metropolises and regions.

The GAF-MTR can be used by local, sub-national and national governments, metropolitan and regional authorities and, in general, any territorial actor interested in analysing, assessing and improving governance for sustainable and integrated territorial development. Although the framework is being applied first at metropolitan and regional levels, it can also be adapted to other geographical scales, and can be used for sectoral and thematic analyses related to policy, territorial and urban matters. Future publications will be developed in this regard.