Title: Spatial Socio-economic Diagnostic for Priority Territories in Guatemala
Client: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) – 2016
This strategic pilot project was developed for Guatemala, which together with El Salvador and Honduras, form the North Triangle, an area afflicted with serious socioeconomic problems such as pervasive poverty and child migration. The objective is to support the work of the Inter-American Development Bank, which includes a series of strategic actions to ignite development. For that purpose, a scalable and replicable methodology was designed to evaluate the main socioeconomic challenges and productive opportunities. The results are being used to define a multisectoral strategy, with interventions that foster the development and social mobility of the prioritized communities. Moreover, the results will feed into a second phase of the project, in which specific strategies will be defined and evaluated.
Similar to El Salvador, the project in Guatemala moved very quickly into the project design phase due to the existence of data sets that had already been acquired through the DataXLat initiative. With all publicly available data acquired the consultancy teams was able to quickly asses the data gaps that would impede the formulation of a rigorous analysis of priority territories, which then allowed us to quickly coordinate with the client any potential data transfer that would be required for the successful completion of the project.
Evaluating Built Environment Impact To Alleviate Public Health Constraints in Urban El Salvador | El Salvador
Currently urban planning and governance is transitioning towards a science-oriented activity. The science of cities is emerging as a new field in professional disciplines and academic research. Cities have become objects of study where natural laws can be discovered and applied. In an era where information is freely floating and automatically generated, new methods for levering big-data—such as data-mining, and citizen or crowd sourcing through social media—are critical information inputs for designing better and updated urban policies. Through its R+D branch, GeoAdaptive devotes considerable resources in developing computational methods and models to harness data and extracts meaningful insights for a precise, inclusive, and intelligent urban development.
Climate change is a fundamental aspect of the current urban agenda. It requires the identification of vulnerabilities to natural hazards and the effects of climate change across urban landscapes and communities. GeoAdaptive’s approach integrates the understanding of hazard dynamics, vulnerabilities, and probable human and material losses to develop concrete strategies that increase the resilience of a city today and in the future. Moreover, social-resilience and adaptive-capacity indicators can be created in collaboration with stakeholders through an innovative mainstreaming approach that aids the implementation and monitoring of strategies.
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Green and open spaces offer more than aesthetic values to the urban system, as they can provide critical ecosystem services, thus contributing to the wellbeing and resiliency of communities. Green infrastructure planning and design can help to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards by integrating mitigation and adaptation strategies in urban landscapes. Along with the development of responsive green networks, public space can be designed to offer improved amenities and increased accessibility. GeoAdaptive has developed methods to effectively incorporate climate science and hazard modeling with green infrastructure planning and design.
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Smart growth incorporates concepts of inclusive urban development, such as transit-oriented development and mixed-use zoning, which bring together residential uses with services, infrastructure, amenities, and jobs. Understanding the dynamic nature of real estate and the socioeconomic fabric is key to helping urban governments to develop sound policies that foster affordable and integrated neighborhoods. Through its urban analytics toolset, GeoAdaptive deploys territorial intelligence to plan and design sustainable and inclusive cities.
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Thinking about the long-term is fundamental for the development of effective and impactful policies that are also able to adapt to probable changes. Understanding future change allows for smart budgeting and phasing of investment to deliver solutions that are proactive instead of reactive. Instead of traditional planning, GeoAdaptive embraces strategic scenario planning, which has the capacity to deliver solutions that can respond to uncertainty. We assist our clients in developing probabilistic scenarios in a participatory way and translating them into future representations of a responsive territory or city.
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Sustainable mobility requires an integrated planning approach that brings together infrastructure, transport planning, and land use planning. Despite increasing levels of urban mobility, access to amenities, services, and workplaces has not increased in the same fashion. GeoAdaptive has conducted extensive research in developing projects to pursue sustainable urban mobility. Our method incorporates urban analytics to understand population movement dynamics together with land use planning and accessibility to urban services. With this approach, our projects have produced innovative and proactive recommendations for decision makers that can be effectively implemented within existing governance frameworks.
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The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sustainable Development Goals) emphasizes the need to create long-term objectives to address inequality. Income growth should not be considered the only measure and goal in achieving these objectives. Infrastructure, wages, social welfare policies, and inclusive opportunities are also noted as key contributors. By measuring and quantifying inequality GeoAdaptive can provide intelligence for the evaluation and improvement of programs and policies that promote social justice, and foster inclusive and holistic social development.
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