VOLUME 5, NUMBER 9 - SEPTEMBER 5, 2000

PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Mayor Michael Dow of Mobile has incorporated public/private partnerships in his administration. In his state of the city address he explains part of the cities efforts:

"The Mobile area has prospered in the 1990s because the City, County and Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce have had functioning strategic plans throughout the decade, and equally as important, we have created the stable politics, coalitions, public/private partnerships and internal organizational capacities to implement those plans."

Under the Mayor's guiding hand the human resources of the Mobile regional area will be assigned to the workforce through a public/private partnership.

"The County Commission and I have recently appointed a business and industry-driven workforce development board, and we are in the implementation phase in partnership with the Mobile Chamber of Commerce of organizing our community around and developing a new modern, high-tech workforce training curriculum and training on a regional and state level. It is important that this effort is driven by private-sector business and industry leadership and their real-time, modern workforce needs."

Never mind what the individual desires, for in the coming new age it is the "business and industry leadership" that will determine what the "workforce needs" are. The partnership between the Mobile Chamber of Commerce is not an isolated case. The Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce is involved in a similar project in the Birmingham area. Check out their web site and you will see a list of prominent businesses that have already signed on to the partnership. Mayor Dow's speech can be viewed at: http://mobile.about.com/citiestowns/southeastus/mobile/library/weekly/aa080400a.htm.

We have listed two of the many examples of public private partnerships in the state of Alabama. Region 2020, Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission, are moving forward with an effort to bring regional government and very specific social changes to a twelve county area in the north central part of Alabama. Funding will be secured through public/private partnerships. Among the many partnerships at the federal level, is the "The Child Care Partnership Project (which) is supported by a contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration for Children and Families, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, and the Child Care Bureau." The "Partnership Project" defines the relationship between government and other entities:

"What is a Public-Private Partnership? A public-private partnership for child care is one in which community members, government agencies, and private-sector organizations join together to expand and improve the capacity of a state or locality to meet the needs of young children and their families. While every partnership is unique in composition and the resources that support it, in all partnerships, each member contributes time, financial support, and/or expertise and works toward shared goals."

Most people when asked about a public/private partnership will give you a blank look. This shows how effective the government schools have been in dumbing down the people and how the news media has contributed to this mind numbing by not publicizing truths that might make the people pause and reflect on some of the things being done under the broad heading of "save the children." Notice that the "shared goals" are those of the partnership and not of the children or their parents.

Sometimes an old saying will help explain: "He who pays the fiddler calls the tune". In the case of Alabama's preschool kindergarten it is reasonable to conclude that Lucent Technologies will gain in some manner from a $100,000.00 investment. This partnership is comprised of two parties, business and government. Other partnerships include labor. Years ago large companies owned the houses which they rented to the employees and the commissaries where the employees shopped for their food. The employee was essentially a serf. As this new system grows in strength, and more government functions are turned over to appointed boards we can expect government to become less and less responsive to the voter and more in tune with the 'fiddler's' employer.

At the national level there is the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships (NCI - web address: www.ncppp.org), organized in 1985 and based in Washington, DC. The council offers conferences, seminars, publications and case studies of best practices to assist both public and private sector parties in creating and implementing partnerships. Examples of these partnerships are found in urban redevelopment, transportation, water/wastewater systems, defense base conversions, and a wide range of public services.

At the international level, "The Public - Private Partnership for the Urban Environment PUPAE" was created by the United Nations Development Program. Why?

"New approaches for sustainable human development that involve collaboration among an increasing number of stakeholders are urgently needed to avoid major health, social and economic crises around the world. Public-private partnerships are one of the most promising forms of such collaboration."

The United Nations is in partnership with Yale University and through this partnership they have created the "Global Learning Center" as an integral part of the PUPAE program.

"Its purpose is to facilitate interactive and continuous learning among a dynamic network of institutions and individuals involved in public-private collaboration..... As part of this effort, PUPAE is actively engaged in collecting information on PP. projects from around the world, as well as the people and organizations that make them happen..... PUPAE shares this information with others through its International Workshop Series, Long Distance Research Clinics, Interactive PUPAE Databases, Mailing List, and Internet Conferences. Facilitating this information exchange allows local governments to establish replaceable models of public-private co-operation and shared responsibility throughout the developing world."

The origins of partnerships may go back much further and may have nothing to do with the United Nations. Although, after reading the following quotes form Habitat II, the UN conference on Human Settlements held in Istanbul in 1996, we think you will agree that the current partnerships are designed to bring about a radical change in society.

REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON HUMAN SETTLEMENTS (HABITAT II)*

(Istanbul, 3-14 June 1996)

Chapter one preamble

7."....Democratization has enhanced such access and meaningful participation and involvement for civil society actors, for public-private partnerships, and for decentralized, participatory planning and management, which are important features of a successful urban future..... Urban settlements, properly planned and managed, hold the promise for human development and the protection of the world's natural resources through their ability to support large numbers of people while limiting their impact on the natural environment. The growth of cities and towns causes social, economic and environmental changes that go beyond city boundaries....".

"Properly planned and managed" by who? - certainly no the residents of the cities, for they are the resource that is to be managed, in order to limit "their impact on the natural environment."

Actions 113

(e) Encourage partnerships among the public, private and voluntary sectors and other interested parties in managing land resources for sustainable urban development;

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(d) Promote the forging of partnerships between the public and private sectors and between institutions at the national and local levels so as to improve the allocate efficiency of investments in water and sanitation and to increase operational efficiency;

Actions

158. To establish an effective financial base for urban development, Governments at the appropriate levels, including local authorities, in cooperation with trade unions, consumer organizations, business, industry, trade organizations and the financial sector, including the cooperatively organized business sector and non-governmental organizations, as appropriate, should:

(b) Encourage the formation of new public-private sector partnerships for institutions that are privately owned and managed but public in their function and purpose, and promote transparency and accountability of their operations.

6. Domestic financial resources and economic instruments

188. Financing the future of urban development and sustaining the economic viability of cities represents a particular challenge, which will require innovative systems of finance at the national and local levels. Effective partnerships between the public and private sectors should be promoted, combining local taxes on production and consumption with fiscal incentives for investment by industry, commerce, trade and other private sector services. New forms of municipal finance are needed to meet the future needs of urban economic development and the costs of supporting infrastructure and services.

Actions

191. To improve the capacity to exploit these innovations to enhance their public good, Governments at all levels, including local authorities, should, as appropriate:

(a) Develop, upgrade and maintain information infrastructure and technology and encourage their use by all levels of government, public institutions, civil society organizations and community-based organizations, and consider communications as an integral part of human settlements policy;

(b) Promote the training of all key actors in the use, ways and means of information technology;

(c) Develop methods of sharing experience of local initiatives through electronic means, such as the Internet, networks and libraries, and of disseminating information on best practices, including those that utilize gender policies;

(d) Implement programs that encourage the use, especially by children, youth and educational institutions, of public libraries and communication networks;

(e) Facilitate the learning process through the dissemination of both successful and unsuccessful experiences in human settlements taken from the governmental, public, private and community sectors;

(f) Encourage policies that make information technology and services available and more accessible to the general public, in particular through the wide use of the media;

(g) Give special attention to providing access to these new technologies for persons with disabilities;

(h) Encourage the development of programming for local and national media that acknowledges the diversity of race and culture in larger cities and promotes an understanding of differing points of view;

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(r) Facilitating access to global finances for those Governments and local authorities that are initiating or are involved in public-private partnership programs;

(s) Establishing and supporting linkages of informal credit mechanisms to the global pool of resources and increasing the access of the majority of the population to housing finance through participatory processes involving communities, non- governmental organizations, credit unions, international financial institutions and other relevant actors;

Regardless of the media's failure to inform the public of these happenings, it should now be evident to this readership that the United Nations agenda is progressing at a rapid pace. As this newsletter is being written a United Religions Assembly is meeting in New York to draw plans for a United Nations of Religions. The first week in September two conferences will be held. The first is the Millennium Assembly which purports to be a coming together of civil society (composed mostly of UN approved NGOs) to call for the heads of state at the Millennium Summit to help move the UN into a fully constituted World Government. At the present time there seems to be insufficient concern on the part of the world's peoples to slow or derail the implementation of this New World Order.