Argentina 2010
Ends: 31 Jul 2010
Supervisor: Alberto Minujin
Language Requirement: Spanish (Intermediate-High proficiency) Students are encouraged to audit Fall and Spring Spanish Classes. Proficiency tests will be given in April.
Required course: Evaluating Development Impact
Concentrations: Cities and Urbanization, Development, Media and Culture
Objective:
The objective of the Buenos Aires IFP in 2010 (BA IFP 2010) is to establish the framework for a five year monitoring and evaluation of the efforts of national, provincial, and local governments and other institutional and civil society actors to remedy and develop the highly polluted area of the La Matanza-Riachuelo watershed in metropolitan Buenos Aires inhabited by 2 million people in many jurisdictions. These efforts, which include many historical initiatives going back for two decades, have been given new life through the approval of a multi-year investment and rehabilitation program by the national government in 2009 and the approval of a multi-million dollar loan to Argentina from the World Bank to support this program. This program is the single largest urban environmental project undertaken by the international community within an individual city in any developing country. Its breadth, ambition, difficulty, and substantial financial resources make it an important experiment in development cooperation as well as urban environmental rehabilitation.
Within this context, the objective of the BA IFP 2010 is to design and establish a program of monitoring of this initiative over at least a five year period to:
- Contribute to an understanding of the process of urban environmental improvement in a comparative international context
- Contribute to knowledge of international cooperation to address these problems in Argentina
- Provide an environment for in-the-field, practical learning for New School graduate students, to develop skills in framing and analyzing problems, assessing efforts to address them, and contributing to individual sectoral efforts within this larger program of initiatives
- Provide an environment for experimentation by students in developing initiatives contributing to this overall understanding and improvement of the well-being of inhabitants of the area.
Country Context:
Argentina represents an interesting case of a middle-income developing country recovering from a recent economic crisis. The 2001 crisis was the culmination of a long period of neo-liberal policies and social impoverishment. During this period, almost all public services were privatized and had weak regulation systems. The voice of civil society was absent in that process and is still out of the picture. Throughout this structural crisis, however, cultural expression remained strong and increased, particularly in the city of Buenos Aires.
Project Context:
The Matanza-Riachuelo, a tributary of the Rio de la Plata (La Plata River), is the most contaminated river basin in Argentina and the most visible environmental issue in the country. Over the past hundred years, the Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin has been used as a sewage sink for the entire city of Buenos Aires. Pollution levels have increased steadily with urbanization in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. The environmental and social degradation of the area can be largely attributed to:
- Limited public infrastructure investment
- Poor environmental management
- A lack of adequate urban and industrial planning.
The basin is home to Argentina's largest concentrations of urban poor. Of the approximately 3.5 million inhabitants in the basin, 1.2 million live below the poverty line. An estimated 10 percent of the total population in the Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin lives in informal settlements, often in flood-prone areas and/or near open garbage dumps. The poorest populations living alongside the river are in constant contact with numerous contaminants ranging from untreated organic waste to toxic industrial chemicals.
Partnership/Internship Organizations:
- Fundación SES is an NGO dedicated to development issues and with close links to the local NGO network. Fundación SES will lead internships related to developing research and active, practical field experience in youth education and work, local development and ongoing scale projects.
- La Base, a locally based micro-credit organization, will involve students in the process of micro-credit lending and the development in Buenos Aires. Students will have the opportunity to work closely with worker owned and run cooperatives.