The Roles of Non-governmental Actors in Facilitating Urban Blue-Green Infrastructures: A Comparative Review of the Community Initiatives in Taipei City, Taiwan

Abstract

In the development of urban blue-green infrastructures (BGI), the involvement of the civil society has been emphasised in recent policy paradigms. Despite governmental efforts encouraging local residents to participate, in order to more fully identify demands and devise solutions, at the grassroots level, challenges still remain regarding stakeholder partnerships. Non-governmental actors are expected to facilitate top-down policy communication and bottom-up civil participation. Consequently, a deeper understanding of the problematics, functions and characteristics in action may help to suggest a better framework for stakeholder integration. The case study takes place in the Wenshan District, an urban settlement in Taipei City, Taiwan. From 2014 to 2019, in order to better cope with flood risk, BGI projects have been conducted by various non-governmental actors with divergent problematics and approaches. The chapter provides comparisons among diverse actors from three sectors: a local community group that offers local-based educational programmes, a consulting firm that focuses on participatory planning and design, and the researchers in a project team—representing civil society, private sector and academia, respectively. The details of each project are collected from meetings with the actors, as well as secondary data such as project reports and related materials. To illustrate the roles non-governmental actors play in facilitating urban BGIs, the study undertakes comparisons among the three actors in terms of their strategies of mobilising and networking with other stakeholders, along with patterns for upscaling the effects. Through the comparative study, the chapter further implies an alternative framework for stakeholder integration