Public Policy Development and Process Case study|“Sustainability and the Mexico City Lake Basin”

Role: Squatter Settlement

Overall Policy Problem

The population of Mexico City has highly relied on the significant transformations of the natural environment to meet their basic needs. The environmental problems associated with Mexico City have posed challenges in addressing the complex health and environmental policy issues within such a large metropolitan setting (Castro et al., 2016). Excavating the issue are the environmental impacts of water policies that have put the entire metropolitan city at risk. These policies have threatened and disadvantaged the ecosystem and have continued to threaten the risky equilibrium that controls the rate at which the city sinks towards the lakebed below. With regards to this, formulation of a public policy is important to address such societal challenges (Birkland, 2015).

Some of the environmental problems associated with Mexico City include air quality, water contamination and increased cost of water for industrial, domestic and agricultural use. Since the population was exposed to such dangers, there has been a need for solutions to the growing crisis through a combination of economic, social, cultural and political solutions. All stakeholders have to be involved during the policy development process in order to ensure their appropriateness and relevance (Hill and Varone, 2014). It is essential that all the stakeholders are involved in policy development not only because they are direct beneficiaries but also as an initiative. This will help to attribute responsibilities and roles in order to ensure that the implementation of the policy is a success and that there are no issues or conflicts between the stakeholders. Ideally, it’s important to critical evaluate the effectiveness and role of a policy (Vedung, 2017).

 

Group’s Primary Objectives

The main goal is to offer the world with a new view of Mexico City as an equitable, open, safe, progressive and green city. With regards to this, the key objectives are to identify major capacity and coordination of then challenges across multiple stakeholders that are essential in water policy design, implementation and regulation as well as suggest good practices for territorial and institutional fragmentation. Another objective will be to identify the various challenges hindering proper river basin governance as well as good practices with the river basin for efficient water resource management.  Solving of the environmental problems will involve directly depending on the society knowledge about environmental protection. Ideally, environmental communication and education are one of the main ways through which one can increase public awareness in squatter settlements. Thus through environmental education and communication, the group will be able to build a more sustainable society. The efforts of the group are grounded upon the involvement of the community to sustainable development. This will generate a baseline for the development of sustainable practices within the Mexican city.

Criteria for Measuring Objectives

In order to check the progress towards achieving objectives, a survey on the city development will be carried out regularly to understand the changes since the implementation of the plan.  Community-level indicators will also be essential to help understand the progress being made. These indicators include the current condition in terms of environmental problems associated with the water policies within the area. Additionally, environmental assessments and environmental performance reports will help rank and measure the relative policy performance. These are important in measuring long term impacts of a policy change.

Interest and Objectives of The Other Groups

The most common interest of the group is to improve the environment within the Mexican city through policy implementation (Percival et al., 2017). Relative, the common goal and objective among the various stakeholders is a stronger focus and step by step implementation of policy changes to improve on environmental policies and regulations. Most of the stakeholders will aim at improving the state of the environment and ensure that it is maintained for equitable use by forthcoming generations. Formulation of the environmental policy will entail setting of tasks and objectives for environmental protection as well as ensuring that the quality of the environment is improved within the Mexican city (Anderson, 2014). The stakeholder groups will ensure that most of the environmental problems have been solved. For instance, some of the groups will focus on identifying challenges that prevent financial sustainability and economic efficiency of water policies as well as challenges linked to regulatory functions for the provision of efficient water services to the community.

Sources of Power or Influence Over the Other Groups

The squatter settlers are one of the main water consumers within Mexican City.  They also represent the majority of the population thus offering them bigger power on the initiative The main source of influence over other groups is the environmental demands of the people who are impacted by the environment. Information obtained from population survey and listening to individuals significantly shows that the implementation of the environmental policy is to protect both the people and the environment. The environmental reports have shed light on the importance of policy change and implantation to safeguard the environment. On the other hand, the group has a great influence in that it will play a key role in pushing the new policies and strategies for environmental protection thus holding the government and other stakeholders accountable for their commitments. This is to ensure that the government does not forget the vulnerable and the poor.

Sources of Influence or Power of Other Groups

Key stakeholders such as the government have influence over the group since they are responsible for the overall implementation of the environmental policy (Welford, 2016). This means that they are responsible for the policy change and output thus have power due to high involvement in implementation (Dror, 2017). Other stakeholders such as Horticultural producers have influence due to the natural support offered and are as well beneficiaries of the policy implementation. The middle class and the elite community group have influence over the group since they are also part of the water consumers in the city. Public policy making entails a complex process that has various participants with different interests and roles (Dunn, 2015).

Next Best Alternative

The next best alternative is to develop a policy to reduce the amount of air pollution which is basically fighting to safeguard the environment through environment communication and education (Carley and Christie, 2017). This includes a full range of environmental and human health information. For instance, properly maintained vehicles need to be used to emit fewer pollutants. The need to protect the environment needs to seek increased formulas that will facilitate environmental protection. Environment education and communication is also a better way through which the public get awareness over the importance of protection of their environment. This will boost the environmental policy due to an increased understanding of the citizens regarding the relevance of protecting the environment.

References

Anderson, J. E. (2014). Public policymaking. Cengage Learning.

Birkland, T. A. (2015). An introduction to the policy process: Theories, concepts, and models of public policy making. Routledge.

Carley, M., & Christie, I. (2017). Managing sustainable development. Routledge.

Castro, L., Mancera, R., Labiaga, Y., & March, P. (2016). Mexico City: Redefining its Waterscape. L’architettura Delle città-The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni.

Dror, Y. (2017). Public policy making reexamined. Routledge.

Dunn, W. N. (2015). Public policy analysis. Routledge.

Hill, M., & Varone, F. (2014). The public policy process. Routledge.

Percival, R. V., Schroeder, C. H., Miller, A. S., & Leape, J. P. (2017). Environmental regulation: Law, science, and policy. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.

Vedung, E. (2017). Public policy and program evaluation. Routledge.

Welford, R. (2016). Corporate environmental management 3: Towards sustainable development. Routledge.