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Print this page Melbourne Model
The Committee for Melbourne created the Melbourne Model™ (the Model) in 2003 to mitigate the negative effects of urbanisation. The Model is a bold new initiative to facilitate constructive relationships between private and public sectors in order to develop innovative solutions to otherwise intractable urban problems.
The context for the Model
The impacts of urbanisation represent a great challenge to mankind. Migration to cities and the concentration of large numbers of people within urban centers are threats of an immediate humanitarian, ecological and economic nature. Failure to act, or conversely to implement new solutions to this problem, will directly impact quality of life for over 50 per cent of the world’s population by 2007.
What the Model seeks to do
Based on the premise that significant, unutilised solutions to urban problems exist, the Melbourne Model:
1. Empowers and involves non-traditional stakeholders
2. Targets narrowly-defined and realistic targets
3. Provides ‘neutral’, ‘agenda-free’ and non-political arenas for problem-solving, and
4. Constructively and expertly involves the private sector.
The Desired Outcomes
Cities generate tailored solutions to solve otherwise intractable problems
Cities adopt solutions proven in other cities facing similar issues
Empowerment of non-traditional stakeholders (the ‘right’ people, not the ‘usual’ people)
A sustainable, local, problem-solving process applicable to economic, environmental, social and cultural issues
A process transcending socio-economic and socio-cultural boundaries
The unleashing of ideas, knowledge, experience, data and energy from the private sector
The Strategic Actions
- Gain funding for and establish the International Secretariat Implement the Melbourne Model in 10 cities. This process includes:
Providing training in facilitation, stakeholder identification and process management, and to build local capacity and supplying training materials
- Coordinating the availability of case-studies and networking cities into hyper- effective peer-to-peer international networks
- Assisting cities to identify and quality-check neutral organisations to serve as a Secretariat and offering a self-vetting process to avoid accusations of green-washing
- Identifying and involving local stakeholders, facilitating and constructive engagement between the three sectors, and unlocking private-sector potential through identifying project partner companies
- Assisting cities to identify projects and helping cities identify material, financial, structural and political support
- Monitoring progress of cities and assisting cities in producing measurable and reportable outcomes
- Troubleshooting, especially to avoid traditional ‘roadblocks’, e.g., silo mentality, money, time, politics, agendas, ill-defined objectives
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