Methods and techniques to support cognitive processes of territorial resilience in developing countries - case study of Serbia

Abstract

Current global sustainable development dilemmas imply efficient and effective dealing with complex phenomena in process of local territorial development governance. Climatically responsive planning actually focuses on the complex and dynamic, integral, meta phenomena being driven by the interaction of the environment, economy and society. Wide range of issues should be taken into consideration in process of local strategic thinking - from climate change adaptation strategies and actions to the socioeconomic regional positioning. In developing and transitional countries, such as Serbia, this is a big challenge for local authorities and governing institutions. Even if there is national political and strategic determination and local understanding of importance of territorial cohesion, there is usually lack of human knowledge and institutional capacity to perform and act within aggravating circumstances of overlapping problems and insufficient assets. Since the potential risk situations are more and more pronounced, local communities face a challenge of changing toward different collective action, short-term efficient as well as long-term effective. That means transformation, evolution of local human systems structures and building the capacities of all local urban-rural subsystems to strengthen resiliency to the global dynamics. The success of local planning and management process, is directly dependent on the quality of the collective knowledge on which it relies. Experience has shown that the traditional quantitative approaches to inform planning do not provide sufficient quality of reality cognition necessary to formulate effective collective actions. Therefore, there is a need for an compass, an efficient instrument to integrate and structure complex cognitive dynamics both in quantitative and qualitative way. Starting from the assumption that Integral theory AQAL model to comprehend the complexity of reality could support and improve local collective cognitive process we performed several case studies with aim to identify how this new methodological approach could change and deepen planning collective perspective in Serbian local communities enabling immediate and more prominent effective actions.