The diagram above shows a schematic of one way of working with municipal strategic development. Especially those municipalities planing to become fossil fuel independent.
The analysis above gives a starting point for prioritizing and planning work going forward.
Here is how it works
The nine essential municipal services and areas of responsibility are analysed from the point of view of how well they perform today against how resilient they are.
The measures of performance are taken from standard municipal measures and goals. they are effective if they are on budget and on target.
The resilience measure we use depends on circumstances, but one of the simplest is to use the “rule of three”. For example, if there are three alternative supplies of clean water then the score is in the third quadrant. If there is only one then it is in the first.
For example, a municipality might have municipal water supply and there may be many private wells that could be used should the municipal system fail. That gives a resilience score of 2.
Using the results
Once the analysis is done, the next step is to prioritize. In the example diagram above the area of health scores the lowest. Increasing performance would mean healthier people. Increasing resilience could mean increasing the amount of health care and its diversity. Increasing organic food availability might be one strategy to follow.
The next areas to consider might be transport and the economic system. As transport is dependent on fossil fuels, work to increase resilience will be paramount. If transport efficiency falters due to this the economic system will be affected. This will require careful planning.
We believe the matrix analysis provides a useful tool for starting the dialogue around priority and strategy.
Like to know more?
Stephen Hinton Consulting 