**4. Synthesis and concluding statements**

The SSA countries in which we work exhibit a wide range of social and political systems, stages of economic evolution and cultural legacies. Yet in each, the need for collective action to address shared problems is evident, particularly in rural and resource-poor areas.

However, by organizing cooperatives and participatory land use planning approaches, farmers and entrepreneurs can mobilize capital, pool knowledge, achieve economies of scale and foster vertical integration. They can create greater leverage in the marketplace and policy arena, attract business service providers and more efficiently link to urban and export markets. Such disciplined groups not only catalyze local economic growth, they may serve as a vehicle for more equitable community land use planning and improve members income and level of productivity in the city economy. Likewise, they develop human capital, encourage the participation of women and youth in development activities including farmers' decision making, fostering democracy and entrepreneurship for organizational and membership development within the social solidarity economy context.

Whether working with legally registered agricultural and financial cooperatives, communitybased enterprises and private limited companies, financial institutions such as Banks seems they do not promote one standard model for enhanced cooperative development. Banks are interested in profit making and giving loans which they know later you will reimburse at high interest rate and impose exorbitant fees indiscriminately. The approach for enhancing cooperatives is to build on existing structures and to promote diversity and choice within itself. In this regard diagnostic tools for assessing the capacity and seriousness of existing cooperatives to serve the interests of their members in an effective, accountable and transparent manner are in high demand. Along with participatory subsector analysis, institutional mapping and competitiveness analysis tools, by engaging stakeholders in devising plans that address cooperative weaknesses and constraints.

To ensure cooperative sustainability, accountability, service orientation and surplus generation, members must contribute and monitor the progress of their group. There is a need for developing participatory methods and procedures in policy and legal context to allow group members to assess management, participation, organization, planning, economic performance, technical operations, financial operations and growth in both sectors of cooperative and community based initiated land use planning process. Some range of instruments–including memoranda of understanding, protocols, contracts and franchise agreements–to protect members from abuses of power and to discourage irresponsible groups from bringing the organizations into disrepute, can be adopted.

Community organized groups in their involvement in land use planning and cooperative development allows small-business owners and farmers to compete in the marketplace.

Savings and Credit Cooperative organisations guarantee members' access to the city economy, in terms of capital outsourcing from relatives and friends, labour and exchange of goods and services, and strong communication action are common features, that triggers the transformation need of cooperative development and land use planning change in urban development. Thus, guiding urban development through proper land use planning is essential to ensure the increased urban investment, making a social justice city and therefore reduce

The SSA countries in which we work exhibit a wide range of social and political systems, stages of economic evolution and cultural legacies. Yet in each, the need for collective action

However, by organizing cooperatives and participatory land use planning approaches, farmers and entrepreneurs can mobilize capital, pool knowledge, achieve economies of scale and foster vertical integration. They can create greater leverage in the marketplace and policy arena, attract business service providers and more efficiently link to urban and export markets. Such disciplined groups not only catalyze local economic growth, they may serve as a vehicle for more equitable community land use planning and improve members income and level of productivity in the city economy. Likewise, they develop human capital, encourage the participation of women and youth in development activities including farmers' decision making, fostering democracy and entrepreneurship for organizational and

Whether working with legally registered agricultural and financial cooperatives, communitybased enterprises and private limited companies, financial institutions such as Banks seems they do not promote one standard model for enhanced cooperative development. Banks are interested in profit making and giving loans which they know later you will reimburse at high interest rate and impose exorbitant fees indiscriminately. The approach for enhancing cooperatives is to build on existing structures and to promote diversity and choice within itself. In this regard diagnostic tools for assessing the capacity and seriousness of existing cooperatives to serve the interests of their members in an effective, accountable and transparent manner are in high demand. Along with participatory subsector analysis, institutional mapping and competitiveness analysis tools, by engaging stakeholders in

To ensure cooperative sustainability, accountability, service orientation and surplus generation, members must contribute and monitor the progress of their group. There is a need for developing participatory methods and procedures in policy and legal context to allow group members to assess management, participation, organization, planning, economic performance, technical operations, financial operations and growth in both sectors of cooperative and community based initiated land use planning process. Some range of instruments–including memoranda of understanding, protocols, contracts and franchise agreements–to protect members from abuses of power and to discourage irresponsible

Community organized groups in their involvement in land use planning and cooperative development allows small-business owners and farmers to compete in the marketplace.

to address shared problems is evident, particularly in rural and resource-poor areas.

poverty among urban residents to implement the urban development agenda.

membership development within the social solidarity economy context.

devising plans that address cooperative weaknesses and constraints.

groups from bringing the organizations into disrepute, can be adopted.

**4. Synthesis and concluding statements** 

There is therefore a need to strengthen the capacity of such groups to expand their trading options by scaling up production and applying quality-control standards. To this end, groups are assisted in accessing essential technical services, linking to higher-value markets, forming business alliances and advocating for a favorable regulatory environment for improved city productivity.

The potential for large-scale impact embodied in agriculture and financial cooperatives justifies the long-term commitment of resources required to build effective, independent and financially sustainable member organizations. As organizations mature, they generally expand their operations–diversifying products and services, branching into new geographic areas and addressing social concerns such as illiteracy, gender inequity or HIV/AIDS. Cooperatives play a significant role in nurturing the next generation of community leaders, and, with their extensive member networks, they are ideal vehicles for transferring knowledge, challenging social perceptions and poverty reduction tools.

In democratically run, member-owned organizations, smallholder farmers and small-scale business owners learn participatory decision making and develop ways to resolve conflicts. They enables members to demand accountability of elected leaders, present their views in public, claim ownership of the local political process, and on a daily basis they demonstrate the values of transparency and accountability.

The study shows that local community participation is important towards enabling residents in urban centers to come together and fight for their right of securing tenure system for improving small scale farmers' productivity as a response to food insecurity. However, linkages, synergy and partnerships in view to participation process and contribution of different resources appears to be an important ingredient in enhancing local community involvement in securing land tenure and therefore safeguard urban environment. Roles of different actors including the central government, local government and other planning and development institutions need to be clear and therefore contributory to enabling local community initiated project such as land use planning, cadastral survey and land registration to be implemented effectively and efficiently. This may be the case in most Sub Saharan African countries, where the need for having planned and secured formal landownership to residents is high in urban development agenda.

The economic characteristics entail how do they operate efficiently and attain high profit to cover operating costs as well as operate at low economic costs. In view of the social characteristics, all of them must involve people in its operations, must be competitive in the market economy, must have adequate capital investment from the membership and finally must be managed democratically, which shows the role of land use planning and cooperative development in improving city productivity.

The future outlook of cooperative and land use planning process should be based on community-centred and market-driven approach. Member-owned groups should increase their members' incomes, either directly, for example through bulk input purchases and collective marketing, or indirectly, such as through policy and advocacy initiatives. Members are motivated to participate in group activities because of profits and or benefits they obtain as a result of their engagement in the sector.

To move in the right direction, the Government may also prepare a transparent strategy for rebuilding the co-operative movement involving other interested parties like NGOs and

**14** 

*Greece* 

**The Evolution and Spatial** 

Serafeim Polyzos and Dimitrios Tsiotas *Department of Planning and Regional Development,* 

*University of Thessaly,* 

**Dynamics of Coastal Cities in Greece** 

The procedure of human evolution has been always connected with the concepts of space and time. Communities that existed in the same chronological period in different geographic locations, such as communities that existed in the same geographic location at different eras, present various patterns of development. This statement indicates, on one hand, the significance of the spatial parameter to the Economic and Regional Analysis and, on the other hand, the directions that the Economic Research should be oriented to, in order to provide more complete outcomes. From the amount of spatial attributes that a geographic location may possess, the present article deals with the coastal one. Coastal areas have played diachronically a leading role to the development of human civilization, ought to their geographical characteristics, focused on to the seaside location , which provides many transportation advantages, such as development of ports (Li, 2003), commodity (trade development) (Cori, 1999) and also environmental advantages, such as mild climate and natural beauty (Yeung, 2001). The purpose of this chapter is to study the evolution and the spatial dynamics of coastal cities, through a spatial, statistical and regional analytic approach, in order to recognize and to interpret the patterns that describe this evolution,

In particular, the chapter focuses on the case of Greek coastal cities (Polyzos et al., 2011), as it follows. First of all, this choice is considered by the authors to be a challenge, since the case of Greek coastal cities lies under the individuality of not presenting extended population coverage, agglomeration or demographic mega phenomena. This fact differentiates the performance of the Greek coastal system from other cases' and sets an inverse scaling transformation to the until now research findings of this field (Yeung, 2001; Sheng Han and Yan, 1999; Li, 2003; Sekovski et al., 2011). Secondly, the case of studying a recent Greek spatial and economic system is particularly up to date, by the time that Greece is currently being subjected to an economic crisis (considered from many to be an introducing crisis to the European economic system), fact that is expected to reveal some vital axes in order to comprehend the developmental potentials of the Country. Another reason is the authors' Greek parentage, which sets the Greek case to be a familiar research field. Finally, although the research on coastal cities' dynamics presents an efficient scientific matter (Miller & Auyong, 1991; Cori, 1999; Yeung, 2001; Li, 2003), so in Global as in

**1. Introduction** 

under the regional economic and policy perspective.

other sympathizers of co-operative enterprise. The tendency of the Government to dominate the co-operatives as in the past should be avoided, but will play a key facilitation role. The heart of the strategy should be a pro-poor participatory co-operative development and modernization education programs that may be drawn on the positive lessons of the wide range of participatory approach based pilot projects. This may bring fundamental change of attitudes and approaches of particularly the government policy makers and other interested stakeholders including extension officers, Co-operative support institutions, co-operative movement and other sectors in the economy. Likely they will succeed to introduce appropriate changes of the mindsets and governance practices. The study concludes that towards enhancing social-solidarity economy for improved livelihoods of members within city's neighborhoods or within cooperative associations, private-public partnership (PPP) may be an important combination to be considered in urban development. If the linkages and partnerships are not well created and addressed in policy and institutional settings, it may be difficult to retrofit and may enhance urban poverty in Sub-Saharan African cities and rural settings.

#### **5. References**

