Working on Transformation: Reflection on the Agenda City Program

In this VU/PBL research, we do not focus so much on the approach itself but highlight the working method as a form of administrative innovation within the national government. Agenda City is a program where we can gain insights into the quest for the role of the national government in social transformation. In other words, Agenda City provides a platform where doing transformative policy yields new insights into the challenges that working on transformation entails.

Experienced Tensions in Agenda City

The challenges identified in the research among those involved in Agenda City stem from the tensions between the experimental and learning approach and the norms, standards, and routines within the government as they currently exist. Examples include:

• A tension between working on national policy agendas versus creating local solutions. The Agenda City program has a unique position between different national departments and local policy levels, giving it the program mandate to create breakthroughs through administrative innovation and, on the other hand, to realize local solutions for urban transition challenges.
• A tension between the need to account for concrete, measurable results and the need to maintain an experimental, flexible working method where not only the results but also the lessons count.
• A tension between the need to make results politically relevant and draw attention to them, and on the other hand, to create space to work experimentally within the program without continuous political interference.

Roles in Agenda City

The program succeeds in addressing challenges by fulfilling different roles. These are the role of transition intermediary, bridging between governments and social parties; the role of policy innovator, where policy innovations are developed and implemented in a protected environment; and the role of institutional innovator, working on institutionalizing the experimental method, as well as the results and lessons from the program within the (national) government.

Conditions for a Transformative Government

The so-called Deal approach of Agenda City can be more effectively deployed in various areas to support and accelerate the approach to urban transition challenges through an innovative and experimental approach. The conditions for this lie partly within the sphere of influence of the Agenda City program and partly with the civil administration and the network that creates the conditions for anchoring intergovernmental and experimental governance in the national government. The research identifies the possibilities that each of these three parties has to strategically shape a transformative government. Good cooperation is needed to work together, with contributions from different sections, towards a skilled handling of transformation issues.