ADDING VALUE

E-Systems' approach has several advantages:

• Demonstrate that sustainable development need not take 20 years-it can be realized in specific locations within 5 years if we apply best practices across sectors, without waiting for complex pricing and policy reforms.

• Show that sustainable development is not a vague set of processes; we know a great deal about which questions to ask, and which organizational and technological solutions work. It is a matter of concentrating political will, technology, and finance.

• Develop regional organizations to actually implement an integrated sustainable development strategy. These provide critical technical and political linkages between all the local and national interests that must be brought together to make a regional strategy work. This "platform" is needed to identify new business opportunities but also to launch seemingly straightforward private sector projects. Ignoring this dimension increases delays and costs.

• Provide working capital, and objective technical advice. Most local governments and businesses do not have sufficient funds to undertake the integrated planning needed to use resource flows strategicially. They do not have easy access to unbiased technical and management expertise. E-Systems provides these in a timely fashion, and in a way that responds to local needs.