*4.3. Sub-Question (3): Which Contextual Factors in Combination with Organizational Strategies Are Associated with the Success and Failure of These Initiatives?*

The analysis of activity levels showed that 27 of 49 (i.e., 55%) of city initiatives sampled in 2014 were confirmed as active in 2021, but 13 were classified as "discontinued" and 10 as "unclear"; the latter category applies to initiatives with a functioning website but no evidence of recent activities (cf. Supplementary File). This leads to a conservative estimate of continuity since some of the initiatives classified as "unclear" continue to work as a less formalized citizen movement with rudimentary social media activity. Interestingly, the cities hosting each of these three groups (active, unclear, and discontinued) showed similar average population numbers. Therefore, city size does not appear to be a predictor of long-term viability. It deserves mentioning, though, that small, rural communities were overrepresented among the initiatives that had stopped by 2014 (cf. Section 3).

Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Uruguay each had only one or two initiatives in the initial sample, which implies a limited base for generalizations. In these cases, the average "survival rates" thus need to be interpreted with much caution. Nonetheless, the number of initial initiatives per country appears to matter. As shown in Table 2, Brazil (53%), Colombia (90%), and Mexico (80%) showed the highest continuity rates. The first two also have active networks at the national level (www.redcomovamos.org (accessed on 1 April 2021) and www.cidadessustentaveis.org.br (accessed on 1 April 2021). (The Colombian network also registered *Cómo Vamos* as a national trademark; elsewhere, the brand is not protected and has been adopted by other actors such as a newspaper in Mexico City). With its 90% survival rate, the Colombian model, including its established brand and tight internal governance (centred around a small set of stakeholders including a media firm, university, and chamber of commerce), is ostensibly successful. According to the network's website, it now boasts 16 initiatives covering 60% of Colombia's urban population. A similar institutional *Cómo Vamos* model was successfully emulated in Lima but abandoned in Rio de Janeiro. In several countries, network-oriented models prevailed. As a radical example of a community indicator initiative of the non-institutionalized type, a "citizen collective" in the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca has now run successfully for 10 years with neither legal personality nor salaried staff. Both tight and loose, network-oriented models of internal governance have thus been shown to thrive. This is also evident from diverging advice given by key informants about institutional strategies: "Make sure to establish an organizational structure very early in order to receive resources and have professionals working full time" (BR#9) versus "be an inclusive movement and look for less institutionalized operating models" (BR#2).

To explore the relevance of contextual factors, Table 3 shows the number and percentage of surviving initiatives per country juxtaposed to the selected sample of socioeconomical and governance indices. Due to methodological limitations, including the small number of cases and untested validity of country governance assessments, statistical analyses are not meaningful. However, the data suggest the presence of country clusters. Chile and Uruguay are, according to international comparisons (with Table 3 showing most recent data available), the region's top performers in terms of government effectiveness, press freedom, and low levels of perceived corruption. Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru represent the other end of the spectrum, while Argentina holds a middle ground. In five of these six countries, the observed continuity rate is below 50%, whereas it is higher in the four

countries occupying average positions in regional comparisons of human development (as measured by the HDI) and governance. (Paraguay had seen the emergence of five initiatives since 2013 that did not attain organizational continuity. The one established in its capital in 2010 and included in this study remains active.) At the city level, these observations match the prevalence of obstacles reported by key informants. In Chile and Uruguay, the quality of public data sources and political interference was no major concern. In Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay, however, access to data was a frequently mentioned problem. Another dimension on which key informants reported diverging experiences is political interference and intimidation at the city level—these were high in Mexico and Brazil but virtually absent in other countries (According to the RTI, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador have poorly developed access to information laws, whereas Mexico belongs to the world's top performers. At the city level, key informants reported that progressive laws can be helpful yet miss immediate relevance for their work if public institutions do not collect sustainability data).


**Table 3.** Survival rate of community indicators in relation to country context.
