What makes urban governance co-productive? Contradictions in the current debate on co-production

Following a number of prominent concepts in urban planning, like participatory planning or self-help housing, co-production has started to gain momentum in the global South context. While it is has been long discussed as a means of service provision, the term is more and more often used in the broader sense of urban governance and policy planning. This understanding goes beyond the aspect of scaling-up successful co-productive infrastructure focused projects; rather, it indicates a different format of engagement for prompting urban stakeholders into planning citywide urban solutions. This article discusses the distinction between the different levels of co-production and their inter-linkages, and it investigates the relevance of positioning co-production as a factor framing urban governance. This includes a discussion on three main contradictions that can be identified within the current discussion on co-production. Finally, it identifies a set of arguments for elaborating the role of co-production in a policy and urban governance setting.