What: UNEP survey on Integrated Environmental Planning in Cities
Who: Decision-makers and urban practitioners from all cities and local authorities, particularly from developing countries
When: The deadline is 14 November 2010
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[27 September 2010] -- Many development issues in cities are directly linked to the environment such as water and sanitation or waste management. But there are other important links, which might not be that obvious in the first place, e.g. poverty reduction or slum upgrading might help to reduce direct impacts on environmental resources.
Yet, urban management does not always sufficiently consider the environment. This leads to environmental degradation and limits city development and attractiveness. Furthermore, climate change is going to exacerbate existing urban environment problems, putting more pressure on local governments and increasing their vulnerability to climate impacts.
Therefore, it is important that robust instruments and approaches are available to integrate environmental considerations into long-term urban development while also bringing economic and social benefits to cities.
A methodology for integrating the environmental dimension in urban strategic planning
UNEP, supported by Cities Alliance, is developing a methodology to ensure that urban planning will use environmental resources sustainably to the benefit of the city and its residents, particularly the urban poor. The underlying principle of this approach is to convince city managers that the environment is an asset, a natural resource capital, which needs to grow rather than deplete.
The methodology will provide a set of instruments and approaches to integrate and monitor the environmental resources in the development and implementation of city development strategies and policies including addressing the impacts of a changing climate. As an initial step, a stock-taking exercise on environmental instruments is currently being undertaken.
We hence invite decision-makers and urban practitioners from all cities and local authorities, particularly from developing countries, to share their experiences on instruments that have worked in their cities and why. To capture this information, we have developed a survey as part of the stock-taking exercise to look for useful instruments and approaches.
Survey details
The questions are designed to give you space for comments, experiences and ideas. By contributing to this survey you will make sure that the methodology is reflecting your experience and thus will be relevant for your city or your organisation.
It will take you about 15 minutes to fill in the survey. The deadline is 14 November 2010.
Links to the survey:
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Encuentre el cuestionario en Español en este link: en la pagina del Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA): www.unep.org/urban_environment
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In case you have trouble with your Internet connection and you would prefer to fill in the survey on your computer, you can download the survey as a Word document at www.unep.org/urban_environment. Please return the filled in survey to urban.environment@unep.org.
If you have any questions about the survey or if you would like to learn more about this project, please do not hesitate to get in touch by sending an email to urban.environment@unep.org.
