Ramola Naik Singru
Moderator
National urban assessments and strategic systems planning guide balanced, land-and resource efficient, climate-resilient, inclusive, and competitive urban development in developing countries. Share country and city level experiences in this session.
Guiding questions:
How can urbanization be managed sustainably especially in rapidly urbanizing countries in Asia and Africa? Can national urban assessments and strategic systems planning be effective instruments to guide balanced, land- and resource efficient, low-carbon, green, climate-resilient, inclusive, and competitive urban development in developing and rapidly urbanizing countries? How effective were these in India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Georgia, Philippines, People’s Republic of China? How can benefits from urban development be captured and equitably shared through regional cooperation amongst countries? What types of policies and market-based instruments can enable sustainable, low-carbon and resilient, green and inclusive urban development, engaging both public and private sectors? How can SDGs be localized at the city level through Integrated Urban Action Plans (IUAPs), or Green City Action Plans (GCAPs)?
The event will bring together people from international financial institutions, national and local governments, NGOs, academia and professionals of urban and regional planning, human geography, environment, civil engineering, climate, social science, policy, finance and economy.
Impact stories and lessons learned:
Panelists will share stories from national urban assessments and systems planning, and implementation of urbanization policies. What worked and what didn’t.
Sepang Municipality Malaysia will share the role of local government in tackling urban poverty to ensure equitable access to urban services for all.
Policies, and national programs:
The case studies will summarize how national urbanization plans and policies were developed, localized and operationalized, or report on related key challenges they wish to overcome. The panelists will provide an overview and share lessons from across countries on national urban system planning and policies. The organizers will share experience from planning and program support and report its current actions and future plans on policy and program support to national planning and urban region coordination and administrative reform for South-South sharing.
Replication:
Nationwide urban assessments, planning and development guidelines, integrated with socio-economic development, land and natural resource use and ecosystem protection will bring many benefits for countries, their cities, and citizens. It is a powerful instrument providing a blueprint for intersectoral planning at the national scale cascading to the city scale through IUAPS, or GCAPS. Lessons from national assessments suggest that there is a need to provide guidance to cities to ensure localization of climate change mitigation targets are achievable through action plans and their incremental implementation.
The participants can discuss the significant benefits of replicating based on the cases presented and identify opportunities for collaboration and scaling up.
Networking:
The event will bring people together from multinational agencies, national and local governments, NGOs, academia and professionals to meet and greet and promote new networks for further exchange and mutual learning.
Learning and sharing case studies and models:
Participants will get a good understanding and people with prior knowledge will deepen their knowledge of challenges and benefits of national urban systems planning and urbanization policies. They will understand cases presented and be able to find entryways for replication in their own countries. India will share its national urban programs and industrial urban corridor strategy. Central Asian countries will share their national urban assessment, Mongolia will share its national urban system plan and support to regional center development. The PRC will share its experience from national urbanization plans, and infrastructure and service target setting in Five-Year Plans. Sepang Municipality will discuss the importance of the role and responsibility of local government in demonstrating a strong commitment towards multidimensional approach to tackling urban poverty, leveraging the synergies and interconnections between the community and the stakeholders. ADB and partners will provide an overview of global related activities and good practice as inspiration for replication in Asia and Africa. Discussion and Q&A with local governments and professionals will enable exchange and discussion.