Supporting Urban Sustainability in Ahmedabad

Yesterday the first workshop in a series of three started in Ahmedabad, India. Participants are meeting under collaborative learning conditions to develop sustainable strategies on urban development. More than half of the world’s population is already living in towns and cities and urbanization is accelerating, especially in Africa and Asia. At the same time, human activities have crossed or are about to cross the critical ecological boundaries of the planet. Cities are therefore facing major challenges in maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services on which they depend for their functioning, while also securing equal access to natural and man-made resources among the growing number of urban citizens.

"Firstly, discussions will be on trying to think of new ways for ecosystem development. Secondly, it will be an attempt towards collaborative learning." says Martin Westin of SWEDESD

"Ahmedabad has a huge population, but we need to address the water, sanitation, air and greenery issues!" says Kartikeya Sarabhai of CEE, Center for Environmental Education in Ahmedabad.

In April and May 2011 SWEDESD will conduct three 2-day regional engagement workshops together with SUS Programme partners.

13 – 14 Apr 2011:
SUS Start-Up workshop Ahmedabad, India for the Asian stakeholder teams

27 – 28 Apr 2011:
SUS Start-Up Workshop Malmö, Sweden for the Swedish stakeholder teams

3 – 4 May 2011:
SUS Start-up Workshop Arusha, Tanzania for the African stakeholder teams

These workshops will enable participants:

i) to learn more about the history, situation, and challenges in each city
ii) to learn more about Ecosystem services approaches to poverty alleviation (ESPA) in general including key concepts and practices associated with each of the three inquiry themes
iii) to agree with SWEDESD the design of the nine months programme and
iv) to plan an appraisal and other activities that will take place between the workshop and the residential including support from SWEDESD.

Supporting Urban Sustainability, SUS programme

While dealing with urban sustainability in a holistic manner the ground-breaking SUS-programme is focused on ecosystem services approaches to poverty alleviation (ESPA) in urban settings. Against this backdrop the purpose of the SUS-programme is to facilitate increased capacity among key programmes, organisations and professionals in six cities to apply ESPA approaches. The programme brings together teams of stakeholders from Ahmedabad, Arusha, Bloemfontein, Grahamstown, Dhaka and Malmö to collaborate and learn for strong urban sustainability.

The programme is offered by SWEDESD, in close cooperation with:

Centre for Environment Education (CEE) based in India
Southern African Development Community’s Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC-REEP) based in South Africa
Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) based in Sweden
Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) based in Sweden
Global Action Plan International (GAP International) based in Sweden
World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) based in Sweden
SUS program: http://www.swedesd.se/sustainable-cities
SUS wiki: http://susprogramme.wikispaces.com/home

For more information, contact:

Charlotta Järnmark
SWEDESD communikation specialist
charlotta.jarnmark@hgo.se
+46 761602331 (Mobile)