Background: The Ministry started initiatives to beautify cities, address climate change issues and improve sanitation services in GTP I. These will now be strengthened and made broader in GPT II. GTP I initiatives included development of standards (designs & specifications), guidelines, and regulations to support greenery development and management, and include urban greenery development projects for open spaces, beautification, riverside spaces, parks, road verges, urban agriculture and forestry in capital investment plans, mobilize resources and implement projects. Urban greenery development was made a component of cities’ asset management, capital investment and Operation and Maintenance plans.
Objective: To make cities sustainable, resilient, clean, beautiful and green, which will in turn: make them attractive places for residents to live and work in, benefit the tourism industry, make them more attractive as centers of investment, help them mitigate their contribution to climate-change, improve their resilience to the likely impacts of climate-change, and support the development of urban agriculture and thus contribute to urban food security.
Goals:
- To implement nationwide urban greenery activities in a sustainable and efficient manner, and with the full participation of the community and other stakeholders.
- Create 755,000 job opportunities, with 50% reserved for women and vulnerable groups.
- To develop urban green areas in accordance with approved urban plans which allow for 30% of urban space to be dedicated to green areas.
- To ensure that the greenery service delivery system is multidisciplinary, so as to ensure sustainability of green assets.
- To make full use of public urban spaces such as cemeteries, traffic islands, and road medians etc. as parks and attractive green open spaces.
- To help encourage natural resource balance and biodiversity conservation as a means to help resist urban climate-change impacts.
- To contribute to mitigation of climate-change impacts through improved use of open space.
- To maximize employment opportunities in the greening of urban areas and in the maintenance of green assets.
- To maximize opportunities for the development of urban agriculture as a means of contributing to urban food security.
- To divert water that would otherwise have been wasted to urban agriculture projects or for groundwater recharge.
- To build capacity in innovative approaches to urban greening, and in its potential to interface with other urban sectors such as flood control and drainage, urban transport (by foot and bicycle), reuse of solid waste through composting, use of recycled wastewater etc.
- To establish a system that improves SWM performance and by building capacity of urban centers to build and operate sanitary solid waste disposal sites.
Linkages: : Pillar 8 is linked to Pillars 1, 3 and 10 which provide the institutional and organizational capacity and resources (human and financial) to plan, deliver and maintain green, resilient and sustainable cities with sanitation services that satisfy citizens. Pillar 4. Provides the planning and land for development and maintenance of infrastructure and services.