Gerard Girbes Berges on Flickr
Metropolitan dialogue on green infrastructure: launching a new pilot project!
The 2021-2023 call for pilot projects has seen the launch of its first pilot project, “Metropolitan Areas Dialogue on Green Infrastructure: Overcoming challenges and enhancing benefits”, on 16 March. The project will be implemented by Mexico City over the upcoming 30 months in cooperation with the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and the Aburrá Valley. The initiative aims to strengthen technical capacities related to the effective implementation of green infrastructure, in order to enhance its benefits to the environment and human well-being along three main lines: ecological connectivity, urban biodiversity and resilience to climate change.
The project launch focused on planning the activities and steps to come, in order to put the technical and management structures for the project in place. The goal was also to organise the forthcoming activities for 2021, which will include a webinar on protected areas and urban agriculture.
The launch meeting was opened by Mariana Flores, Executive Director for Institutional Representation for the government of Mexico City and Metropolis Regional Secretary for North America, who highlighted the importance of natural capital as the basis for sustaining social and economic development and building regenerative and resilient metropolitan areas.
In this sense, the partners in the project will investigate and share experiences on multifunctional green infrastructures, looking at different approaches and alternatives (protected areas, biological corridors, urban agriculture, climate refugees, nature-based solutions). Flores stated that the expected results of this pilot project will not only be of interest to the metropolises involved, but also to all the other members of the network.
Over the next few months, the partners will meet again to draw up the basis for the two expected outcomes of this project: a diagnosis to determine the state of the art for green infrastructure in the three metropolitan areas, and a manual of best practices detailing the results of the project in a toolbox format to guide implementation in other cities with similar characteristics. The manual will include tools and strategies to access international funding or private investment and increase the scope of public participation.
For more information on this project or the pilot projects programme, please contact Guillaume Berret at the Metropolis Secretariat General.