With CAIXA’s support, the city of João Pessoa joins the sustainable urban development platform
João Pessoa, capital of the Brazilian state of Paraíba, has joined the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI). In partnership with CAIXA, the IDB will provide the municipality with technical and financial support to diagnose and address urban development issues that include climate change, governance and security.
CAIXA’s participation in ESCI, which is strengthened by its previous urban development work, is intended to support the process of sustainable growth and contribute to improving the effectiveness of local public policies.
A multidisciplinary group will be created with specialists from João Pessoa’s local government, the IDB and CAIXA. The team will prepare a diagnosis based on indicators related to several urban development categories.The city’s strengths and weaknesses will be identified and an Action Plan for its sustainable development will be drawn up.
For Daniela Carrera-Marquis, IDB Representative in Brazil, “ESCI is an instrument that will have a strong impact on seeking a more sustainable growth for the cities in our region. CAIXA, with its active participation in investing in the Brazilian urban and housing infrastructure, is a strategic partner to enable more Brazilian cities to use this instrument and seek new directions for their development.”
The cities of Goiânia and Recife are already part of the initiative.The city of Goiânia, the first Brazilian city to join ESCI, started to develop urban projects based on the diagnosis and the Action Plan developed with the Bank’s support in 2011. The requirements for choosing cities are based on economic growth and having a population between 200,000 and 2 million people.
Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI)
The ESCI applies a multidisciplinary approach to deal with the challenges faced by emerging cities in Latin America and the Caribbean.The program seeks to integrate environmental and fiscal sustainability, urban development and good governance, and also to promote the support of actions that will provide basic services and guarantee the protection of the environment, as well as adequate levels of quality of life and employment.The current goal is for the Initiative to include 26 cities in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2015. In Brazil, the goal is to implement ESCI in four cities by 2014.