On 28 February and 1 March 2014, the 5th High-Level Seminar on Environmental Sustainable Cities (5th HLS ESC) was successfully conducted in Surabaya, Indonesia, by Governmnet of Indonesia, Japan, Cambodia, the United States, the ASEAN working group on environmentally sustainable cities and ASEAN Secretariat. The Seminar presented the stage for networking, knowledge exchange and agenda-setting among top cities and their supporting stakeholder of ASEAN and East Asia.
The two-day seminar was chaired by Mr. Dana A. Kartakusuma (Assistant Minister of Global Environment Ministry of Environment Indonesia) and co-chaired by Mr. Junichi Siraichi (Vice Minister of Global Environment Ministry of Japan), Dr. Vann Monyneath (Technical Deputy Director General, Ministry of Environmetn Cambodia), and Mr. Alfred Nakatsuma (Regional Environment Director, Regional Development Mission for Asia (RDMA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In addition, there were more than 200 participants consisting of representatives from 15 national governments, 29 local authoritites and 25 international organizations, non-governmental organizations, reserach institutions, private companies and others in the seminar.
UCLG ASPAC organized and chaired one of the thematic sessions in the seminar, focusing on governance and partnership. The secretary General of UCLG ASPAC introduced DELGOSEA in the session and brought several pilot cities and local governments of the program to share their experiences on implementing good governance and partnership in attempts to promote enviromentally sustainable cities. Highlighting the need of networking and peer-to-peer learning among local governments, the session succeeded to identify several essential keys of good governance enriching to the model of environmentally sustainable cities. The sessions also endorsed the success of DELGOSEA in building network nd doing trans-national exchange of best pratices in ASEAN countries. Further cooperation of local governments shall be supported and UCLG ASPAC in keen to facilitate the cooperation through DELGOSEA program.
Aside from the thematic session, UCLG ASPAC also participated in the exhibiton during the event. Promotion of UCLG ASPAC as well as DELGOSEA was conducted tergeting to all participants from ASEAN +3 member states. This is in line the aim of DELGOSEA, that is to introduce the program to ASEAN.
As the host of the seminar, Ms. Tri Rismaharini, The Mayor of Surabaya addressed a significant achievement in waste collection while increasing the amount of urban green space, bringing a positive impact on the improvement of Surabaya local communities’ health and hygiene. Moreover, ASEAN member representatives expressed their satisfication on City-to-City cooperation performed by the cities of Kitayushu and Surabaya, and also Osaka and Ho Chi Minh City. This cooperation was mentioned as a way to help ASEAN cities become more connected through paths of develompent.
As a result, the seminar proposed several recommendations on broad policies and legal frameworks, such as to develop national Environmental Sustainable Cities guidelines and incentives programs, and also on practical projects and actions, such as to focus on invertment-friendly project development and financing mechanism.
