The project comes as a response to the Peruvian government's request for support in strengthening participation in urban planning and to consider environmental issues more closely. The project supports three demonstration cities, Arequipa, Chiclayo and Lima/Callao, with the main objective of strengthening urban environment planning and management. It is expected to achieve this objective by reinforcing local capacities in conducting participatory urban environment evaluation through the preparation of Global Environment Outlook (GEO) City Reports. These Reports will offer a common information base for all actors involved in the process. They will also serve as a basis to identify priority urban environment issues, which will be discussed during City Consultations. These Consultations, which will bring together key local and regional actors, will lead to the creation of intersectoral working groups around selected priority issues. These working groups will prepare issue-specific strategies and action plans and will initiate their implementation through small-scale demonstration projects. The project will also establish national technical support mechanisms. The direct beneficiaries of this project, in the first phase, will be three demonstration cities. This strategy will benefit mostly the communities more affected by poor social, economic and environmental conditions.
The programme will strengthen the capacity of local and national authorities and their partners to plan and manage the urban environment in various areas and at various levels:
- At the local level, through supporting: (a) the preparation or revision processes of master plans (Planes Directores); (b) the establishment of a local system of environmental management; (c) the elaboration and implementation of local urban environmental management plans; and (d) the strengthening of citizen participation in urban environmental planning and management.
- At the national level: (a) facilitating exchange of experience among Peruvians cities and the strengthening of networking activities; and (b) facilitating the dialogue between local authorities and/or national government in order to provide inputs to the improvement and implementation of national policies related to urban development, environmental management and poverty alleviation;
- In the training and academic sector: (a) strengthening the capacity of a number of national and local support institutions to provide meaningful technical support to local authorities and develop training curricula based on the experience acquired in the programme.
- An institutional/national framework was designed to define the main guidelines for the project.
- The three municipalities were selected.
- Potential local teams have been identified. They will be responsible at the local level to develop the urban environment planning and management process.
National technical support institutions have been identified. They will be responsible for capacity-building activities for local partners (local team and local technical support institutions) and will provide technical support during the whole process.
- Local technical support institutions have been identified.
