Gujarat Govt indicators MoU with Swiss Agency for improvement and cooperation supported CapaCITIES mission

New Delhi: The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Embassy of Switzerland to India and Bhutan, is supporting the implementation of the second part of the CapaCITIES mission in 2 state governments (Gujarat and Tamil Nadu) and eight Indian cities (Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodara, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Tiruchirappalli, Siliguri and Udaipur).
In the presence of the Honourable Ambassador of Switzerland to India and Bhutan, Dr. Ralf Heckner, the Government of Gujarat has entered right into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Implementing Agency on the twentieth of January, 2021, with intent to formalise the cooperation of the mission with the Urban Development and Climate Change Departments.
Additional Chief Secretary and Secretary, Urban Development and Urban Housing Department Mr. Mukesh Puri and Principal Secretary to Climate Change Department Mr. S J Haider signed the MoU on behalf of the 2 nodal departments that will oversee the implementation of this mission. Executive Director of ICLEI South Asia Mr. Emani Kumar signed the MoU on behalf of the IA. Secretary, Housing and Nirmal Gujarat Shri Lochan Sehra and Director of Gujarat Energy Development Agency (GEDA) and Chief Town Planner (CTP) of Gujarat Shri Bijal Shah have been current on this event.
Gujarat has at all times been in forefront of Climate Action. The imaginative and prescient of State Government is impressed by Hon’ble Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, who had established a separate and devoted Department of Climate Change in 2009 within the State. Gujarat Chief Minister Mr. Vijay Rupani is heading the Climate Change Department within the State and has given course to work on Climate Resilience Cities within the State.

 
Phase I of the “Capacity Building Project on Low Carbon and Climate Resilient City Development in India” (CapaCITIES) mission (2016-2019) efficiently achieved its said objective of enabling a decrease – greenhouse fuel emissions progress path and enhancing resilience to local weather change in 4 cities in India (Rajkot, Coimbatore, Siliguri and Udaipur).
In part 2 (2019-2023), to additional the said objective in part 1, the mission goals to “mainstream climate action in select Indian cities and states by enhancing capacities to adopt integrated climate resilient planning, design innovative finance mechanisms and develop climate resilient infrastructure”. The mission seeks to realize this objective by drawing largely from Swiss experience on these subjects and translating this expertise to handle the Indian context, with help from companions in India. The Implementing Agency (IA) of the mission comprising two Swiss entities – “South Pole Carbon Asset Management” and “econcept”, and the native Indian accomplice –“ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, South Asia”. The National Institute of Urban Affairs is the information accomplice of the mission.
The three mission cities of Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Vadodara, represented by their respective Municipal Commissioners, have additionally entered into MoU with the mission IA and the 2 talked about state authorities departments, to formalise mission execution within the cities.

While Rajkot metropolis made vital strides of their journey in direction of attaining local weather resilience with the help of the mission in Phase I; within the second part, the mission has already offered help to all of the good cities of the state in reporting to the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework, a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India and can proceed to work with the state authorities of Gujarat and the mission cities to mainstream local weather change mitigation and adaptation into improvement insurance policies not solely on the metropolis, but in addition on the state stage. The mission will probably be offering technical help for the event of progressive financing fashions to determine giant scale deployment of local weather resilient infrastructure and the preparation of related insurance policies. Pilot initiatives that reveal progressive local weather motion and financing mechanisms may even be carried out.