Moving Towards Green Urban Development of Kyrgyz Cities (Kyrgyzstan)

Project Summary:

The project aimed to halt urban sprawl in Kyrgyz and build a roadmap to green growth. Population shifts in the Kyrgyz Republic have brought 42 percent of residents to urban areas, but cities have not grown to accommodate them. Many find their way into semi-informal settlements on the periphery of cities. These sprawling settlements come at a high environmental, energy, and economic cost, now requiring municipal services, such as roads, without being high-density enough for investments in public transportation. Poor populations that live on the periphery are often disconnected from health care and education opportunities in the city center. This green growth implementation program will help create awareness around this damaging urban growth pattern and assist the government in identifying policies and a roadmap for urban densification. In the end, greening urban areas will be a source of economic growth and climate change resilience.

List of Activities:

• Assessment of underlying dynamics leading to urban sprawl and consequences of current urban development (both fiscal and environmental)
• Awareness raising among Government and local stakeholders of the benefits of having a greener and more inclusive urban growth, learning from green development leaders
• Creating a roadmap to move towards a greener urban development of Kyrgyz cities

Outcomes:

Output 1:

• Detailed study on current urban development pattern of Kyrgyz cities and economic consequences of a sprawled type of development and benchmarking using international examples
• Development of recommendations and menu of short- and medium-term actions.
• Completion and dissemination of findings of the assessment through a validation and dissemination workshop

Output 2:

• Information and capacity building workshops for Gosstroy, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Self-Local Governments, city Mayors. Dissemination of good practices and experiences worldwide
• Study tour to learn from leaders in green urban development completed

Output 3:

• Broad consensus-based roadmap towards greener urban development of Kyrgyz cities developed and endorsement by Government
• Identification of areas with detail description for further technical support under the Urban Development Project
• Technical exchanges with key agencies
• Draft report considering technical criteria in order to conduct landfill closure and remediation program

Outcomes:

The expected outcomes from the proposed grant are: To create greater awareness of the current unsustainable paths and the potential benefits of moving towards a green urban growth path; To Achieving consensus through the development of a roadmap for green growth; To identify areas for potential support under the Urban Development Project.

Collaboration with K-Partners and Others:

• WBG internal partners: There is very strong interest and backing from CMU and Country Director is willing to raise the dialogue at the highest levels to seek endorsement. CMU is also willing to allocate staff resources to support the establishment of a permanent working group with Government and donors on issues of planning, urban development and sprawl. In addition the Urban GP team is working closely in the development of the UDP project with the Energy and the Water GPs.
• Other external partners: ADB and EBRD are involved in the urban sector but mainly through the financing of infrastructure linked to Water Supply and Sanitation and supporting service providers such as water utilities.  GIZ (funded by the EC) and EBRD have been working on the Energy Efficiency agenda and are the main leaders in terms of policy directions and delivering Technical Assistance in this area. The Bank team has been working closely with them to assure coordination and that activities linked to EE are complementary to their work. JICA assisted Bishkek in the development of their urban transport master plan but the project has long been closed. UNDP also had past involvement in improving the capacity of local Governments but is no longer working in the area.