The closing workshop of Dongying Sustainable Community Project was held in Dongying city, Shandong province on 25 October 2018. The project, organized as part of the Dongying Green Economy Pilot Project (Phase II), was completed successfully after a one-year collective effort among the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (FOCAO) of the People’s Government of Dongying Municipality, United Nations Environment Programme International Ecosystem Management Partnership (UNEP-IEMP), Renmin University of China, and Shanghai Green Light-Year Environmental Protection Service Centre. The workshop was hosted by Mr. TIAN Hede, Director of FOCAO, with more than 20 participants from the project team and relevant government agencies of Dongying Municipality attended. Dr. ZHANG Linxiu, Director of UNEP-IEMP, attended and addressed closing remarks at the meeting.
Greening the way we manage and sustain our urban areas, especially through sustainable community development practices, is coded in Sustainable Development Goal 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities” as an approach for combating many environmental challenges within and outside urban areas. Since its launch in October 2017, the Dongying Sustainable Community Project has committed itself to supporting a green economy development and contributing to eco-civilization construction in Dongying. Through a comprehensive community, it aims to map the baseline of community development practices and identify relevant gaps and needs for sustainable community development in Dongying. It also tries to establish an assessment index system and an action plan for Dongying to orient and advance its sustainable community development practices. One of the highlights of the project is to raise awareness and capacity at the ground level and combine it with a top-down policy making from the government–a so-called co-governance approach. This project paves the way for complementary actions among the government, communities and civil society organizations in the future. The Dongying Sustainable Community Development Report, as a major project deliverable, summarizes the project’s outputs.
At the meeting, Dr. FU Chao, Head of the Research Unit of UNEP-IEMP, made an overall introduction of the project’s progress, while Prof. JIN Min and Associate Prof. SU Mingming from Renmin University of China and Ms. NI Huan from Shanghai Green Light-Year Environmental Protection Service Centre elaborated on major project outputs, respectively. Experts from Dongying government agencies spoke highly of this project, especially praised the attention paid to residents. “Key findings from this project should be transformed into a policy brief to ensure broader implications as well as to lay the foundation for our work in future.” suggested Mr. TIAN.
In her concluding remarks, Dr. ZHANG highlighted that “sustainable community is one of the thematic areas that UNEP-IEMP is focusing on under the Climate, Ecosystems and Livelihoods Flagship Programme, and as a multilateral platform, UNEP-IEMP is willing to continue our collaboration with Dongying to move its green development agenda forward.”
A glance of the workshop
Group photo of project team members and experts at the workshop
