GOOD PRACTICE EXCHANGE

INTEGRATION OF GREEN GROWTH AND LOW EMISSION

INTO URBAN DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

Hanoi, 15 December 2016

DOCUMENTATION REPORT

Table of Content

I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 3

II. VIETNAM URBAN GREEN GROWTH: CHALLENGES AND ACTIONS .............. 4

III. LOW EMISSION ORIENTED URBAN PLANNING .................................................. 5

IV. EXPERIENCE OF IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIC PLANNING APPROACHES IN

VIETNAMESE CITIES............................................................................................................. 5

V. SPEECH OF DR. NGUYEN QUANG, HABITAT PROGRAMME MANAGER ..... 10

VI. GROUP DISCUSSION ................................................................................................ 12

I. INTRODUCTION

Presenter: Dr Hung – VLED Project Coordinator

Project background

Objectives of the event

UN-Habitat cooperates with the Urban Development Agency (Ministry of Construction) to

organize the Good Practice Exchange on “Integration of green growth and low emission

into urban development planning” on 15 December 2016 in Hanoi. The workshop aims to

create spaces for cities to share their experience on green growth-low emission oriented

policy development and implementation, then identify cities’ need, challenges, opportunities

and resources to implement those strategies effectively, with support from Central authority,

ministries and development partners.

II. VIETNAM URBAN GREEN GROWTH: CHALLENGES AND ACTIONS

A presentation by Urban Development Agency, Ministry of Construction

1. Urbanization Scenario in Viet Nam: 795 cities, in which 2 special cities and 17 type I

cities are the ones that have highest emission possibility.

2. National Green Growth Strategy (Decision No 1393/QD-TTg dated Sept. 25, 2012 )

and National Green Growth Action Plan (Decision No 403/QD-TTg dated March 20,

2014) show the strong national efforts on green growth and low emission development.

- Urban Development Agency has cooperated with UNHABITAT in many initiatives

such as projects in Danang or Tam Ky city, with an aim to introduce green growth city

models to Vietnam.

3. Urban Green Growth Challenges:

- Climate Change -How to Take the Opportunity to Reform? Adaptive? Resilient?

- Infrastructure and Connection Linkage? Logistic Effectiveness?

- Urban Morphology?

- Urban Upgrading and Development? Inclusiveness

4. Urban Green Growth Actions

- In January 2017: Ministry of Construction is projected to issue a circular prescribing

sets of indicators for urban green growth as well as implementation guidance.

- In 2017, Ministry of Construction plans to submit Vietnam Urban green growth Plan to

the Government.

- Vietnamese Government plans to issue Law on urban development.

5. Partnership and Collaboration

- Identify 5 implementation steps:

(1) Developing of Urban Green Growth Strategic Framework and Roadmap

(2) Identification of UUG Monitoring and Implementation Indicators

(3) Preparation of UUG Guidelines and Best Practice Analysis

(4) Training and Capacity Building

(5) Prioritized Investment

- Vietnam Urban Development Agency shows strong efforts and commitment in

collaborating with international partners towards green growth and low emission

development.

III. LOW EMISSION ORIENTED URBAN PLANNING

A presentation by Ms. Laids Mias Cea, Regional Coordinator, CCCI Asia

Pacific, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)

1. Background on low emission oriented urban development

- The effects of urbanization and climate change are converging in dangerous ways that

makes cities and towns heavily vulnerable to climate change.

- Urban planning should manage both “mitigation” and “adaptation” to achieve resilient

and sustainable urban development.

- Urban planning should carefully analyze sourses of GHG by sectors when integrating

green growth and low emission development.

2. Experience and Practice on local actions on climate change in cities/towns

- 6 steps in key local level processes

- GHG emissions are influenced by decisions made at all scales. Low emission strategy

may be achieved through (1) Improved spatial plan and (2) Improved sector plan and

design

- Case study: (1) Retrofitting of buildings Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; (2) Clean development

mechanism pilot project in Khayelitsha Township, Cape Town; (3) Sorsogon City Case

– Energy and transport efficiency project (small scale).

IV. EXPERIENCE OF IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIC PLANNING

APPROACHES IN VIETNAMESE CITIES

Da Nang city’s experience in realizing green growth and low emissions goals

A presentation by Dr. Nguyen Phu Thai,

Director General, Danang Institute for

Socio-Economic Development (DISED)

1. Concept of Green

Growth Path

Danang recognize the concept of Green

Growth in the broad sense: Not only

controls and prevents environmental

pollution but also aims to preserve natural

resources, creates new sources of

renewable energy; Not only ensures clean

environment but aims to reduce the

impacts and adapt to climate change; Not

only grows on the basis of economic-cost

trade off, but also aims to green, eco-friendly technologies; Not only increases the

income but also narrows the wealth gap.

Dr. Nguyen Phu Thai is giving the presentation.

Photo by UN-Habitat.

2. Towards Green Growth

Although Danang has yet built a concrete action plan following the National Green

Growth Action Plan, almost its planning policies are green growth oriented.

- In every of its 5 breakthroughs, there is a specific action plan towards green growth.

- In every adjustment of the general planning, the city puts concrete criteria of green

growth.

- Green growth oriented economic structure transition: larger division of tourism and

service.

- Research to construct a visionary City Development Strategy: (1) have more pilot

projects of green growth and low emission development; (2) recognize the core city of

Dang as the old city center as well as building new urban areas; (3) establish the

transportation linkage between cities, serving an aim to develop Danang to become an

economic, transport and logistics center of the region.

- Resources and environment: (1) Decision on “Developing City of Danang – City of

environment” in 2008, (2) Experimenting project with the support from JICA: Turn

sludge into compost, (3) Plan of mutual cooperation and assistance between Danang city

and Quang Nam province on water security, (4) Biodiversity preservation on Son Tra

peninsula: Danang has chosen the red-shanked douc langur as its mascot.

- Trade: Green growth by developing clean and organic food, to create trade opportunities.

- Transportation: Raise the issue of underground transportation system; Have parking lot

planning; Recommend study on policies to restrict personal vehicles; Provide 5 free new

bus routes for all passengers.

- Energy: Implement the project of “Energy saving and Application of renewable energy in

the period 2011-2015”

- Climate change response: Danang announced the Climate Change Resistance Strategy

which focuses on storm-resistant houses and micro-finance insurance.

3. Conclusion:

- Review lessons learned: (1) lack of vision planning and (2) lack of public private

partnership.

- List a number of concrete strategies and steps to show strong commitment and efforts of

Danang in the coming time towards green growth and low emission development.

4. Q&A

- Question 1: In 2010 when we audited, the city’s lighting bill was 22.5 billion of

Vietnamese dong. In your presentation, you mentioned the lighting bill of Danang was

10 billion of Vietnamese dong per year. I would like to ask which year does this figure

belong to? If the figure was of recent years, this would be a very encouraging result.

- Answer: Yes, this is the data of 2 years ago. Lighting is both to serve the needs of local

residents and to contribute to the promotion and development of tourism of Danang. The

city has innovated to use the nano-technology in lighting in recent years, which sharply

reduced the lighting cost to only around 10 billion per year.

Tam Ky City towards green growth and climate change resilience

A presentation by Mr. Nguyen Minh Nam, Vice Chairman of Tam Ky City People’s

Committee (Vice Mayor)

1. SWOT analysis for Tam Ky’s green city

construction

2. Vision to 2050: Green capital city –

Implementation of sustainable

development and green growth strategy,

with the following strategic missions:

- Create an urban environment with

linkage between educational centers and

businesses

- Develop industrial zone

- Enhance dynamic and attractiveness of

city center

- Preserve agricultural production zone and natural green area

- Preserve and promote water and mountain space

- Develop sustainable agriculture – forestry – aquaculture, disaster prevention and climate

change resilience

- Promote safety therapy combined with waterway transport

- Construct city symbiosis with mountain, sea, lake and river environment

- Develop symbiosis with mountain, sea, lake, and river environment

- Strengthen cultural eco-tourism development

3. Q&A

a. A comment from a representative of Vietnam Association of Architects:

Tam Ky is a small city with beautiful natural assets. So, preserving its precious nature

and overcoming the urbanization traps are also reducing emissions effectively. I’m

impressed by the positive and concrete green growth plan of the city. I hope that Tam Ky

will successfully implement these strategies to become a green city, serving as a good

example for other urban areas on their paths towards green growth and low emission

development.

b. A question from Ms. Laids Mias Cea: Thank you for your presentation. It shows a lot in

terms of your strategies and plans, and it shows a lot of emission deduction potentials. I

Tam Ky City Vice Chairman Mr Nguyen Minh Nam is giving the

presentation. Photo by UN-Habitat.

just wonder if you already have a GHG profile or a base-line? I’m asking because there

might be good opportunities to bring in innovative technology that could help you

implement this strategy, but without the baseline perhaps it’s going to be more difficult to

measure what practical actions can be done.

- Answer from Mr. Nam: As I have just presented, Tam Ky proposed to the Government to

institutionalize green growth indicators. Regarding the emission issues, the city has only

conducted researches at a narrow scale, so we have not had the green-house gas emission

baseline.

c. Comment from Ms. Vu Thi Kim Thoa, Chief of Party, Vietnam Clean Energy Program

(VCEP), Winrock International.

Within our working program with the

Ministry of Construction, we have a

component of calculating the emission

baseline, in collaboration with Urban

Development Agency and Technical

Infrastructure Agency. There are many

indicators in urban emissions. Among

them, emissions from urban

infrastructure system, particularly

emission baseline from more than 600

landfills from all provinces is calculated

by Ministry of Construction. We have the data from Quang Nam province, so I’m sure

that the data from Tam Ky city under Quang Nam province is also available. In addition

to waste emission baseline, we can now calculate the emission baseline of water supply,

waste water and urban lighting. The data of urban lighting is limited to only 32 cities, and

unfortunately I cannot check right now whether Tam Ky’s urban lighting emission data is

available or not. All in all, currently Ministry of Construction owns both the means and

experts to be able to calculate the baseline. In the next 2 months, Ministry of

Construction is projected to report about the emission baseline to the Ministry of

Planning and Investment and Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Can Tho City: Integration of green growth and low emission into urban planning

Presenter: Mr. Huynh Van Sau - Deputy Director of Can Tho City's Department of

Construction

1. Introduction of Can Tho city and its implementation of the National Green Growth

Strategy

- Can Tho is a central city of Mekong Delta. Can Tho is the region’s focal point in term of

infrastructure (social and technical), with strong education, health, service, trade and

Ms. Vu Thi Kim Thoa, Winrock International. Photo by UN-Habitat

tourism system serving for the whole region. In addition, Can Tho is the regional

transportation focal point, a trade gateway of region to the whole country and

surrounding areas.

- The City People’s Committee has organized and realized it in Decision 22/KH-UBND

dated 26 December 2013 by City People’s Committee on implementation of “National

Target on Green Growth in 2011-2020 period, vision to 2050” (Decision 22/KH-UBND)

and Decision 45/KH-UBND dated 12 May 2014 by City People’s Committee on

implementation of “National target on Green growth in 2014-2020 period in Can Tho

city” (Decision 45/KHUBND). In addition, the economic restructuring projects has also

been issued and put in program since 2013.

- Can Tho’s general plan has identified sustainable development based on local

characteristics and conditions as the main perspective; Climate change adaptation,

including reduction of flooding and sea level rise impacts; development in spatial relation

with Mekong Delta…While institutionalization of green growth strategies and actions,

Can Tho city also has the advantage regarding timely approach on overall plan concepts

and outputs.

2. Can Tho’s future strategic plan towards green growth

There are necessary steps to change people’s awareness to create spreading effects,

starting from improve regional and local human resource:

- Provide in-depth training to change the awareness of both policy makers, managers and

practitioners, and potential human resource from institutes and universities, together

with businesses and local people (Can Tho is a regional training center with traditional

and qualified facilities)

- Investment on the sector using innovative technology, allocating large proportion of

Central government support to economic restructuring (not only for research, but also

to attract new technological application).

- Be creative when implementing green growth and low emission integrated plan. To

issue practical policies and mechanism to encourage the implementation at each level.

3. Documentary film presentation:

(1) Ninh Kieu pedestrian bridge and clean river provide new vitality for the city

(2) Can Tho’s community-based tourism development

4. Further contribution to challenges and urban development orientation of Can Tho City –

presented by Madame Vo Thi Hong Anh, Vice Chairwoman of City People’s Committee

Can Tho has many traditional cultural

values. Thus, urban planning should pay

careful attention to preserve these

precious assets, such as Ninh Kieu quay,

Con Son, Cai Be floating market, etc.

Can Tho is severely influenced by

climate change impacts such as

salinization, low sediment, erratic rain.

Thus, the city’s development planning

should carefully manage the mitigation

and adaptation of climate change,

turning challenges into opportunities.

- Can Tho’s transportation linkage to Ho Chi Minh City is very limited. There’s a strong

need to develop the proper technical infrastructure linkage with Ho Chi Minh city and

Mekong delta cities.

V. SPEECH OF DR. NGUYEN QUANG, HABITAT PROGRAMME MANAGER

Distinguished participants,

Thank you for your informative

presentations and discussion. Please allow me

to share some comments and thoughts on the

issue of Vietnam’s urban development.

Today we are here to discuss ways to

reduce greenhouse gas emission which is an

overall problem of the current urban

development. It is the fact that we are facing

new challenges of urbanization. But to have

“low emission development”, it does not mean

that we should reduce economic development,

but find ways to, at the same time, both reduce emission and bring prosperity and

sustainability for urban Vietnam.

Cities are the resource for national sustainable development. This issue has also been

raised in the Habitat III Conference that I attended in Quito, Ecuador on October 2016. The

year 2016 is an important milestone, as we start the implementation of 17 new MDGs which

were discussed and committed by nearly 200 state leaders all over the world, including

Vietnam. The Habitat III Conference pointed out that since the current urbanization rate is

over 50% around the world, there’s a new question arisen, that is, how to make urbanization

not a global problem but the solution to address other global problems such as climate

Madame Vo Thi Hong Anh. Photo by UN-Habitat.

Photo by UN-Habitat

Mr. Nguyen Quang, UN-Habitat Vietnam.

Photo by UN-Habitat

change, international security, economic crisis, lack of energy, and so on. The answer to that

question is Green Growth – to both reduce emissions and create a new boost to the economy.

I can take Korea as a good example, since the country encountered an economic crisis in

2007, but then followed innovative strategies to enter a new successful economic

development stage. So, I’m convinced that we should not recognize low emission

development or climate change as difficulties; but they should be viewed as opportunities for

us to create a new leap or a new change in the thinking towards economic development.

The Habitat III Conference produced a new agenda focusing on some essential points.

Fundamentally, it is necessary to have a national strategy on urban development issues.

Currently Vietnam Urban Development Agency - Ministry of Construction is responsible for

constructing the urban development strategy, with major supports from UN-Habitat and

Asian Development Bank. In my opinion, this national strategy needs essential commitment

at the central government level, which means that it should be linked to the national

development strategies and assigned official resources for development.

There are there most important urban issues raised at the global conference that Vietnam

also puts much interest in. The first is urban planning: how to construct a visionary and

consistent urban planning to serve as the direction and control tool, as well as enabling

conditions for comprehensive and non-conflicting infrastructure development. It will also be

a good base to call on resources from all other stakeholders. Currently there are some

interesting models such as TOD development or “compact cities” - cities with a certain level

of compression for the most effective land use. Secondly, it is the issue of urban law and

regulations. Without appropriate regulations on urban development, it will lead to major

informal activities or environmental destruction activities. Thirdly, urban financing should be

taken into serious account. Government should develop an urban financial system so that

cities can have autonomy on building their resources. It means that there’s a need for

institutional reform which will give cities new dynamic tools to develop their own resources.

For example, urban development companies under the local government can actively exploit

the land fund to build and provide infrastructure. These are the most basic contents of the

Habitat III conference which were discussed not only at national but at the global level.

Green growth and Low emission development were addressed at Habitat III conference

with specific examples, such as public space. I’m very pleased to see that the issue of public

space has received much greater attention from Vietnamese cities, since this is the place to

nurture new ideas and create a lot of added value added for the cities. For example, Can Tho

city has renovated its Ninh Kieu Bridge with new dynamics, which also brought added value

to the land. Tam Ky city is now building more public spaces and green trees to develop

tourism; and particularly the project of Tam Thanh Mural Village with the support from UN-

Habitat has brought new vitality to the city’s tourism development. In Da Nang city, there’s a

project of constructing City Development Strategy towards green growth, supported by UN-

Habitat and Sungkyuwan university. I’m convinced that with the commitment of the city and

support from international partners, we will learn a lot from development process to

methodology, in order to exploit the social assets and underlying value of the city for

sustainable development.

All in all, the objective of the workshop is to create a platform for cities to share

experiences and discuss both challenges and opportunities in order to find essential solutions

and decide better changes for our cities and country towards a prosperous and sustainable

direction. On behalf of UN-Habitat, I would like to thank you for your enthusiastic

participation in the workshop so far, and hope that we will collect further fruitful results in

the coming discussion session.

VI. GROUP DISCUSSION

1. Discussion rules:

- Divide participants into 3 groups by counting off 1 to 3

- Group discussion to answer the questions on the poster

- Use the words/phrases prepared in advance, then write additional answers in blank.

Arrange answers according to priorities

- Assign someone who will be the group leader. The leader will stay on to discuss with

other groups when they visit the group when the facilitator asks groups to rotate.

- Run rotation, other groups will provide more inputs

2. Questions:

- What are the challenges and opportunities in pursuing LED actions for small and

medium size cities?

- Why green growth and low emission oriented urban planning and development?

(motivation, opportunities, relevance)

- How can city level skills and capacities be supported to be able to pursue GG-LED

Actions?

3. Answers

1. What are the challenges and opportunities in pursuing LED actions for small and

medium size cities?

a. Opportunities:

- Learn from international experience

- Go and learn from experience abroad

- Access external climate change funding

support

b. Challenges

- Compliance to laws and policy

- No financial resources and funding

- Lack of personnel/ technical support

- City government and leaders are already

- Support local economic development

- Encourage private sector investment at

the city level

- Improve air quality

- Leaders’ interest on the topic

- Construct more infrastructure (roads,

bridges, etc)

- Improve people’s mobility

- Improve safety and security

- Look exciting to transform my city

- Contribute to Poverty reduction

- To be consistent with provincial targets

- To plan new city extension area

- Promote disaster risk reduction and

management

- Economic viability

- Energy efficient building and housing

- Land readjustment

- Improve public transport

- Guide on LED for local leaders

busy with many tasks

- Lack of support from national

government agencies

- Limited knowledge on LED option to

take

- It’s just an additional tasks

- It’s not mandatory so we are not required

- Develop GHG Baseline data/ profile

- Limited sociological survey inputs for

urban planning

- Lack of international connection and

commitment

- Lack of regional connection

- Trend of imposing subjectivity

- Problematic existing urban planning

- No financing authority related to GG-

LED

2. Why green growth and low emission oriented urban planning and development?

(motivation, opportunities, relevance)

- Improve people’s mobility

- Improve public transport

- Promote environmental sustainability

- Follow what national government wants to do

- To be consistent with national government targets

- Make a model city

- Energy efficiency

- Develop GHG baseline data/profile

- Looks exciting to transform my city

- Promote Disaster risk reduction and management

- Access government funding for GG-LED activities and investments

- Have feasible and sustainable urban planning

3. How can city level skills and capacities be supported to be able to pursue GG-LED

Actions?

a. Policies

- Dialogue on City and Sub-national

roles in NDC or Paris Agreement

implementation in Vietnam

- National policy and regulations on

GG-LED

- Improve coordination with the

provincial authorities

- Urban financing authority

- Specific and precise urban policy

- Improve implementation of VGGS

- Policy advocacy

- Management tool: set of indicators on

GG-LED

- Participatory approach

- Amendment of existing policies and

regulations

b. Partnership

- Direct partnerships between city and

development partners

- Technical advisory

- Consultancies

- Joint proposal development

c. Training/ workshop topics

- Training on Planning LED Actions

- Training on Urban development and

Climate change

- Training/Seminar on Adaptation and

Mitigation Nexus

- Knowledge on the INDC

- Cash in from Waste to Energy

- Training on Project proposal

development

d. Resources

- Expertise

- Funds

- Natural assets

- Facilities

4. Photo

Discussion results of Group 1. Photo by UN-Habitat

Discussion results of Group 2. Photo by UN-Habitat

Discussion results of Group 3. Photo by UN-Habitat