SPECIAL PROJECTS
CIFAL – Curitiba
Training facilities for local authorities from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Portuguese speaking countries of Africa (Guiné-Bissau, Green Cape, Angola, Mozambique, Saint Tome and Prince)
Sustainable Cities for a Sustainable World
Curitiba was chosen by the UN to be the headquarters of Cifal, a UNITAR/UN training program for local authorities from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Portuguese speaking countries of Africa (Guiné-Bissau, Green Cape, Angola, Mozambique, Saint Tome and Prince) in sustainable urban management.
The initiative is a partnership among the United Nations Institute for Research and Training – Unitar, Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente (Unilivre), and the City Hall of Curitiba, and the goal is to be recognized as a center of excellence in the training of local authorities who are searching for a sustainable growth.
Cifal-Curitiba is the 12th unit in the world. There are other centers in Plock (Poland), Lyon (France), Bilbao (Spain), Atlanta (USA), Xangai (China), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, and Divonneles-Bain, at the border between France and Switzerland.
Curitiba was chosen as CIFAL representative because of the successful results in urban planning experiences in the city.
CIFAL-Curitiba as a nucleus for training for Latin America and the Caribbean is an open forum for all cities to present and share solutions in favor of their inhabitants, turning into practices the goals of the UN Millennium Declaration.
CIFAL-Curitiba goals are the promotion of learning, share knowledge and experiences as essential mechanisms in the fight for the improvement of quality of life and the reduction of poverty all over the world, maintaining a global work encompassing governments, the society as a whole, multilateral organizations, and the private sector, having as a fundamental goal the sustainable development and the improvement of conditions of life for all citizens.
Mission
To promote with competence and enthusiasm the exchange of experiences among Latin American cities and the Caribbean about sustainable urban development within the context of the new society of the information.
CIFAL Objectives
• To increase and build the existing competence of local governments, equipping them with understanding, skills, and access to information, to knowledge, and to training in the many issues related to urban and global environmental management.
• To provide space for the interchange of information and know-how, both practical and solid, about environmental issues, mainly about urban environmental issues and essential services.
• To provide opportunities for the cities / organizations identified as centers of excellence to share their knowledge and experience.
• To give local government opportunities to meet with adequate partners for a more complete city-to-city projects of decentralized cooperation, and also various forms of interchange.
Goals
• Training in sustainable urbanization and access to essential services.
• National and international events related to the roles of authorities in the level of global and local targets of sustainable development.
• Development of a regional platform for city-city, south-south cooperation, aiming at providing encouragement for the sustainability of these cities.
For this, Cifal-Curitiba has been working and improving itself to attain:
• A better understanding of local issues, causes, and effects, problems and solutions.
• Technical know-how and administrative knowledge that warrants access to essential services at the city.
• Many cooperation agreements city-city for deeper technical management interchange among cities with resources and receivers.
• The inclusion of strategies for the development that contain economic, social, cultural and environmental dimensions.
• Training local authorities – both at regional and international levels – to guarantee equal access to essential services through partnerships public-private.
The Seven Principles of the Sustainable City
1) To respect nature itself – Humans are part of an ecosystem and are not their owners. In order to keep such ecosystem stable, it is important not to waste resources and not producing garbage and pollution in quantities that can not be absorbed by natural systems.
2) To search for local self-sufficiency – It is necessary for cities to provide the biggest share of their needs using local resources and talents.
3) Universalize servicing basic needs – To make sure that everybody has access to safety, transport, health, education, housing, and to food.
4) To have a job as source of income and self-improvement – It is important for the construction of citizenship that everybody has the opportunity to work and to be proud of what they do.
5) Allow that different segments of the society can voice their opinion – Different social groups must have access and take part in the processes of decision.
6) To provide leisure and cultural activities – Everybody must have access to leisure and culture.
7) Supervise the parts without loosing touch with the whole – Planning and evaluation actions must be supported by indicators capable of measuring every important element for the sustainability, without loosing touch with the major important that has the harmony of the whole.
