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Belize chairs CIDI debate at the OAS headquarters

By on October 30, 2013

Belize’s ambassador to the United States and permanent representative to the OAS His Excellency Nestor Mendez this week chaired a debate on urban planning and the construction of cities and communities in greater harmony with the environment. 

The debate was sponsored by the Inter-American Council for Integral Development, an organ of the OAS. 

According to a press release from the OAS, Ambassador Mendez in introducing the debate, noted that the Americas is the most urbanized hemisphere in the world, which poses a huge challenge on the issue of sustainable cities. 

Ambassador Mendez is quoted as saying that “cities are responsible for as much as 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emission.The accelerated pace of urbanization is creating new forms of social and economic marginality that nurture crime and violence at epidemic levels.”

Ambassador Mendez also said that often cities “expand beyond their planned limits and official and informal systems that provide water, sewage, waste disposal, and other common services are overtaxed.”

In this regard, he highlighted examples of cities in the Hemisphere that have spearheaded efforts to meet the challenges of rapid urbanization, and cited the innovative sustainable transport initiative in Medellin, Colombia; the mobility project in Mexico City; initiatives to promote citizen involvement in the planning of projects in Honduras and Nicaragua; and the efforts of Barbados, Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago to reduce their carbon footprint, among others.

The panel on sustainable cities and communities in the Americas began with the presentation of Claudia Adriazola- Steil, Director of the Health and Road Safety Program at the World Resources Institute, who spoke of the impact of transport and urban development in public health, focusing on ways to improve traffic safety, air quality, physical activity and quality of life through sustainable mobility.

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