Lineamientos hacia la Sustentabilidad Urbana

Action Implemented

Mexico's federal environmental sector developed a reference framework to facilitate the adoption of an integrated approach in the planning and management of cities, seeking to overcome the limitations derived from sectoral or political-administrative interventions that have been ineffective in containing and mitigating environmental deterioration and climate risk, to reach agreements on the steps to be taken to recover the ecological quality of cities.

Outcomes and Expected Impact

These guidelines were disseminated through on-site and virtual courses that provided the multiple participating actors with the tools to understand the conflict that prevented their progress towards integral and sustainable development. Based on this new comprehensive approach, cities made progress towards constructing a collective social conscience that favored the territory's social and environmental care.

Sustainability and Scalability

These guidelines have set a precedent on the concept of the city, leaving behind its consideration as a mere passive scenario and product of interventions that privilege short-term private interests, and approaching it as a public good that depends on and determines its local and global environment, which requires an integral and integrating approach.

Innovative and Cultural Aspects

The guidelines promote an understanding of the implications of decision-making at the local level based on an integrated model conceived for Mexican cities, seeking to overcome specific and short-term intersections to promote synergy and complementarity of efforts among actors, minimizing areas of conflict around the common interest and the adoption of agreements that respond to the particularities of each city.

Lessons Learned

The guidelines have opened up areas of opportunity not only in terms of training local human resources but have also made possible a change of paradigms in environmental and urban policies, traditionally dissociated, to integrate them into a joint Urban Environmental Agenda, indispensable to face the development challenges of our cities from this new reference of integrality.

Social Inclusion

The guidelines recognize different city stakeholders' interests, allowing a dialogue to find points of convergence around expected and long-term benefits for all. Their generalized application in different city typologies will allow for the inclusion of actors and promote strategic alliances around collective commitments under each city's particularities and moment.