“Climate Smart Urban Development Challenge”
2017 – 2021
“Climate Smart Urban Development Challenge” project will be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and financed by the Global Environment Facility, the Ministry and UNDP.
Project partners: EU Delegation to the Republic of Serbia, Government of Sweden, Government of Switzerland, as well as a number of national partners, such as Innovation Fund, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, etc.
The objective of this project is to identify and promote climate-smart solutions for mitigating climate change at the local level in the Republic of Serbia. To do so, the Project will formulate Challenges for identification and support of different ICT, technological solutions and business ideas that can be applied at the level of local self-governments to increase the share of “climate proof” public services. This could refer to: greater utilization of renewable energy resources, development of “smart grids”, increasing recycling rates and waste-to-energy, efficient public lighting, traffic flow optimization and increase of alternative transport modes, introducing sustainable ventilation and heating systems, energy efficiency in public buildings and households, etc. A Challenge will be in fact, to identify universal, affordable and sustainable solution that solves local problems, implement and sustain the solution in a situation, where the capacities and resources of city authorities to do so on their own are extremely limited. The project will contribute to the realization of national goals of the Republic of Serbia undertaken by ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as commitments arising out of the EU Accession process.
A call for ideas will be open for all those entities that can offer appropriate innovative solutions, including local self-governments, business sector, research and scientific community, CSO etc. The imperative will be that offered solutions are applicable at the municipal level and that they correspond to the real needs and priorities of local communities. The solutions should be related to specific sectors of significance to climate change mitigation (e.g. energy, transport, waste management, agriculture etc.). Project will be conducted through the staged approach, from the phase of “Ideation” – identification of the innovative ideas; through the phase of project concepts until the 3. phase of mature projects and their implementation and the 4. final award phase. The project will provide an “Incubator” to support technical and advisory services to all interested entities throughout each stage of the project implementation, from “ideation” towards transformation of ideas into mature projects.
The overall goal of the project is to provide support to municipalities in reducing their GHG emissions while at the same time creating enabling environment for climate resilient planning and development of municipalities. Eventually, this should improve the lives of ordinary citizens and secure sustainable local development.