Learning from international experience in green and smart urban development

From December 12-14, the delegation of the People's Committee of Buon Ma Thuot city, Dak Lak province, led by Mr. Vu Van Hung, Chairman of the City People's Committee, visited and worked in France, to exchange with French and international partners on urban planning experiences towards green and sustainable goals, analyze challenges for urban development planning in the context of current climate change, as well as Vietnam's goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

The delegation had working sessions with representatives of the Paris City Planning Agency (APUR), the French Development Agency (AFD), the Center for Enterprises, Regions and Cities of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Embassy of Vietnam in France.

The delegation visited and worked with the Paris City Planning Agency.

According to VNA correspondent in Paris, in an exchange with French and OECD partners, Chairman of the City People's Committee Vu Van Hung introduced the socio-economic development situation of Buon Ma Thuot city as well as the plan to adjust the city's development planning in the next 5 years, aiming to build a green, smart and sustainable city. Proud of the city's 120-year history, he affirmed that Buon Ma Thuot is aiming to become the center of the Central Highlands, strengthen international cooperation and build the brand "Coffee City".

Speaking to the delegation, Mr. Olivier Richard, Director in charge of research and international relations of APUR, said that APUR was established in 1967, independent from the administrative agencies of Paris and has an Executive Board consisting of 29 state agencies and companies, including Paris City Hall, Greater Paris, French National Railway Company (SNCF)...

APUR operates independently, with four main tasks on two levels: the city of Paris and the Greater Paris: Strengthening understanding of the territory; Contributing to the city's development orientation through urban planning documents and projects of the city and the Greater Paris; Researching and analyzing the urban and social development process to serve the city's urban development and planning policies; Coordinating and creating consistency in the implementation of the Paris Greater Paris planning with participating parties.

With that specific nature, APUR representatives shared experiences in urban planning, lessons learned through the stages and challenges to maintain the city's attractiveness and livability in the context of climate change and global warming. For more than 20 years, Paris has been re-planned to adapt to climate change, focusing on reducing energy consumption, converting energy towards green energy, transforming the city on the old heritage by renovating buildings on the top two floors. In addition, Paris also has a planning policy to rebalance between the East and West of the city, between the center and the outskirts with policies to encourage and promote the construction of office buildings integrated with residential areas in the East.

In addition, to create social balance, the city also encourages the construction of low-cost, good-quality social housing through planning tools and licensing for housing projects in central areas. The city also re-plans traffic and public spaces, expands traffic areas for bicycles and pedestrians, and promotes greening projects to increase green areas in central areas.

The delegation visited and worked with the Paris City Planning Agency.

At the working session with the Buon Ma Thuot city delegation, AFD representatives discussed AFD's development capital support priorities for Vietnam in general in the coming period. Accordingly, AFD targets projects that help enhance resilience and adaptation to climate change. AFD highlighted the general context of Vietnam still in the urban development stage, cities have not reached saturation in urban development, are vulnerable to climate change, have ambitious development goals of carbon neutrality by 2050, shared experiences in implementing urban planning projects with localities in Vietnam, emphasizing that localities need to have a long-term strategic vision, integrated with the goal of combating climate change, increasing the ability to adapt to future risks in accordance with the economic development context of the city.

On the OECD side, the representative of the Center for Enterprises, Regions and Cities of this organization welcomed the city delegation to discuss with OECD experts and introduced the OECD Program on Smart Cities and Sustainable Development, with 3 main objectives: Redefining the concept of "Smart City", Measuring the effectiveness of smart cities, the results of technology application, Building policy recommendations for the government on smart and sustainable city development. During the exchange, the two sides shared about the necessity of people's participation and consensus in digital transformation projects of cities, the major challenges of digital transformation in the current context.

The OECD representative emphasized three major challenges: The gap in Internet access due to differences in the speed of digital infrastructure development; The problem of digital media usage capacity: how to help low-capacity groups access and use digital technology, increase the effectiveness of digital technology for different groups of people, in small and medium-sized cities; Cyber ​​safety and security: the issue of personal information security and security concerns are also problems that hinder the digital transformation process in cities. Cities must develop data management capacity.

In addition, the OECD representative also highlighted the challenge of combining digital transformation and ecological transformation. Accordingly, digital transformation can contribute to promoting ecological transformation with new technologies that help save energy and digital traffic. However, digital transformation infrastructure also creates challenges for ecological transformation because it consumes a lot of energy. This raises the issue of developing renewable energy to supply electricity for digital infrastructure operations.

Delegation of Buon Ma Thuot City visited and worked with the Vietnamese Embassy in France.

At the end of the visit and work in France, the delegation of Buon Ma Thuot City People's Committee had a meeting to discuss the results of the work with the Vietnamese Embassy in France, expressing the hope that the Embassy will continue to support the city in international cooperation and build and promote the brand "Coffee City" of the world.

According to Ngoc Hiep (Vietnam News Agency)

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Source: https://thoidai.com.vn/hoc-hoi-kinh-nghiem-quoc-te-trong-phat-trien-do-thi-xanh-va-thong-minh-208587.html