News & blogs
Featuring voices from cities, experts, and partners, these stories of innovation and impact are drawn from across the GPSC’s global network. News and blogs showcase progress, lessons, and thought leadership on sustainable urban development.
Featured blogs
The Wetland Advantage: Nature-Based Solutions Power Rwanda’s Urban Future
STORY HIGHLIGHTS Kigali is bringing nearly 500 hectares of urban wetlands back to life—the largest city-wide urban wetland rehabilitation in Africa and one of the largest in the world. This “living infrastructure” has new spaces for tourism, education and recreation, improves water quality and biodiversity, and enhances the usability of adjacent land while bolstering the city’s frontline defense against floods. Through RUDPII, 220,500 people in flood-prone neighborhoods will directly benefit from reduced flooding and a healthier environment. That’s roughly a
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Transforming our cities: a collective path to sustainability
What do sustainable cities mean to you? For many, it is about more than just green spaces and clean air. Sustainable cities are the nexus where innovative solutions converge to create resilient communities, fostering a delicate balance between economic prosperity, ecological integrity, and social equity. With urban sprawl encroaching upon natural habitats and climate change-induced disasters becoming more frequent, which pose threats to ecosystems, biodiversity, human health, and overall well-being, the need for building sustainable cities has never been more
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Why Should Asset Managers Care About Biodiversity?
Biodiversity loss is set to significantly disrupt the world economy over the next decade. Despite the data and engagement challenges ahead, systematic and discretionary portfolio managers should not be deterred. 1. Introduction In the final days of 2022, a historic UN agreement on protecting nature was reached in Montreal at COP15. 1 Nearly 200 countries signed up for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a deal designed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Among the four goals and 23
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Featured news
Inception Workshop Launches Sustainable City Project in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region
The inception workshop for the Sustainable City Project for the Coordinated Development of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) Region marked the formal launch of an ambitious initiative under the GEF-8 Sustainable Cities Integrated Program (SCIP) . Jointly organized by UNIDO and the China Society of Automotive Engineers, the event brought together approximately 100 representatives from national ministries, municipal governments, international organizations, and technical institutions to align on a shared vision for low-carbon, resilient urban development. Participants included the Ministry of Finance, serving
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The World Bank and the GEF launch next phase of Sustainable Cities Integrated Program
The World Bank and the GEF expand support to 40 additional cities with targeted grants and co-financing pathways to drive sustainable urban development Mayors and city leaders from 23 cities met in Rio de Janeiro ahead of COP30 alongside representatives from major multilateral development banks to launch the next phase of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Sustainable Cities Integrated Program. “Cities are at the forefront of sustainability, leadership and innovation,” said GEF CEO Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, opening the event. “Complex
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Previously in this blog series, we flagged the need to embed road safety systematically in a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) project within a five step TOD
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Did you know that in 2004 in Colombia, the Mayor's Office of Medellín inaugurated "Metrocable", the first cable car in Latin America (and the world) that
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Every day, the world awakens to news of another heatwave, flood, drought, tropical cyclone, wildfire, or other climate-induced natural hazard. The new report by
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Imagine a city with safe roads, where people and traffic mix make for streets that are healthy, green, and liveable. A city that can finance improvements to
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The World Bank’s webinar series “Bringing Nature to Cities: Integrated Urban Solutions to Biodiversity Loss and Climate Change” promotes integrated urban
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Integrated programming was a key component of the GEF-6 replenishment cycle and a priority for implementation of the GEF 2020 strategy. The focus was on
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The recent flood events in China’s Henan Province and parts of Europe are a poignant reminder of the power of water and its devastating impacts. Floods are
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This project is helping to move China’s emerging megacities off of a high-polluting car-oriented trajectory by applying eight low carbon design principles
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A first-of-its-kind World Bank analysis, of the shape and growth of nearly 10,000 cities between 1990 and 2015, finds that the most successful urban areas are
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Overview Cities are on the frontlines of the global climate emergency. Although cities occupy only 2% of land area, they consume over two-thirds of the world’s
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