In an emerging country like India, while the scale, speed and impact of urban and industrial development open up diverse opportunities, they also cause increase in demand leading to resource-tensions. The Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), through the Indo-German Environment Partnership (IGEP) programme assists the Indian Government in managing these developments to achieve resource efficiency and sustainable development.

IGEP aims to support the decision makers at national, state and local level to use innovative solutions for the improvement of urban and industrial environmental management and the development of an environment and climate policy focusing on inclusive economic growth de-coupled from resource consumption.

The programme cooperates with public and private sectors at the national, state and local levels, including the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Pollution Control Boards and NGOs, industry associations.

IGEP supports its partners in establishing sustainable solutions for environmental infrastructure in urban and industrial areas. It focuses on: (a) Up scalable pilot measures for sustainable urban and industrial environmental management and climate protection, and (b) Legal regulations and policy level initiatives on national, state and urban level that support the dissemination of innovative solutions for a sustainable environmental management.

IGEP’s thematic areas of work comprise:

Sustainable Urban Habitat focuses on financially sustainable and improved urban services in the field of municipal solid waste management in selected cities. By mainstreaming climate change into urban planning and development, it supports Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and the National Mission on Sustainable Habitats. It contributes to Government of India’s endeavour to improve urban habitats by making cities slum free (Rajiv Awas Yojna). Interventions in selected cities will be scaled up with the support of State Governments. Further, it assists urban, state and/or national level stakeholders in designing policies to achieve favourable framework conditions for the desired change processes.

Sustainable Industrial Development focuses on piloting and replicating financially sustainable environmental improvements in selected industrial areas in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat, and designing new industrial parks to serve as nation-wide models. It also focuses on planning of investment zones/industrial parks, waste and waste water management, environment-friendly techniques that will be implemented in identified industry sectors. Improvements on climate change and disaster risk management complements the advisory services provided to partners from the public and private sector.

Policy for Environment and Climate focuses on development and implementation of policy level actions related to urban and industrial development, like climate change, inclusive growth and Low Carbon Economy. It also supports the development of legal frameworks which can serve as a basis for environment-friendly regulations.
The following cross-cutting activities pervade all of the mentioned initiatives:

Capacity Building activities support training institutes in delivering effective training programme which help improve implementation capacities of the partners.

Climate Change activities focus on Clean Development Mechanism, Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, low carbon strategies, and climate change adaptation in coastal areas.

Gender Mainstreaming focuses on integrating gender into the planning and implementation of interventions in order to positively impact gender equality.

Read more: www.igep.org