ASEAN ESC Model Cities Year 3 Mid-term Progress Report

This report provides an overview of the interim progress of implementing the ASEAN ESC Model Cities Year 3 (2016/17), commissioned by the ASEAN Secretariat and the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF). Since 2010, BRC and KUC have been at the forefront of promoting innovative ‘bottom-up’ actions by cities, through two initiatives (implemented jointly with the ASEAN Secretariat): (i) ASEAN ESC Model Cities Programme The Model Cities is presently in its 3rd phase (Year 3; launched in 2016), and has so far supported 40 cities in eight countries – Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. These Model Cities enlisted over 50,000 persons to pilot good practices and appropriate technologies/systems. In FY2016, Model Cities continued to expand their actions from the traditional topics such as solid waste management, water & sanitation, air pollution to emerging topics such as ‘local data revolution’, ‘green energy (i.e. small-scale solar)’, ‘Model Green Schools’, ‘Environmentally-friendly tourism’ and ‘urban resiliency’. In FY2016, the Model Cities programme was re-designed to strongly promote the localisation of the SDGs. For example, a series of national SDGs workshops were organised to raise awareness on the SDGs. Model Cities were encouraged to map their local actions to the 17 SDGs, especially with the use of quantitative indicators.