CUI in Cuba

   

 

About the project

In Cuba, CUI is implementing the Cuba Urban Partnerships Program (C-UPP). C-UPP consists of four interrelated projects:

• Capacity Building in Sustainable Urbanization project contributes to the sustainable urban development in the cities of Bayamo, Holguin, Santa Clara and Cienfuegos. It provides training for staff of the Physical Planning System in planning, management and public engagement.

• Environmental Health and Urban Sustainability project assists Cuba to integrate environmental health considerations into local development planning and municipal management.

• Strategy for the Environmental Restoration of the Bayamo River project supports the creation of a participatory local development strategy to clean the polluted urban span of the Bayamo River, to revitalize the public green spaces and recreational facilities in the vicinity of the river’s edge, to improve urban mobility around the city and access to the river, and to adopt and implement technologies for improving the handling of waste water.

• Disaster Recovery and Food Security in Río Cauto Municipality project supported Rio Cauto to recover from the destruction of Tropical Storm Noel. Funded through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, the project assisted to improve the municipality’s disaster risk reduction program and to develop improved food security systems and evacuation facilities for future disaster events.
 

Project Partners

• Instituto de Planificación Fisica (Institute for Physical Planning);
• Unidad Nacional de Salud Ambiental (National Environmental Health Unit);
• Ministerio de Comercio Exterior e Inversión Extranjera (Cuban Ministry for Foreign Trade and Investment); and
• Cuidad de Bayamo (City of Bayamo).
• The program also cooperates with Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de La Naturaleza y el Hombre (The Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity) 
 

Country Context

The economic transformation and recovery underway in Cuba today is presenting new governance opportunities and challenges for the country’s local governments and their agencies, particularly in land-use planning for cities and their regions and communities. The increasing complexity of local issues in Cuba is demanding a collaborative planning process – one that serves both as a social-learning exercise and as a consensus-building mechanism among different communities and institutions. There is growing understanding in Cuba’s planning profession of the need to balance the ‘three Es’ of sustainability – economy, equity and environment – in the pursuit of improved quality of life in cities. The new participatory and collaborative approaches to planning emerging out of the Local Agenda 21 are also beginning to influence new thinking and practice on bio-regional approaches to ‘sustainable development planning’.
 

For More Information

Key Contact
Rafael Betancourt
Regional Manager
Tel: 53-7-830-2291
Email: rbetancourt@enet.cu

 

 

    

Project undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Projet réalisé avec l'appui financier du gouvernement du Canada accordé par l'entremise de l'Agence canadienne de développement international (ACDI).