Green Plus Issu 14

Resilient Cities Asia — Pacific 2016 Congress
Melaka host
IMT-GT meeting
GCAP being implemented in Melaka and Songkhla, and soon in Medan and Batam
THE Indonesia-Malaysia-
Thailand Growth Triangle
is a sub-regional economic
cooperation program
aimed at spurring economic
development in
participating provinces and States in the three
countries.
The IMT-GT focuses on enhancing trade and
investment opportunities, tourism, strengthening
infra¬structure links and institutional
arrangements, amongst others, to achieve a
vision of “a seamless, progressive, prosperous
and peaceful subregion with improved quality
of life.”
The 9thIMT-GT Chief Ministers and
Governors Forum (CMGF) held in early
September 2012 proposed to pursue a new
initiative for Green Cities in IMT-GT. The
proposal was deliberated and supported by
IMT-GT Ministers during the 18th IMT-GT,
Ministerial Meeting held at Port Dickson on
Sept 27, 2012.
The IMT-GT requested the ADB to further
elaborate on the proposed concept of urban
sustainable urban development, which could
be applied in the subregion and potentially to
other Member States of ASEAN, linking with
ASEAN’s larger effort in developing sustainable
cities.
In this regard, the ADB agreed to assist the
cities of Melaka (in Malaysia), Songkhla (in
Thailand), Medan and Batam (in Indonesia) to
develop a comprehensive green city action plan
(GCAP). The action plan takes into account
existing Green City frameworks, development
master plans, and planned anchor projects to
identify potential actions and projects that will
support these communities to become models
of urban sustainability.
Melaka has prepared the first GCAP as part
of this initiative and will set an example that
will be emulated by other cities within the
subregion.
The IMT-GT Green Cities Initiatives was
formally endorsed by the 7th IMT-GT Summit
on April 25, 2013 in Brunei, where the leaders
also welcomed the designation of Melaka,
Songkhla and Medan, as the first three priority
cities participating in this initiative.
The 9thIMT-GT Summit on April 28, 2015
in Langkawi applauded the initiative on the
Green Cities Action Plan (GCAP) being
implemented in Melaka and Songkhla, and
soon to be implemented in Medan and Batam.
The leaders have emphasised the need for
continued individual and collective actions to
mitigate environmental impacts, including the
increasing risks posed by climate change.
The leaders have directed IMT-GT to scale
up successful GCAP models, and work towards
developing a Sustainable Urban Development
Framework for IMT-GT cities. The implementation
of the action plans under this subregional
framework could open new investment
opportunities, with the private sector to bring
in financing, technical knowledge and innovation
to this process.
Further to the Summit directive the
12thChief Ministers and Governors Forum
(CMGF) in Alor Setar have endorsed the Joint
proposal by CIMT, ICLEI and ADB to establish
the IMT-GT Green Council to oversee
the establishment and the implementation
of SUD. CMGF also agreed with the suggestion
by Melaka to host the 1st IMT-GT Green
Council Meeting on Mar 1, 2015 back to back
with 2nd Resilient City Asia Pacific Congress
(RCAP).