The municipality of Francisco Morato (Brazil), a signatory of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, has delivered the final report with recommendations from the Citizen Assembly for Climate to address the city’s climate guidelines. Forty residents represented the population and participated in developing a report with public policy suggestions during October and November, which was formally submitted to the municipal administration. The event took place on November 30.
The meetings of the Citizen Assembly held in the last semester featured experts to provide the residents with information on the city’s chosen priority topic: accessible basic sanitation for all through waste management. The final report was based on five blocks of recommendations:
- Civil Construction Waste (CCW) Benefit Plant;
- CCW Disposal/Transfer Site;
- CCW Collection/Transport/Logistics Service;
- Selective Collection/Recycling;
- Inspection/Penalties/Incentives.
The report addressed issues such as the allowable amount of waste disposal per resident, the regulation of waste collectors/recyclers’ services, and the importance of ensuring dignity for selective collection/recycling workers by bringing them out of informality.
Mayor Renata Sene proudly stated that the municipality is fertile ground for skilled people. “Our city has a unique ability to bring light and give voice to the population. We need to observe what is happening in our territory to help protect people because those most affected are families in situations of social vulnerability. The Citizen Assembly for Climate was historic: we will not reap these fruits in six months or a year; we will change a generation,” she celebrated. The mayor also recalled that Francisco Morato passed a Municipal Law to establish the 2030 Agenda.
Councilor Professor Agnaldo Vidali highlighted the effective participation of the population in the Assembly. “When we talk about the relationship of sustainability, we talk about a tripod economy: income generation, social inclusion, and environmental preservation. We understand that if we do not have one of these points, we cannot fully implement sustainability.”
The Citizen Assembly of Francisco Morato was made possible through a partnership with ICLEI South America, the Delibera Brasil Collective, and the Parliament School. The selection of participating residents considered the representation of ethnicities, genders, ages, and places of residence in the city.
The Mayor Participated in the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week (LACCW) by Invitation of the GCoM
During the participation in the United Nations’ Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week, held from July 18 to 22 in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Renata Sene, the mayor of Francisco Morato (Brazil), presented the reality of the municipality, which has nineteen thousand families in extreme poverty, totaling 48 thousand citizens. During the session on financing mechanisms to boost climate action in cities, organized by the Global Covenant of Mayors, the mayor emphasized that the city’s disordered growth has led people to geographically risky and vulnerable areas to the effects of climate change. “Our city has many hills, and this is a local challenge,” Sene emphasized, showing images of landslides and flooded valleys.
The event also included the participation of the mayors of Camilo Aldao (Argentina), Carlos Carignano, and the risk management officer, Ariel Antonio Ventura, from the municipality of Santo Domingo Norte (Dominican Republic), all signatories of GCoM.
In 2020, the City of Francisco Morato Developed the Municipal Risk Reduction Plan (MRRP)
The plan aimed to combat the causes and minimize the effects of climate change. It identified 91 areas at risk and flood indications distributed across 163 sectors. Based on these data, the city created the Morato Protects program, which aims to develop, through integrated, continuous, and sustainable actions, the capacity to face and be resilient to climate change, ensuring social security and housing for communities living in risk areas. The biggest challenge pointed out by the mayor is the protection and containment of slopes in risk areas. To address this, the strategic objective is to restructure spaces (territories) affected by climate change impacts and thus create safe settlements.
The Municipality Also Joined ICLEI
Francisco Morato joined the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy in April of this year. The city stands out for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Brazil. Through the strategy ‘Inclusive and Sustainable Morato,’ the municipality is working on developing the Municipal Program for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to create institutional governance and monitoring mechanisms for implementing the SDGs.
During the November 30 Conference for Feedback from the Executive and Legislative to the Citizen Assembly for Climate of Francisco Morato, the municipality signed the term of adherence to ICLEI. The city will be one of the thirty selected to receive support for resilience actions.
Watch the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ASqa_vxhk
