ICLEI UPDATE

Current ICLEI activities – the decade-long CCP Australia program, the Water Campaign™ and Integrated Sustainability Services – are increasingly recognising the importance of a triple bottom line approach that uses urban planning opportunities to build sustainable communities.

Now ICLEI Oceania is establishing a new social sustainability program: Cities for Safe and Healthy Communities (CSHC).

This new program helps local governments foster healthy, safe, resilient and sustainable communities. We are very excited to be able to extend the decade of action and learning in sustainability to an equally important area of creating safe and healthy communities.

Local government’s powers in land use and planning, regulation, community engagement – and in facilitating local partnerships – help create vibrant places for people and the environment. Many goals for fostering healthy communities match ICLEI’s goals in environmental sustainability.

For example, 60% of car trips in Victoria are less than two kilometres. Using local government’s land use and planning powers to develop cycle paths, undertake walkability audits and encourage community hubs as destinations for walking all enhance physical activity and decrease obesity levels while reducing car travel and CO₂ emissions.

In July 2008, the Building Resilient Indonesian Cities project team visited five major cities in Indonesia to talk with city representatives about how climate change is affecting their environments and communities.

A selection of photographs from their city visits is now available to view online in the Indonesia Cities Project photo gallery.

Kate McKeand, former Executive Manager – Sustainability Services and currently on maternity leave, is participating in the Williamson Community Leadership Program.

The Program is a rigorous, year-long series of seminars, visits, field trips and lectures for 36 Victorians.

The Program explores social and economic issues and aims to enrich participants’ understanding of these issues, as well as the leadership challenges that they present.

Established leaders from all sectors of the Victorian community, including corporate, arts, small business, government, welfare, the professions, sport and the rural sector, have presented to participants and opened themselves to discussion of a range of issues, particularly leadership.

Kate recently attended a Program field trip to north-east Victoria which explored the key issues of water management and rural sustainability.  

Having completed almost three-quarters of the program, Kate feels she has gained enormously in understanding different leadership styles and techniques, and approaches to some very challenging issues in our community.

Sustainability and environmental challenges have been called the challenges of our generation and require adaptive, strong and thoughtful leadership.

Kate hopes that this Program has given her the skills to step up and address some of these challenges.

For more information visit the Leadership Victoria website.