| |
|
Civic Initiative
 |
The EuroIndia Centre launched the Civic Initiative in 2006 at the behest of the Prime Minister of India and founding President Emeritus of the Centre, Dr Manmohan Singh.
The UPA government had launched in the same year the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to modernize the 63 largest cities of India, the first such programme since India s independence. The Prime Minister then wished that the Centre could play its part in this ambitious programme: "This challenging mission [the J.N.N.U.R.M.] would be greatly facilitated if our cities could imbibe the wealth of experience and the state-of-the-art and know-how that European cities have developed over decades of being confronted to similar social and economic pressures."
Click here for background note on the JNNURM
That led the Centre to organize its first EuroIndia Forum in Goa in February 2007, followed by a second Forum in April 2008 in Goa again and two missions of Indian cities to Europe.
Encouraged by this success, the Centre has since unveiled an ambitious 2008-11 "F.L.Y. A. Green K.I.T.E." strategy to build a unique institutional exchange platform at local level, covering Green Initiatives, Knowledge management, Investment and business, Tourism and culture and Environmentally sustainable urban development, to ensure sustainable win-win co-operations between Cities, Regions and States of Europe and India and their stakeholders: companies, academic and research institutes, professionals, NGO s, etc. and to open broad channels of communication between their civil societies.
This ambitious strategy led to the success of the first EuroIndia Summit in Europe in Valladolid on 4-6 October 2009 focusing on "Leveraging urban legacy for sustainable City development. Heritage tourism promotion: a key enabler".
It was followed by an official civic and corporate mission by Indian Summit delegates to Madrid and Paris, where it was received respectively by the Municipality of Madrid and in Paris by the National Agency for Urban Renovation and the Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea.
We also broke new ground with our first EuroIndia Conference on 16 June 2009 in Paris, followed by a business breakfast, with one of our illustrious founding members, Deepak Parekh, Chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation, as Guest Speaker
A path-breaking Indian Mission on "Affordable housing" was subsequently organized in June 2010 that took a strong Indian delegation headed by Additional Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, to Spain (Barcelona, Madrid and Valladolid) and France (Val de Reuil, Paris) for field visits of housing schemes and face to face interaction with their executives in charge. Noteworthy was the presence of the Chief Secretary of the State of Maharashtra and Housing Secretaries of various States. It enabled participants to familiarize themselves with European financial models, including those with Public-Private Partnership, as well as state-of-the-art building material and technologies.
The 4th EuroIndia Summit, the second on European soil, held in Halle (Germany) on 10-12 October 2010 was a success. It focused on "City Vision: Reinventing Dynamic and Sustainable Cities". It was preceded by a strong Indian civic mission that visited the cities of Leuven & Brussels (Belgium), Lille & Paris (France). In Brussels, it took part in Open Days, a large yearly gathering of European regions and cities organized by the Committee of the Regions of the European Union and the European Commission. It was also hosted by the State of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) and Business Europe. In Lille (France), their programme was organized by the Municipality and the French Agence Nationale de Rénovation de l'Urbanisme. In Paris, the delegation was hosted by the Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea (M.E.E.D.D.M.).
At the Halle Summit, the EuroIndia Environmentally Sustainable City Award (ESCA) was launched that purports to promote higher standards of sustainable development in cities in Europe and India.
Since, the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation launched another massive social housing scheme called Rajiv Awas Yojna that calls for the eradication of all slums in India in five years. Click here for background note on the Rajiv Awas Yojna.
This cannot but add to the fast growing wave of urban renewal in India and trigger India's urban revolution that offers the Centre and its members a fantastic window of opportunity to play a key role as honest broker between India and Europe at the local level and bridge the existing knowledge and physical gap between the two sides.
We therefore plan to organize more such events and missions in India and in Europe in years to come and consolidate our gains through an expansion of our presence in Europe and India.
One such occasion was the 5th EuroIndia Summit in Leuven (Belgian Flanders) on "Smart, Sustainable and Innovative Cities" held on 13-14 October 2011. It was organized by City of Leuven, the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven and Imec Leuven, in collaboration with the EuroIndia Centre and the Confederation of Indian Industry
At the Summit, the first ESCA prize was awarded to two Indian Cities, Mysore and Vijaywada, and to the former's technical partner: Arvee Associates, by Indian Minister for Urban Development, Mr. Kamal Nath. 30 Indian cities had sent applications, which were screened by a jury of three experts consisting of Prof. Dr. Ronnie Belmans, Professor, K.U. Leuven and Chairman of the European Smart Grids Platform; Kartikeya V. Sarabhai, Director, Centre for Environment Education, Ahmedabad, and Dr. Harjit Singh Anand, Co-President of the Centre.
The Summit was preceded by the European tour of an Indian civic, corporate and academic delegation from 5th to 14th October that was hosted by the Municipalities of Geneva (Switzerland), Grenoble (France), Brussels (Belgium) and Eindhoven (Netherlands).
In Grenoble, Paris and Eindhoven, the delegation was received at their headquarters by European companies, respectively Schneider Electric, EGIS, Philips.
In Brussels, the delegation was invited to the opening plenary and workshops of Open Days and to a special programme on the Summit eve (12th October 2011) organized by the Committee of the Regions of the European Union and Business Europe.
Noteworthy was the presence of the Indian Minister for Urban Development, Mr. Kamal Nath, who had been invited by President Mrs. Mercedes Bresso to address the 92th plenary session of the Committee before their 360-odd region members, the first ever non-European to do so. Both also presided over the first-ever official meeting over lunch of Indian and European city managers.
In order to keep up with the growth momentum and be able to service the fast growing constituency of Europeans and Indians wanting to cooperate at the local level of their Cities, Regions or States, the need was felt to scale up the Centre's reach and means by leveraging the power of the Web. The Centre has therefore commissioned a new set of 24/7 far-reaching Internet services for its Members from the Members Area of its portal: A Web Forum, a E-library, EuroIndia Partnering Services with a facility to post a partnership query in the Member's individual profile, in our regular newsletter and on our portal home page, an Internal Messaging System, a "Last mile" Partner Search assistance, a Civic Appraisal Visit system and on-line Membership Management Services.
It is also intended that the next 6th EuroIndia Summit be organized in India in Feb 2013, along with possibly the award of the second ESCA. The Summit theme will be on "Green cities and townships". It will provide for an expert debate and business exchanges at a Green Tech Fair, where all European and Indian civic, academic, scientific, professional and philanthropic stakeholders having green technologies and practices to share can interact with their Indian counterparts.
Prior to the Summit, the European Delegation will stop over at various cities across several States of India for field visits and face to face interactions with their Indian counterparts.
European/Indian Cities, Regions and States wishing to engage with India/Europe are welcome to use the Centre as an intermediary and a partnership facilitator, thus following the edifying examples of Halle, Leuven and Valladolid, which have jointly organized with the Centre home visits by Indian delegations and EuroIndia Summits.
In the case of Ahmedabad and Valladolid, their cooperation has reached a high level within a few years only after their first contact was brokered by the Centre at the 2nd Forum of Goa in April 2008 leading to their signature of a formal partnership. To read the Valladolid-Ahmedabad partnership case study in English, French or Spanish, with a pictorial account, please click here: http://the-euroindia-centre.org/Content/Valladolid.aspx
In retrospection, the key factors behind their remarkable achievements has been a strong political vision at the top of both cities, of the need to have a long term engagement with Europe/India in their own interest, endorsed by the local polity at large to vouch for sufficient means and their trust in the role of honest Euro-Indian broker played by the EuroIndia Centre. At the start, their Memorandum Of Understanding was focused on few specific technical topics. With affinities being created in the process of meeting and discussing, their cooperation ambit quickly widened to new topics and stakeholders.
Indians and Europeans have enjoyed vibrant and fruitful relations for hundreds of years, which would be channeled mostly through cities trading with one another. After India gained independence in 1947, these traditional links got severed for a few decades till India decided to take on the World again in 1991, when she underwent economic reforms. The result is here to see: India has gone global again with a vengeance and is now acknowledged by all as an emerging power! There is still a level of interaction with the World, which has just barely opened up with a huge yet largely untapped potential for international exchanges: the level of cities. To their detriment indeed, Indian cities are today hardly networked with other cities of the World.
This unhappy situation started changing fast with the advent of the path-breaking J.N.N.U.R.M. programme, which has triggered an awakening of Cities after decades of neglect and sloth. Their managers are now in search for the best sustainable urban development practices in the World and are increasingly turning to their European counterparts for the same, who enjoy a hard earned good reputation in the field.
It is the duty and privilege of the Centre to be the first dedicated platform for these exchanges to grow faster and lead to more and more enduring and mutually beneficial city-to-city cooperation agreements, which eventually will mean more of their Indian and European denizens joining hands for a shared future, the proclaimed statutory goal of the EuroIndia Centre.
|
|
|
| |