Belarus and UN: projects
Legislative environment for innovation It is worth recalling that the project “Green Cities”, funded by the Global Environment Facility and implemented by UNDP together with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Belarus, is aimed at the improvement of the infrastructure of pilot cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the type of activities that receive the major part of the Project budget. However, in order to ensure that innovations in urban development are widely applied in the country, the Project is working to create systemic conditions in which the introduction of green urban planning principles for designers and all those involved in urban environment planning would become a routine daily practice under the law. Legislative environment for innovation It should be noted that the Project has a separate component that focuses on the improvement of existing legislation in the area of urban planning. Specifically, the experts were tasked with developing proposals in the areas of urban transport, sustainable urban mobility, and street lighting. — When the experts immersed themselves in these topics and studied the experience of the countries that are leaders in green development, it became clear that it would not be possible to limit the narrow scope of legislation in these areas, — explains Vera Sysoeva, architect, expert of the Project for Green Urban Development. — International experience, recommendations of UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) insist on the need for an integrated approach to legislation formation for urban sustainable development. Vera Sysoeva says that Belarus is not a first-timer in creating a system, such as, for example, technical regulation in urban
18
беларусь. belarus 2020
Vera Sysoeva
planning. Much of what is in force today is still a legacy from Soviet times, when legal regulation of urban development was aimed at restoring industrial enterprises and cities destroyed by the war, and at developing, in particular, mass capital construction. Today, the regulatory legal framework is adapted to a large extent to market economy conditions. In other words, it has been updated for various participants in the urban planning process. At the same time, one cannot neglect the fact that the role of the state in the planning and management process has increased as well.
In order to streamline the requirements of technical regulations in the area of architecture and urban planning, Belarus has recently been reforming its entire system of building regulations. This means that the practice of “Green Cities” has successfully coincided with the creation of new documents and audits of the existing ones. However, urban planning legislation is also closely linked to other legal documents in force in Belarus: for example, the laws on local government and self-government, on environmental protection, on energy saving, and many others. There are also more global agreements and strategies that define the direction the country is taking in terms of urban development. These include, in particular, the “Concept of the National Sustainable Development Strategy of the Republic of Belarus” and the system of State Urban Policy documents, which are updated every five years. — The year 2020 is the final in a fiveyear period, and we expect the formation of urban policy for a new stage, — says
