STANDARDS ON SUSTAINABLE CITY DEVELOPMENT IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Transformative initiatives using international standards for sustainable city development.

To showcase best practices for sustainable city planning and urban development as outlined in the international standard ISO 37101: Sustainable Development in Communities, the Standards Alliance (in August 2019) organized a one-day awareness-building activity in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Led by U.S. experts, this training was held in coordination with Côte d'Ivoire’s national standards body, CODINORM, and the Ivorian Ministry of the Interior of Security.

Using the framework learned during the training, the village of Abobo-Baoulé has coordinated a local committee to develop a five-year sustainable city development plan with the EGCTAN (Environnement et Gestion des Collectivités Territoriales par l'Approche Normative), a sub-research group of the environmental section of the Institute of Tropical Geography at the University Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and CODINORM.

The strategic plan, as outlined in accordance with ISO 37101, is centered on sustainable development strategies that include improvement of the environment, resilience, responsible resource management, social cohesion, and improving the well-being of citizens together with economic development.

Thanks to the initiative, the residents of the Abobo-Baoulé village are sowing the seeds of sustainable development in their community, investing in the future growth of their home, as well as becoming a model for other communities. Mr. Claude Amondji, the village chief of Abobo-Baoulé, emphasized, “To govern without a plan is to walk unguided in the dark, to plan as you go. With this plan issued from the aspirations of the inhabitants of the village and based on an international standard, the path is paved for harmonious development that takes into account future generations.”

The undertaking in Abobo-Baoulé is a direct testament of the value of international standards to achieve sustainability goals. Abobo-Baoulé’s self-developed initiative highlights how the Standards Alliance imparts key technical skills while fostering resilience and self-reliance. This emphasizes stakeholders' recognition of the significance of such training as critical, timely, and impactful.

THE STANDARDS ALLIANCE

The Standards Alliance is a public-private partnership between ANSI and USAID that supports the capacity of developing countries in the areas of legal and regulatory framework, standards development, conformity assessment, and private sector engagement.

This success story is made possible by the generous support of the american people through the united states agency for international development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of ansi and do not necessarily reflect the views of usaid or the united states government.