Potential climate/ disaster impacts addressed by approach & Justification for approach:
Costa Rica does not escape the growing problems (scarcity of green areas, adequate housing and employment, poverty, road congestion, and waste disposal to mention some problems) caused by the urbanization of geographical space, thus facing challenges in terms of loss of quality of life for its inhabitants. In response to the above concern and with the aim of having better cities, different institutions in the country have adopted the implementation of various concepts of cities or models for urban development. These concepts, however, have often not managed to mainstream biodiversity and the benefits provided by ecosystems to the urban population, failing to achieve a real paradigm shift in the development of cities. With a clear interest that in the future the country has cities that offer a better quality of life to its inhabitants, the Ministry of Environment has chosen to lead a multi-actor and multi-level process to create a city concept that values and mainstreams the use of biodiversity as important factor for human well-being
Process of Implementation:
1. Identify/agree on processes and responsibilities with one leading institution/organization. 2. Review of documents on existing concepts and approaches. 3. Interview relevant stakeholders on existing concepts and approaches. 4. Present and discuss results with leading institution/organization and relevant stakeholders. 5. Create a draft concept. 6. Take the draft concept to as many workshops as necessary to cover all relevant sectors and levels (public, private, ONGs, universities, municipalities, community organizations, etc.) and make all necessary improvements to the concept paper. 7. Negotiate with 3-5 institutions/organizations to apply the concepts in a pilot process. 8. Execute the pilot process. 9. Analyze lessons learned from the pilot and make necessary adjustments to the concept paper. 10. Create a road map to promote all relevant actors to adopt and implement the new concept, including communication and capacity-building strategies (e.g., Green City Community of Practice).