Colombia. At the end of a meeting held in the last hours between the mayor of Ibagué, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, and representatives of the Territorial Development Finance (Findeter), one of the biggest bets of the new municipal government was socialized, which aims to turn the capital of Tolima into one of the sustainable cities of the country.
Such a distinction, according to Findeter, implies that the population offers a high quality of life to its inhabitants, that it reduces its impacts on the natural environment and that it has a local government with "fiscal and administrative capacity to maintain its economic growth and to carry out its urban functions with broad citizen participation."
In this regard, Jaramillo said that in a month Ibagué must enter the sustainable cities of the country: "we were part of a table advanced by Findeter to analyze and promote the campaign of Ibagué as a sustainable city with the support of international and national entities and organizations," explained the president.
According to the projections of the municipal administration, the city will have a period of 10 months to carry out a meticulous work focused on highlighting the viability of Ibagué and promoting the most relevant issues.
"Our purpose is to plan and promote this year the entire agenda of the city such as water, sewerage, the Strategic Public Transport System, education, health and all the extraordinary issues that come out as the measures of the POT," added the mayor of the capital of Tolima.
The meeting held by the president was also attended by Luis Fernando Arboleda, president of Findeter; Sergio Díaz-granado, executive director for Colombia and Ecuador of the Inter-American Development Bank and Carlos Gustavo Cano, former Minister of Agriculture and member of the board of directors of the Bank of the Republic.
It is expected that next February the municipal government will hold a new working table with the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno, in which it will be determined if the city can be classified as sustainable.
Currently, only six cities in this country are listed as sustainable: Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Manizales, Pereira, Montería and Pasto.
