On November 29, as part of the Global Green Growth Week, the GGGI Senegal team organized a High-Level Panel on Green Buildings for Green Cities. That was chaired by the Director of Cabinet of the Ministry of Urban Renewal, Housing and Living Environment. In his speech, he stressed that’s imperative to rethink how to plan, to promote a new and sustainable urban model to respond quantitatively and qualitatively to the growing needs in terms of housing, mobility, equipment, urban services and green spaces.

On behalf of Dr. Mahamadou Tounkara, Country Representative of GGGI Senegal, Mr. Konate reiterated GGGI’s commitment to support the Government’s efforts to promote green and inclusive urban development.

The Workshop was a pretext for GGGI to launch the Green Buildings program which will aim to provide technical assistance to real estate developers for integrating energy efficiency into buildings and housing.

Building is the most energy-intensive sector, after transportation and industry. Reducing the energy consumption of buildings is a major issue in the fight against global warming. Buildings account for 40% of CO2 emissions, 70% of energy consumption and 20% of water consumption. Building’ sector is an essential in adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change. That’s in this sector that the most progress in terms of energy efficiency can be achieved because of the high potential for reducing emissions.

The High-Level Panel aimed to promote a policy dialogue between policymakers, practitioners, investors, financial institutions. It brought together a broad network of experts in the construction ecosystem composed of architects, urban planners, engineers and bankers on the new ways for designing and building cities of the future in a change climate context.

Farizan d’Avezac de Moran GGGI’s international Expert in Green Buildings has intervened via Skype from Kigali to share her experience developed in Tanzania, Rwanda and Singapore.

In the debates, the topics covered were practical cases and institutional issues related to the sustainable buildings development, the standardization of bioclimatic habitat, technological solutions and green financing mechanisms. APIX has invited GGGI to work together as part of the Presidential Investment Council to facilitate policy-making.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Konate thanked all the panelists, discussants and participants.