#6 days to Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific 2015: Meet the Mayor of Thimphu at the congress

Honorable Mayor Kinlay Dorjee of Thimphu, Bhutan, is attending the Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific congress to talk about the challenges and opportunities of building resilience in his city. A few months ago, we sat down with Mayor Dorjee to talk about his city’s sustainability plans, achievements and future initiatives.

What would you describe as Thimphu’s main achievements in the field of sustainability?

With regard to solid waste management, we are focusing on recycling our household wastes. The city of Thimphu has started supporting private individuals venturing into waste collection and segregation. In some parts of the city, the organic waste is being collected separately for composting into manure at the composting plant. Such initiative has generated employment as well as business opportunities for many and this is the area where we need to concentrate our ideas and actions to further protect our environment.

How has ICLEI South Asia’s support helped you achieve these goals?

As a member of ICLEI, Thimphu has benefited both in terms of capacity building of our staff as well as through the implementation of the DReAMS project, which has provided us with the tools to analyse poverty and help in decision making for resource allocation to alleviate it. This will, in the long-term, support sustainable growth of the city including waste management and protection of the environment. In particular, ICLEI has given me the opportunity to attend international conferences where I could learn and also contribute to the common goal of sustainable development being pursued by various cities of the world. This experience and exposure has helped me to improve the governance in my city through the adoption of the best practices from all around the world. Thimphu sincerely thanks ICLEI South Asia for these tremendous opportunities.

ICLEI is our partner in realising our goals in city governance.

See the original interview here.