Steeped in history and culture, Türkiye’s capital city Ankara is an important commercial, business and industrial centre in the northwest of the country. Like many other megacities across the globe, Ankara is facing significant population growth, expected to double to more than 10 million people by 2030.

Joining the EBRD’s network of Green Cities, Ankara has developed a Green City Action Plan (GCAP) to enhance the city’s climate resilience as it caters for a growing population. Arup was appointed by EBRD to design the CGAP working with Ankara's Metropolitan Municipality. 

The plan focuses on identifying and prioritising environmental challenges and connecting them to infrastructure investment and policymaking. Alongside a baseline assessment of climate hazards, social equity is a major driver for this work, with inclusive participation building a sense of community and belonging for all residents.

To inform the plan, Arup’s team of experts facilitated 25 workshops between the municipality and the local community to identify the main priorities and challenges across key focus areas, including climate change adaptation, energy consumption, transport and urban planning; as well as gender equality and social inclusion.

Social equity advisory and stakeholder engagement

Ankara Metropolitan Municipality defines the future of the city as ‘a green capital that prioritises sustainable development while balancing the use of natural resources’.

Ankara’s Green City Action Plan puts residents front and centre to shape a sustainable vision for the city. The Municipality sought input from a broad range of stakeholders through workshops, focus groups and surveys, engaging with government officials, NGOs, private organisations and professional bodies as well as the general public. The extensive engagement rallied stakeholders behind common objectives and a targeted action plan to recast Ankara as a green and resilient city offering greater quality of life.

Alongside sustainability and resilience, social equity is the other main pillar of the Green City Action Plan. The GCAP takes a multisectoral approach to improve gender equity and strengthen social inclusion. To help Ankara address the needs of vulnerable groups, including children and minorities, our experts conducted a GESI (Gender Equality and Social Inclusion) assessment to identify and prioritise these issues in the GCAP’s action roadmap.

Arup’s team assessed residents experience of city services, based on income, gender, age, disability, and citizenship, and developed social inclusion strategies to foster cooperation and engagement with departments of the municipality and private companies.

 

Climate change is at our doorstep and we need to team up to overcome this challenge. We shouldn’t forget that people, especially women, are at the centre of developing sustainable and resilient solutions for our cities.

Mansur Yavaş

Mayor of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality

Making cities more resilient through urban design

Green Cities Action plans help cities thrive and become more resilient by creating bankable projects and viable policies to improve quality of life and prepare for future challenges. Committing to green investments, Ankara will use the GCAP to identify investable projects, programmes and policy actions to mitigate climate shocks and revitalise the city.

To build a greener future for residents, Ankara’s GCAP will target sustainability challenges in several focus areas: climate mitigation, adaption and resilience; energy consumption and transport; water and waste management; biodiversity, air quality and urban planning; as well as finance and economics, gender equality and social inclusion.

Arup’s team of experts identified 28 actions to overcome challenges across strategic sectors. The potential initiatives include air quality monitoring, developing a green belt and transforming Ankara into a ‘sponge city’, developing the rail system network, targeting social inclusion of vulnerable groups, and implementing digital infrastructure for waste treatment.

Our urban design and sustainability specialists conducted cross-sector baseline risk and vulnerabilities assessments, as well as smart maturity and technical assessments, and designed a set of actions to reduce the effects of identified pressures and challenges. All the prioritised actions included budget and cost estimates including base capital expenditure (CAPEX), operational costs (OPEX) and contingencies during implementation, with clearly identified financing options to bring them to life.

Ankara's Metropolitan Municipality has already begun to implement measures to reach climate neutrality and to mitigate shocks and revitalise the city, contributing to Türkiye's goal for climate neutrality by 2053.

Closing event photo
Event announcing the climate action plan.