The Ukrainian city of Dnipro, an industrial centre, is kick-starting its urban regeneration by joining the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s flagship urban sustainability programme EBRD Green Cities.

Dnipro becomes the programme’s 49th member overall, formalised with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Monday by Mayor Borys Filatov for the city and Sue Goeranssen, the EBRD’s Director, Sustainable Infrastructure Group Europe.

Dnipro is the sixth Ukrainian city to join the €3-billion programme, following Lviv, Kyiv, Mariupol Khmelnitskiy and Kryvyi Rih. Ukraine has more participating cities than any other EBRD country.

On joining the sustainability programme, cities undertake a trigger project with EBRD and also draft a Green City Action Plan (GCAP), setting out further actions to improve the local environment.

In Dnipro’s case, a first loan by the EBRD is expected to support improvements to the public transportation system. With multiple factories located within the city, improving air quality is a priority for city authorities.

Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, a city of about a million people that was called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 to 2016, will now embark on developing a tailor-made GCAP to effectively address its environmental challenges.

To date, the EBRD has invested nearly €15 billion on nearly 500 projects in Ukraine, with a focus on assisting its stabilisation and the anchoring of its reforms by strengthening energy efficiency and energy security, unlocking agricultural and industrial potential, providing quality infrastructure and strengthening the financial sector.

Globally, cities account for three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions and represent a prime opportunity to tackle climate change. EBRD Green Cities, set up in 2016, helps each member city tailor solutions to its environmental needs with a unique combination of measures designed to move towards a lower-carbon and more liveable future.  

By Vanora Bennett