CAF Promotes Urban Policy Exchange Between Quito and La Paz

As part of the Cities with a Future initiative, CAF—development bank of Latin America—organized an exchange of experiences by enabling an on-site forum for reflection between management and technical teams of local governments in La Paz (Bolivia) and Quito (Ecuador). The event aimed to share experiences, ideas and practical knowledge regarding institutional processes and urban management tools.

The Secretariat of Territory, Habitat and Housing of Quito, in coordination with Fernando Carrión, a City Council delegate, welcomed the delegation and presented the city’s issues of interest, such as the case of the Quito Metropolitan Corridor, the planning instruments and the Municipal building eco-efficiency ordinance, among others. The delegation consisted of three officials from the Municipality of La Paz and two delegates from CAF.

One of the main topics of interest was the urban development dynamics of Quito, including a review of strategic plans and the methodological approach for the identification and management of the urban centrality system. In this connection, Fernando Carrión made a presentation on the Ideas Competition for the design of the Quito Metropolitan Corridor, which aimed to re-urbanize and repopulate the area crossed by the subway and the metropolitan transport corridors, through housing, public spaces, commercial, financial, recreational and cultural services facilities. Another key goal of the competition is to produce a proposal that considers the integration of residents and the private sector, with the ultimate aim of having “Quito think about itself.”

Furthermore, Paola Villegas, manager of the urban centralities project of the La Paz Municipality, noted that “this space is ideal to share, not only similarities of the work done in Quito and La Paz, but also the challenges facing both cities. Through ideas competitions, we can encourage creative ideas to define urban centralities that can become drivers of development.”

Lastly, Juan Caicedo, CAF representative from the Sustainability, Inclusion and Climate Change Directorate, delivered a presentation sharing the main findings of the study on orderly urban growth in Latin America, focusing on La Paz and Quito data, and emphasized how cities must make decisions based on evidence, the need to redouble our efforts in public spaces, and how roads can determine how the city grows.

The meeting ended with a field visit to the historic city center centrality and the construction site of the Quito Metro, specifically the San Francisco station.

At CAF—development bank of Latin America—, we have set out to foster sustainable development of our region with a territorial work approach in urban settings, which allows us to address comprehensively the main challenges of Latin American cities. Through the Cities with a Future initiative, CAF vice-presidencies join forces to build up our interventions to ensure greater access to goods and services in cities in the region and to promote urban management models aimed at improving productivity, social inclusion and general well-being of Latin Americans.