The UWLY program, to run for three years as part of the Dutch Government “Partners in Business’ (PIB) program, has the first deliverable to present a Urban Water Scoping Study. The study should provide locally grounded, inspirational and practical insight into what a water-resilient Yangon could look like at a township level. At the suggestion of the Yangon City Development Committee, the selected township is Thaketa, located east from central and downtown Yangon.
Preparations for the scoping of Yangon as a Water Resilient City are well under way. From March 4-8, 2019, a delegation of experts visited Thaketa in order to get a better understanding of the local water conditions in the township. The fieldtrip has resulted in an initial overview and analysis of how Thaketa can become a pilot and showcase for initial implementations to make the city more water and climate resilient.
In order to move to the next phase of the project, which should result in a shortlist of concrete and actionable interventions that can be presented to YCDC and the Yangon Regional Government by mid-July, we organised a 1-day workshop on Friday 24 May to set the stage for further collaboration.
Attended by several PIB Urban Water Stakeholders, the workshop was hosted at Waternet in Amsterdam who is a partner in the consortium. From the Yangon City Development Committee representatives from the Water and Sanitation department were present.
The workshop touched upon the topic of strategic collaboration between the partners and understanding of the spatial vision for Thaketa which cuts through different dimensions of built environment, social environment, economic environment, etc. The spatial vision provides the necessary context/boundaries for the water vision.
The next step for the Urban Water track is a workshop in Yangon in the second week of June, during which the partners undertake the final stages of scoping the proposed interventions.
