ITDP’s first official side event took place in Rio Centro, the epicenter of the Rio+20 negotiations. The event, Financing Sustainable Transportation to Support Sustainable Development, was moderated by ITDP Global Policy Director Michael Replogle, and bought together about 70 people from transportation and finance ministries from countries including Brazil, Indonesia, Namibia and Iraq.
Organized by ITDP in collaboration with the International Union of Railways, WRI/EMBARQ, Bridging the Gap Partnership, and GIZ, the session discussed efforts to measure the contribution of transport investments to support sustainability goals, focusing on key metrics and indicators as well as providing an overview of recent patterns and trends in transport funding flows from different sources worldwide.
Jorge Kogan from Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) stated that the international community should consider sustainable transport a key element of the global agenda for sustainable development. He pointed out that transportation directly contributes 5-10% of GDP in most countries, while congestion costs most cities in developing countries 2-5% of their GDP, and some as much as 10%. He stated that CAF, along with other multilateral development banks, expect to provide more than us 150 billion of loans and grants for sustainable transport in developing countries. He thanked the SloCat Partnership for the effort to bring these banks together to develop their joint statement for sustainable transport, which will be the subject of upcoming Rio+20 side events, where the dialogue on financing sustainable transportation to support sustainable development will continue.