“Overcoming Global Problems through Local Cooperation: The Case of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality” The project's first report, jointly carried out by the TEPAV, IPC, and IKV and funded by the CATS Network, was published in July 2022.
The first report of the “Overcoming Global Problems through Local Cooperation: The Case of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality” Project, jointly carried out by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) and Economic Development Foundation (IKV) and funded by the CATS Network, was published in July 2022.
This report is the first stage of a project that involves an in-depth stocktaking of the existing policies and measures adopted by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi (IBB)) to adapt to climate change. In this report, the actions and policy recommendations developed by IBB within the scope of combating climate change for vulnerable groups (children, women, youth, elderly, disabled, those who live below the poverty line, and refugees) are included. In the report, the process of combating climate change of IBB is discussed in light of the centralization and decentralization debates of the local governance in Turkey. This report, developed based on the qualitative research method, fundamentally incorporates three main parts. In the first part of the report, the conceptual analysis of the vulnerability in relation to climate change in Turkey and Istanbul, respectively, is discussed. The second part of the report covers examining the actions and plans for combating climate change regarding vulnerable groups on a local and international scale carried out by IBB. The third and last part of the report includes the findings of in-depth interviews with the representatives of IBB and relevant stakeholders on the actions in this area.
These researches and analyses explicitly prepared for IBB reveal that the municipality has strong international partnerships in combating climate change. It has been determined that IBB at least partially complies with the commitments initiated by these international partnerships in local plans and programs. However, when the plans and strategies implemented by IBB on a local scale are examined, it is found that no relationship is established between climate change and vulnerable groups and that no action and activity areas were included in this regard. The most crucial reason why this relationship could not be established is that in countries like Turkey, where the local government is centrally organized, the authority of municipalities in combating climate change is limited by the central government, and this process runs predominantly under the control of the central government.
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