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The Council for Sustainable Development would soon finalise its recommendations on a Sustainable Development (SD) Strategy for Hong Kong, following the completion of a six-month engagement process, council chairman and Chief Secretary for Administration Mr Donald Tsang said today (February 21).
During the engagement process, the council received nearly 2,000 responses from the community on three Pilot Areas - Solid Waste Management, Renewable Energy and Urban Living Space. More than 1,400 people participated in the series of forums, workshops and summits convened by the council to promote discussion of the SD Strategy.
Noting the encouraging stakeholder response, the Chair of the council's Strategy Sub-committee, Dr Edgar Cheng, said that the wide range of views provided would enable the council to put recommendations to the Government that were genuinely based on community feedback.
"The engagement process was a new initiative, made possible by the contributions of members of the council and sub-committees, as well as partner organisations," Dr Cheng said. "It is important that we build on this experience to pave the way for a sustainable future of Hong Kong."
The three support groups that assisted the council in implementing the engagement process included members drawn from a range of non-government, community and academic bodies. Partner organisations include the Business Environment Council, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and the Hong Kong People's Council for Sustainable Development.
The council launched an "Invitation and Response" document, entitled Sustainable Development - Making Choices for Our Future, in July, 2004, and organised a series of roving exhibitions, public forums, workshops and summits in different Hong Kong districts through to December last year. An interactive Sustainable Development Strategy website was also set up at www.susdev.org.hk to provide information and reports on the events.
The council plans to forward its recommendations on the way forward for an SD Strategy to the Government in Spring 2005.
During a meeting today, the council also considered the work of its Education and Publicity Sub-committee, noting recent education and publicity initiatives, and the status of applications to the Sustainable Development Fund (SDF).
On the council's advice, two more new community-based projects run by non-government organisations have been approved for the award of grants in its second round's call for applications. The amounts of grants total about $3.1 million.
One of the projects, which aims to put in place an "Action Model for Sustainable Development at Long Valley", will be implemented by the Conservancy Association over a two-year period at a cost of about $1.5 million.
The other project entitled "Sustainable Community Renewal in Sham Shui Po: Creating Our Future Together" will be run by the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) Social Service Centre in Sham Shui Po over a period of three years at a cost of $1.6 million.
The progress of the projects will be monitored by the Education and Publicity Sub-committee, to ensure that they meet the objectives of raising community awareness of the principles of sustainability and encouraging the public to put these principles into practice.
This brings the total number of approved projects that have received grants from the SDF and the amount involved to 10 and nearly $11 million respectively. Further applications will shortly be invited.
The agenda and papers for today's council meeting will be posted on the website of the Sustainable Development Unit at www.susdev.gov.hk within this week, and a digest of the discussion at the meeting will also be posted later.
Ends/Monday, February 21, 2005
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