EBRD: Effective urban planning key to meeting climate goals

Effective planning at the city level is needed to achieve climate targets, Lin O'Grady, Associate Director for Project Preparation at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), said.

According to Report, she made the remarks on the second day of Baku Climate Action Week 2026 (BCAW 2026).

"One of the key issues is effective planning. Comprehensive and effective planning should be carried out at the city level to identify a city's needs in terms of both emissions reduction and adaptation. In this regard, adaptation is becoming increasingly important.

"We also need to look at the entire ecosystem of urban investment, including interconnected sectors such as housing, water, transport, energy and waste management. Once such a plan has been developed, projects need to be selected and further developed. So my first point is effective planning and project preparation," she said.

O'Grady noted that the role of the private sector in financing urban projects should be increased.

"The first issue is linking planning and project preparation with financing. Unfortunately, we operate in a system where these are often very disconnected from each other.

"The second point concerns the highly individualized nature of financing. There is no single financing solution for cities. Cities vary in size, their creditworthiness differs, and these differences become even more pronounced depending on the level of fiscal decentralization in a country. This would be one of the first issues the EBRD would consider," she said.

O'Grady stressed that in Azerbaijan this process is largely centralized.

"That is why, in the urban sector, we currently lend to the government, which in turn channels the funds to the city.

"In Türkiye, the situation is different. Fiscal decentralization has taken place there, so the EBRD's model is to lend directly to cities. Fiscal decentralization has also taken place in North African countries, where we lend directly to municipalities.

"The key is therefore to determine which financing instrument is appropriate for a particular city and, of course, always look for opportunities to involve the private sector," she said.