JAKARTA – Wednesday (Jun 15th). The Government of the City of Gorontalo has been nominated as a potential recipient of “Adipura”[1] this year. In a presentation made on June 10, 2017, the Mayor of Gorontalo City (Mr. Marten Taha) described the environmental challenges faced by urban areas and the Gorontalo strategy for dealing with the issues. The Gorontalo City Mayor said that aside from problems related to population growth, crime, fiscal limitations and energy crisis, 60 percent urban problems throughout the world are related to environment, living conditions and security. The presentation was made to the Adipura Selection Board, Waste Management Practitioners and Marketing Board, leaders of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, academics, NGOs and mass media.

The Mayor said that to overcome the problems affecting Gorontalo City cannot be overcome by conventional means, but rather required innovative approaches. As a city that has been awarded the Adipura Award for two years in a row since 2015, the Gorontalo Municipal Government has a program called “Smart” Solutions, an approach to a sustainable and habitable city that includes several components, including smart economy, smart mobility, smart Environment, and smart living.

One of the programs featured in “Smart” Solutions is a “free from birth to death” program. The program frees people from maternity costs, birth certificates, family identification cards, identity cards, health, education, marriage certificates, to ambulances and funerals.

Other examples of innovative programs submitted include: (1) Village Adipura assessment/awards; (2) Urban Green Space contest at the Village level, by the construction of Waste Management facilities including Reduce Waste Management Sites, introduction of reuse and recycling (TPS3R); and (3) the use of prisoners as cleaning personnel.

Lastly Mr. Marten Taha says that Adipura is not the end-point. “If we are awarded Adipura, it means that our efforts have met expectations.”

Source : Tempo (newspaper), Monday, June 12, 2017.

[1]  Adipura is awarded each year by the Ministry of Environment to cities meeting its “Clean City” criteria.