Neighbourhood and community initiatives can have far-reaching positive consequences. This is on display in the San Enrique de Velasco (SEV) neighbourhood of ICLEI Member Quito (Ecuador), where local greening efforts are having city-wide impacts.

The SEV community has long understood the importance of reclaiming green areas as places for community integration and social development, while also seeing their potential to contribute to local vegetable production. Through a co-creation process supported by the Clever Cities project (in which ICLEI Europe is a partner) and a consultancy called YES Innovation, SEV is working hard to do just that, while also considering the use of rain gardens to reduce flooding, which remains one of the most urgent issues the neighbourhood faces.

The co-creation process has highlighted the commitment of the community, and affirmed the benefits of green spaces and nature to local quality of life. This is a fantastic outcome, already achieved even while solution implementation is still ongoing.

Furthermore, the SEV community’s activities, alongside pressure from civil society regarding protection of municipal water bodies, resulted in the City of Quito’s Municipal Secretary of Environment creating the Green and Blue Ordinance. This policy stands to increase the amount of green areas in the city, preserve important urban ecosystems, and promote the use of nature-based solutions (NbS) and sustainable urban drainage systems for water management. In other words, the policy integrates fostering climate resilience with protecting nature and biodiversity – all at the city level.

The SEV community’s work and experiences developing NbS to address urban challenges have informed Guidelines for the Implementation of NbS, which will soon be published (in Spanish) on the NetworkNature Platform. These guidelines feature all the technical information needed to design and develop NbS that address a variety of environmental challenges, as well as tips for their replication in different contexts.

San Enrique de Velasco provides a clear example of the progress that can be achieved when several actors – like the community, private companies, and the local government – work together. Community efforts can drive widespread change towards urban greening.