YOGYAKARTA – Sweden has collaborated with Universitas Gadjah Mada and government of Yogyakarta municipality in developing sustainable city through sharing in waste management, renewable energy and environmentally friendly building construction. This emerged in the visit made by Swedish Development Collaboration, Ms. Gunilla Carlsson, who called on to Rector of UGM, Prof. Dr. Pratikno, M.Soc.Sc., on Thursday (28/3) at Universitas Gadjah Mada.
Pratikno stated that the visit discussed many issues responding to development of sustainable environment. He added that the visit has enhanced academic cooperation and research between UGM and Sweden. The cooperation will be extended in more areas, including environmentally friendly city development.
Ms. Carlsson said the collaboration with UGM was expected to benefit the creative economy development for the local people. She said that the success of Sweden in environmentally friendly urban development did not stop at research only, it was also supported by community. “This called for many things, resources, market, investment and change in people behaviour,” she said.
Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia, Mrs Ewa Polano, said Sweden has many good practices in the concept of environmentally friendly city development. She offered sharing the good practice by providing experts.
Mayor of Yogyakarta, Mr. Harjadi Suyuti, said the Yogyakarta government was assessing a cooperation with two Swedish cities which are known as child friendly and healthy cities. “We want to learn to develop a city which is child friendly and healthy,” he said. Harjadi did not rule out cooperation in waste management. “Waste disposal is a serious issue, we need to think about its management,” he concluded.