Yerevan Green City Action Plan was worked out within the frames of cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The team of the international consulting company “Ernst and Young” and partner organizations were involved in the process. The team also involved independent national and international experts. The GCAP was financed by the Czech Government's Official Development Assistance Technical Cooperation Fund within the frames of the EBRD “Green Economy policy” dialogue.
“Yerevan Green City Action Plan has been worked out for the first time in the territory of CIS and is based on the methodology of “Green Cities Action Plan” of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development worked out in collaboration with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development..
It should be noted that the mentioned program is based on the “Action plan for sustainable energetic development of the city of Yerevan” confirmed by Yerevan Council of Elders in 2016 within the frames of the EC initiative “Covenant of Mayors”.
Yerevan Green City Action Plan is a strategic document for the period till 2030 based on the ground of “vision-strategic goals-medium-term targets” concept, added by the short-term actions (for next 3-5 years). The structure maps solutions and offers to be followed during the coming 15 years.
The aim of the program is assistance in economic and social development of the city, mitigation of negative impact of human activity on the environment, to increase the quality of the environmental actives thereby guaranteeing improvement of the quality of life of the population.
The methodology of Yerevan Green City program reveals environmental challenges by means of assessment of the state of air, water resources, soil, biodiversity and ecosystems of the city, factors negatively impacting them and the existing legislative solutions based on international standards.
The program includes the environment state (air, soil, water, biodiversity, and green areas), impact on the environment, transport, energy supply, energy efficiency in buildings and external lighting, branches of industry, waste management, land use sectors. The provisions related to management and monitoring are also represented in the program.
The “Green City” program is aimed at sustainable development of Yerevan community, well-arrangement and greening of the residential areas of the community, wastes removal, improvement of utility services and public transport, optimization of the road infrastructures, decrease of disaster risks and increase of resistance, preservation of the environment and public health.
According to the methodology, GCAP process is made up of four stages.
Yerevan Green City Action Plan is aimed at sustainable development, improvement and landscaping of the city, improvement of the quality of utility services, public transport reforms, optimization of the road infrastructure of the capital, disaster risks decrease and increase of resistance to natural disasters, protection of environment and population health.

The 1st stage of the program involved data collection and analysis to set the key indicators for working out the long-term concept and the actions for its implementation. The assessment of baseline has been made with the use of “Situation-impact-response” principle, which assesses the negative impact of human activity on the environment, reveals the challenges. Human activity impact involves transport, external lighting, waste sorting and land use spheres. Accordingly, the priorities of challenges in Yerevan were outlined basing on the three-step table in which the most urgent challenges are marked in red colour, non-urgent spheres are marked in yellow colour and the ones that are of high relevance with the “green city” characteristics are marked green.
The 2nd stage set the concept and long-term strategic goals together with the roadmap represented in middle-term targets and short-term actions.
Taking into account the priorities and budget restrictions, the short-term actions to be realized to optimize the ecological, economic and social achievements were selected. The middle-term and long-term refer to all challenges.

The 3rd stage involves constant surveillance over the program implementation. After the first three-year period, the GCAP 4th stage will be started during which the progress made will be estimated, the necessity of improvement will be observed, and relevant changes in the GCAP can be made accordingly.
Public discussions and hearings were organized with the participation of NGOs, research institutes and other interested structures (December 8 and 19 of 2016, June 16 and August 3 of 2017). The proposals and observations presented were summarized, and the GCAP was worked out afterwards.
In accordance with the RA Law “On Environmental Impact Assessment and Expertise”, the GCAP draft passed through the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and on August 21, 2017, the RA Minister of Nature Protection gave a positive conclusion of the state expertise N BF77. 
The Green City Action Plan of Yerevan was confirmed by decision N 21-A of Yerevan Council of Elders made on 12.09.2017.
The existence of such research makes it possible to get a comprehensive idea of the strong and weak sides of the city, of the threats and possibilities to be taken into consideration while making up development programs.
 

Yerevan Green City Action Plan