Albany is one 24 cities selected to participate in the Cities Forward program.
Cities Forward is a collaboration between the State Department and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, known as ICLEI, a global network of more than 2,500 local and regional governments in 125 countries committed to sustainable urban development.
Angie Fyfe is the Executive Director for ICLEI local governments for sustainability USA: "A few ICLEI offices are involved, as well as a couple of partners, Resilient Cities Catalyst out of New York and the Institute for the Americas, based in San Diego. And what we have the pleasure of doing is working with 12 Latin American and Caribbean cities, who are partnered with 12 U.S. cities, in some cases, a county government. And we're really excited to have Albany partnering up with Manaus, Brazil," sadi Fyfe.
Manaus officials say they are looking to reduce and eventually eliminate plastics pollution in the Mindu River. Manaus is the Amazons largest city, home to more than two million people.
Fyfe says they're impressed with Albany, where state government was able to ban single-use plastic bags in retail stores. She adds both cities are very committed to climate justice and addressing inequalities.
"They will be, understanding how financing is put together for these are typically large infrastructure projects, water infrastructure, housing, parks, etc," Fyfe said, "So they'll get to learn more about the best practices around financing in different context. They will also be exposed to subject matter experts, universities, some will be U.S. universities, others will be universities and subject matter experts in the Latin American and Caribbean context. We will be putting together a specific cooperation charter between Manaus and Albany. So they will collectively come together and decide on the types of things that they would like to work on jointly, in terms of learning and growth. And because they're both river cities, Albany and Manaus have significant economic drivers in their community around rivers."
Democratic Mayor Kathy Sheehan says the partnership between Albany and Manaus, set to run through 2025, will be mutually beneficial.
"We will be working with them on understanding what their sustainability issues are and how they're addressing them and vice versa. And we're just thrilled. We're only one of 12 cities in the United States selected for this program. And, you know, other cities include places like Dallas and Philadelphia, much bigger than the city of Albany. And I think it's a testament to how seriously we have taken sustainability. We've invested funding in it, we've invested people in it. And now we are going to be able to learn from a city in South America, and be able to bring those teachings back here and hopefully accelerate the work that we're doing on sustainability," said Sheehan.
Sheehan says the association will also help Albany develop its Climate Action Plan and commitment to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
