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Empowering residents and improving governance in low income communities through urban greening

This paper describes the objectives, process and outcomes of three urban greening projects and how they contributed to sustainable development. The first two were conducted in low-income communities in Bangkok, Thailand, and in Badulla, Matale and Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. The lessons from these two projects were then incorporated in a post-tsunami project in Moratuwa and Matara, Sri Lanka. In addition to achieving urban greening objectives, the projects developed and validated a conceptual framework of sustainable community development (the Four-Directional Framework) using participatory action research. This framework facilitated rapid community learning and development objectives such as urban greening and consequential poverty reduction, empowerment of women, and improvements to the environment. Urban greening, incorporating urban agriculture, was an effective tool to improve the relationship between local authorities and the residents of marginalized and low-income communities and build a foundation for continuing sustainable development initiatives and city-to-city learning.