Sustainability

A compromise of Fortaleza

We follow the SDG guidelines

Fortaleza opts for the implementation of the Global Development Agendas, especially the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, as a way to face the complex challenges in cities. The initiative to apply to host the World Urban Forum demonstrates the relevance of this theme in local management, with emphasis on SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities.

1 No Poverty

With the help of the Federal Government, Fortaleza has implemented several programs to reduce poverty and inequality in the city. The most significant initiatives are the Bolsa Família and Auxílio Brasil programs, which consist of cash transfers to families in extreme poverty, poverty and low-income situations. These programs have contributed to the city’s significant reduction of poverty levels.

2 Zero Hunger

Fortaleza democratizes access to nutritious and healthy food by promoting sustainable agriculture. The city has developed programs such as the Local Purchase Program, Bairro Compra and Meu Bairro Empreendedor, which facilitate the purchase of locally produced food for school meals, ensuring the reduction of hunger among children. Urban agriculture programs, such as the Social Garden Project, aim to encourage urban agriculture, healthy eating and encourage social interaction among older people in vulnerable situations, reinforcing the existing mediations between public authorities and civil society in this field.

3 Good Health And Wellbeing

Fortaleza democratizes access to nutritious and healthy food by promoting sustainable agriculture. The city has developed programs such as the Local Purchase Program, Bairro Compra and Meu Bairro Empreendedor, which facilitate the purchase of locally produced food for school meals, ensuring the reduction of hunger among children. Urban agriculture programs, such as the Social Garden Project, aim to encourage urban agriculture, healthy eating and encourage social interaction among older people in vulnerable situations, reinforcing the existing mediations between public authorities and civil society in this field.

4 Quality Education

Fortaleza has made important investments in education to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The Mais Infância Program, aimed at early childhood education for children under six years old, are investments made in the state of Ceará and the city of Fortaleza. The municipal investment in the universalization of full-time schools and the reform and expansion of school infrastructure are part of public policies that aim at quality education in dialogue with sustainable development.

5 Gender Equality

The municipal management invests in the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women in the city. The implementation of the Our Warriors program, aimed at microcredit for women entrepreneurs, contributes to the construction of public policies aimed at gender equality and the promotion of women’s economic empowerment. Fortaleza City Hall created the Women’s Observatory, a platform developed by the Science, Technology and Innovation Foundation (Citinova), the Fortaleza Planning Institute (Iplanfor) and the University of Fortaleza (Unifor), and aims to synthesize all public actions aimed at women, such as data on domestic, family and sexual violence, facilitating data consultation for the construction of targeted public policies.

6 Clean Water And Sanitation

Fortaleza has made efforts to expand access to drinking water and basic sanitation for its citizens. With the assistance of the State Government, the city has developed the sewage network coverage. Among the most significant actions are the construction of new treatment and pumping stations, the expansion of the piping network of the collection systems and the inclusion of new connections to the sewage network.

7 Affordable And Clean Energy

In the development of the production, distribution, circulation and consumption of renewable and clean energy sources in the city, the municipal public management has undertaken programs aimed at expanding the use of solar and wind energy. This includes the installation of solar panels on public buildings, the implementation of a program to provide access to solar energy to low-income families and the encouragement of the reduction of energy consumption in public buildings.

8 Decent Work And Economic Growth

Fortaleza focuses on the pact to promote sustainable economic growth by creating decent work opportunities for its citizens and acting in partnership with civil society. The city has invested in programs to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. Women and young people are among the beneficiaries of achieving this goal by implementing programs to include these groups in the labor market. Fortaleza reached the mark of 55,000 new companies in 2022 alone. This achievement is the result of the committed work of the City of Fortaleza, which has been working to reduce bureaucracy and facilitate new businesses through the implementation of public policies for small entrepreneurs, professional qualification and guided credit.

9 Industry, Innovation And Infrastructure

The municipal government invests in innovation and improvements to infrastructure. In the field of infrastructure, the city has invested in improving public transport, translated into the expansion of the metro system and the integration of different modes of transportation. From a sustainable and multidimensional development perspective, Fortaleza fosters innovation and technology, such as creating a technology park and implementing an innovation center.

10 Reduced Inequalities

With a focus on reducing inequalities and promoting social inclusion, Fortaleza has been developing programs to support vulnerable populations, such as people living in homelessness and poverty. In addition, the city has designed ways to build, adapt and monitor personalized and efficient public policies through systematized data and evidence. Building on this principle, the city of Fortaleza is developing the Desigual Lab, an innovation laboratory in the public sector, which positions itself as a public policy think tank and a hub for accelerating studies, research and projects focused on reducing social, territorial and economic inequalities. The aim is to map, prototype and evaluate innovative, inclusive, resilient and effective public policies in the municipality of Fortaleza.

11 Sustainable Cities And Communities

Fortaleza has significantly invested in promoting sustainable urban development. The city has implemented programs aimed at democratizing urban mobility, reducing the demographic contingent living in precarious settlements, promoting public spaces and increasing levels and indicators of environmental sustainability. The actions were based on long-term planning. All the goals addressed in SDG 11 were worked on through plans, projects and interventions in the city of Fortaleza, as detailed below:
Housing - Special Social Interest Zones (ZEIS); Local Social Interest Housing Plan (PLHIS-FOR); Urban Micro Village Project - Urban Social Villages for Fortaleza; Land regularization program, Integrated Land Regularization Plan (PIRF); Relocation of families living in risk areas; Road Safety - Strengthening safe and sustainable mobility with massive impact programs in all territories of the city, mainly linked to active transport; Participation - Collaborative quick map, Territorial forums; Strategic plan and participatory budget; Territorial agendas, Integrated Land Regularization Plan (PIRF), citizenship agents; Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS); Participatory Master Plan of the Municipality of Fortaleza (PDP-FOR); Natural and Cultural Heritage of Brazil - Special Zone of Landscape, Historical, Cultural and Archaeological Heritage; Culture and leisure facilities distributed in all territories of the city, Design City label (design as a strategy for social transformation). Environment and Climate Crisis - Air Quality Program; Naturalized Microparks; CO² Inventory; Solid Waste Observatory; Re-ciclo; Rachel de Queiroz Park; 480 squares distributed in 121 neighborhoods; environmental education programs; Local Climate Action Plan (PLAC); Renaturalization of the main rivers of the city. Public spaces - Urban pedagogy project for experimental micro-urbanism; Square adoption program; Partnerships with Urban 95; Urban planning with a gender, race and early childhood perspective; Inventory of public spaces; Metropolitan Areas - Interventions in supra metropolitan natural resources, the definition of metropolitan boundaries, urban planning with metropolitan dialog; Technical and financial assistance - Brazilian Network of Planning Institutes; partnerships and technical and financial cooperation between national peers and international agencies.

12 Responsible Consumption And Production

To promote the city’s sustainable development, the municipal administration created a program entitled Recicla Fortaleza. The public action promotes waste recycling and provides training and technical assistance to recycling cooperatives. In addition, the city is restructuring its solid waste management policy.

13 Climate Action

Fortaleza has developed significant efforts and actions to combat the damages and catastrophes caused by climate change facing the most vulnerable sectors of the population through social and environmental sustainability. The city has implemented programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions synergistically, promoting the use of renewable energy sources while implementing energy efficiency measures. All of this is based on the Local Climate Action Plan (PLAC), which was built with support from ICLEI South America and aims to drive local action for low-carbon, nature-based sustainable development in an equitable, resilient and circular manner.

14 Life Below Water

Implementing programs to promote the conservation and sustainable use of marine resources is among the public policies aimed at achieving this goal since Fortaleza has a wide sea and coastal coastline and is crossed by rivers throughout the metropolitan area. The city has established protected areas and implemented programs to monitor and manage marine biodiversity. In addition, Fortaleza has implemented programs to promote sustainable fishing practices and reduce marine pollution.
With 34 kilometers of coastline, Fortaleza presents relevant potential for the so-called Economy of the Sea, which focuses on the sustainable use of marine resources with economic growth. To leverage this asset, the City of Fortaleza proposes the creation of the Fortaleza Sea Economy Development Agency. The scope of work brings together the management of activities related to professional fishing and aquaculture; the generation of renewable energy from the use of wind, sun and sea; beach tourism and also navigation and diving; the practice of nautical sports; the expansion of the naval industry and the need to preserve marine ecosystems, aiming at the sustainable use of all these resources.

15 Life On Land

The municipality of Fortaleza has been taking initiatives to promote the conservation and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems. Among the international agreements agreed upon in this area, the city adhered to the Edinburgh Declaration, aimed at biodiversity conservation, ecosystem recovery and sustainability.
Fortaleza City Hall invests in the recovery of green spaces and the renaturalization of river areas. In addition, Fortaleza has several Conservation Units and urban parks. As successful cases, the renaturalization of the Rachel de Queiroz Park and the Maranguapinho River.

16 Peace, Justice And Strong Institutions

The Municipality of Fortaleza understands that peace and justice for an inclusive and peaceful society are achieved through programs to promote education, health, safety, culture, technology, sports and leisure. In this sense, public management invests in these programs in spaces to train and develop social, cultural and sports activities as an element of inclusion, transformation and social mobility.
Fortaleza’s city develops programs combining high-quality public safety actions with initiatives to prevent violent behavior and strengthen family, social and community ties. In a multidimensional approach, the municipality has also been undertaking efforts to reduce violence rates in the city.
To strengthen public safety in the city, the Municipality of Fortaleza launched in 2022, the Fortaleza Cidade Inteligente Program - a public video monitoring policy that includes expanding the number of cameras and the city’s Wi-Fi network. In addition, the city has been developing welcoming and socio-economic and cultural inclusion programs for young people in vulnerable areas.

17 Partnerships For The Goals

The city of Fortaleza has established partnerships with civil society organizations, the private sector and other levels of government to promote sustainable development. It has also established partnerships with international organizations, such as UN-Habitat, with whom we have a Memorandum of Understanding focused on developing joint actions for Sustainable Urban Development and the dissemination and implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs, especially SDG-11.
Fortaleza has partnered with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to access technical assistance and financial resources to support sustainable development initiatives. In addition, it has partnered to promote sustainable urban development, including the “Fortaleza 2040 Program”, which promotes sustainable urban development through partnerships with academia, civil society organizations and the private sector.
Currently, Fortaleza is part of the global network City Data Alliance, a program of Bloomberg Philanthropies, an international network in which the Municipality of Fortaleza is a member, along with 21 other cities in the Americas. Fortaleza has gold recognition for adopting the agendas, through data transparency to guide decision-making in the public sector.
Fortaleza is part of the Global Network of Cities - Urban-95, that plans the city and public spaces with the perspective and listening of children up to 95 centimeters.

Reference in cycling network

A reference in SUSTAINABLE URBAN MOBILITY, Fortaleza was selected in 2023 in the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure (BICI) program in partnership with the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI). The initiative encourages the prioritization of the bicycle as a means of travel based on innovation in the cycling network, which provides increased safety for cyclists and more connections between infrastructures. The program selected ten cities from around the world, and Fortaleza was ranked first in the world on this list.

Experimental Microurbanism

Fortaleza has developed the project "Green and Blue Paths: people, nature and technology for sustainable and inclusive urban development" in which it works with Experimental Micro-urbanism in the territory. The project also uses Urban Pedagogy tools, which promote social participation and act as a strategy for education and involvement of society.

Urban Microvillages

Urban Microvillages consist of constructing urban villages on vacant land owned by the municipality, to relocate people living in informal settlements. The action is innovative in that it involves high-standard social housing, with biophilic design, excellent urban location, and access to quality services.

What do we believe?

Some Urban Actions

We believe in greening cities

The Rachel de Queiroz Park is a success story in sustainable urban development and won the Work of the Year award from ArchDaily, one of the world’s leading architecture, urbanism and design portals.

We believe in data driven cities

The city of Fortaleza has advanced in road safety by implementing programs in road infrastructure, preventive inspection and traffic education. As a result of this effort, for the eighth consecutive year, Fortaleza has recorded a 58.3% reduction in the number of fatal traffic accidents in the last ten years, earning international awards.

We believe in recycling

The innovative project Reciclo consists of implementing solar-powered electric bicycles for door-to-door collection of recyclables. This free initiative connects waste pickers with people who want to recycle. The waste pickers transport the recyclables with electric tricycles, with a low carbon footprint, and are directed to the partner recycling associations. It generates social, gender, health and environmental impact.

We believe in inclusion

To make the city accessible and inclusive for all segments, including people with disabilities, whether physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory, the city has developed the Accessible Beach Programme, which enables assisted bathing for people with disabilities and reduced mobility, offering citizens a leisure space, with adequate equipment and personalized and safe support staff.

We believe in creativity

The "City of Us" project is an example of tactical urbanism actions in the city that sharpen creativity and stimulate the occupation of various public spaces by the population.