Schedule and Venue
11-12 December
8:00 am to 4:00 pm
Grand Mercure, Museum Room

Organizer
The World Bank, Washington DC, USA

Urban air pollution is an increasing problem in cities in the developing world. There is weak institutional capacity to address the issue in an integrated manner. There is usually little in the way of an organized knowledge base or development or application of analytical tools that may help support decision making in this regard. Most available tools are complex and data-intensive and there is a need for a new generation of simple interactive tools that can be used in cities in the developing world recognizing their information and institutional challenges. There is also a need to rapidly scale-up the use of analytical tools for not only the rapidly expanding megacities but also secondary cities that are developing significant urban air pollution problems. This session will focus introduction, demonstration, and training on analytical tools based on experience from cities such as Pune (India), Bangkok (Thailand), and Xi’an (China).

Objectives
This interactive session seeks to provide an introduction to simple and interactive models that can be used to assist in making informed decision for air quality management. This forum will

• Introduce types of tools for air quality management decision-support (tools that are simple, interactive, visual, accessible/public-domain, capable of integrated analysis of economic and environmental implications of various types of policy, economic, institutional and technical management options using appropriate simulation, optimization and sensitivity analyses methodologies)
• Discuss nature of problems in modeling urban air quality management for cities in the developing world
• Present experience with practical use of such tools in building knowledge bases and decision support systems for air quality management in the developing world
• Demonstrate the use of such tools to improve environmental assessments, better design air quality interventions and improve awareness
• Share related issues of model and data access and institutional capacity building

Participants
The target group for this training would be focused on those who have used and have an interest in using modern information and analytical tools for decision support on air quality management. This could include environmental regulators, city managers, researchers, financial institutions, private sector, and various government agencies and NGOs. Prior knowledge of some aspect of air quality management or modeling is preferred.

Contact Persons
Sarath Guttikunda,
Environmental Specialist
Environment Department
The World Bank
Washington DC
Email - sguttikunda@worldbank.org

Jitu Shah
Country Sector Coordinator
Environment and Social Unit - South East Asia
The World Bank
Bangkok, Thailand
Email - jshah@worldbank.org