Mayor Wagner Highlights Value of Global Partnerships for City Development

As it relates to the relevance and benefits of these sessions, particularly for a municipality like Belize City, Mayor Bernard Wagner noted that participation in international platforms such as this forum helps ensure that Belize City remains active within global development conversations, allowing the municipality to position itself for future partnerships that can translate international funding frameworks into tangible benefits for residents back home.

Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “It trickles down to everyday quality of life. Every day we see residents complain or are challenging their neighborhood in respect to flooding is key in many areas. We just saw the effects of climate change and how stronger the sort of weather events are now coming.  Look at that hurricane Melissa which struck Jamaica just a couple weeks ago, the devastation that occurred and these are clear examples of all the greenhouse gasses that are being emitted. Not by us as a small country we are a carbon sink. But the bigger countries, we see coastal erosion. We see the impact of Sargassum on our beaches. So climate change is not something to take lightly by no one. I grew up in Belize city and some of the streets that are flooded now weren’t being flooded in my days. These were the top streets. I speak of Princess Margaret Drive. I never used to see that street flooded. But our ocean, our Caribbean Sea, the sea level is rising, right? and so we see king tides. These are all weather events that are connected to the emission of greenhouse gasses globally. And so we as a small country, a small city, a small coastal city we have to be on the ball with this. We have to be on the ball because we never know when we’ll be in the situation like Jamaica being a coastal city. We saw it with Hurricane Lisa a couple years ago. A category one devastating Belize City so we have do our part and that is why Belize City Council we are very focused, laser focused on ensuring that we do our part and that is why we introduced the electric vehicles because we are contributing while it may be very minimal but we are lowering greenhouse gasses in our city just by having those two busses engaged in public transportation within our city.”