The 2020 Planning Strategy is Avannaata Municipality’s first planning strategy since the municipal division. The strategy presents the municipal council’s political visions for the development in the coming years. The municipality is growing and holds opportunities for development. Financially, it is doing well and municipal tax revenues have increased in the past two years. This is mainly due to our fishery and many new investments in buildings, structures and facilities. Airport construction is well underway, and many new hotels, factories, institutions and houses have been built. Next year, we will also inaugurate the Ilulissat Icefjord Centre, which is expected to attract many new visitors to our municipality.
Ilulissat Icefjord is a world-renowned symbol of climate change. Leaders and scientists from across the world look to our municipality to learn about climate change and come here to experience and study it close up. Consequently, the municipal council wants Avannaata to be “the Greenlandic capital for climate-change knowledge”. With that comes the obligation of acting responsibly and protecting our key resource – nature. Living in and with nature is part of the Greenlandic tradition and culture, and it is vital that we continue to uphold it.
Therefore, the municipal council has decided to have sustainability form the basis for the municipality’s future development. In the 2020 Planning Strategy, we use the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a tool for prioritising our efforts and illustrating our sustainable objectives.
Sustainable transition in the municipality does not happen overnight. Just as the time horizon for the UN SDGs is 2030, we too need to apply a long-term perspective. In the long term, we want Ilulissat to be a carbon-neutral town.
The 2020 Planning Strategy will serve as the municipality’s tool, guiding its efforts. To ensure ownership and responsibility, the municipal administrations, citizens and external partners were involved in preparing the strategy. As a holistic strategy, it describes the municipal council’s spatial, social, economic, cultural, environmental and climate objectives.
The municipality faces a lot of challenges, which we will work to resolve, some resulting from the vast geographical distances from the north to the south. Therefore, this strategy also wants to strengthen local democracy and give the citizens, towns and settlements of the municipality a bigger voice through participation and influence.
Happy reading.
For the municipal council
Mayor Palle Jerimiassen