Saranda is a charming coastal town in southern Albania.

In winter, it’s a peaceful haven for 35,000 residents. But once summer arrives, its population swells as tourists flock to its shores—bringing a surge in demand for services, mobility, and jobs, while also adding traffic, pollution, and municipal waste.

And it’s not just the crowds: Saranda, like many cities across Europe and Central Asia, is feeling the heat—literally. Average temperatures have risen by more than 2°C over the past 50 years, making urban heat islands and sweltering summers the new normal.

In response, local leaders in Saranda and beyond are rolling up their sleeves to tackle two priorities: cutting emissions from transport, buildings, and waste, and preparing for more frequent and intense heatwaves and storms.

Enter the Europe and Central Asia Cities and Climate Change (ECA C&CC) Program, part of the World Bank’s Sustainable Urban and Regional Development (SURGE) global umbrella partnership. Launched in 2023, this program is helping cities across the region move from plans to action, embedding efficiency and resilience directly into project design and implementation.

From Plans to Action

In southern Albania, the ECA C&CC Program is helping Saranda and six other towns to integrate energy efficiency and climate resilience into its urban investments. In particular, the program is supporting the towns to design emission-free public transport solutions with the goal of cutting emissions, pollution, and congestion.

But the story doesn’t end in Albania. The ECA C&CC Program is supporting infrastructure and policy measures in other countries in the region, benefiting local economies:

• Armenia: Under the Armenia Tourism and Regional Infrastructure Project, the program is helping to prioritize green and sustainable investments for municipalities, helping create jobs and attract investment through stronger tourism infrastructure.
  
  
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: The program is piloting a solid waste behavior change analysis, helping to improve the design of solid waste management and recycling investments that would be financed and implemented through the Sustainable Waste Management Project.
  
  
• Ukraine: The program is supporting the drafting of Ukraine’s Basic Principles Housing Policy Law, aligning national policy with the EU’s energy efficiency and green development goals.

The ECA C&CC Program isn’t just about technical support—it’s about sharing knowledge that cities can put to work. Through regional dialogues and Technical Deep Dive workshops hosted by the newly launched Vienna Development Knowledge Center, city leaders and experts are swapping ideas on how to tackle resilience and sustainability challenges in their own backyards.

The latest Technical Deep Dive took place in early November and focused on energy efficiency and resilience in the built environment. It brought together over 50 participants from 14 countries to address how buildings can be made more energy efficient while also addressing urban resilience challenges. In June 2024, a related workshop tackled questions on urban space, mobility, and decarbonization, bringing together over 30 participants from eight countries and speakers from Vienna, Paris, Barcelona, and other European cities to discuss actionable strategies for making cities more livable and sustainable.
 

Looking Ahead: Scaling Impact

By combining targeted, in-country technical support with knowledge from leading European cities, the ECA C&CC Program is helping cities across the region turn their ambitions into reality. To date, it has directly influenced about $975 million in World Bank lending and is poised to scale up even further.

Cities across Europe and Central Asia are proving that with the right support, collaboration, and know-how, investments can deliver jobs, strengthen resilience and sustainability, and improve urban services—benefits that residents can feel season after season.