The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) programme organised a three-day intensive implementation workshop from the 6^th to the 8^th of March 2023, in Cape Town, South Africa.

All partners and donors of the programme attended the workshop, which focused on highlighting the work plan for each region, namely Africa, Latin America and South Asia, for the 2023-25 period under CDKN Phase 3, and on identifying synergies and means of collaboration to mobilise action on the ground. The CDKN programme is co-funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

Earlier, ICLEI South Asia, the coordinator of CDKN Asia, conducted ‘scoping workshops’ in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal in February 2023 to provide local organisations working in the three thematic areas of ecosystem-based adaptation, gender equity and social inclusion, and climate finance a platform to share their experiences and identify key policy and implementation gaps that CDKN Phase 3 could help to fill.

Following the workshops, the team has identified critical entry points in each country, within which activities under the three thematic areas will be incorporated. In the case of Bangladesh, the focus will be on developing gender and socially inclusive Climate Action Plans for coastal cities. In India, the team will focus on supporting local governments for developing climate-induced disaster risk reduction (heat, drought, floods) action plans. And in Nepal, a gender, and socially inclusive Climate Resilient City Action Plan will be developed to promote locally-led and ecosystem-based adaptations and to formulate a monitoring mechanism/tool for assessing the contribution of local actions towards national and international development and climate agenda such as the Sustainable Development Goals and Nationally Determined Contributions.