As part of the Supporting Urban Sustainability Professional Development Programme, ICLEI South Asia, together with Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD) and the Centre of Environment Education (CEE), organized the First Engagement Workshops in Thimphu, Bhutan, and in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, on 7-8 February 2013 and 14-15 February 2013 respectively. The SUS programme enables stakeholders in the city to come together and jointly learn about the linkages between poverty and services provided by urban ecosystems, make suitable plans based on this learning and act upon these plans.

The workshops introduced the programme to the Municipal Corporation and included an extensive orientation for a small group of stakeholders that the cities had previously been selected on the basis of their work on environmental issues, ecosystem services or urban poverty. The stakeholders meeting was used to identify current issues, that will be further explored in the current year, with the goal to identify and implement ecosystem services related measures that will help achieve poverty alleviation in the two cities.