Planning And Delivery of a Stakeholder Engagement Event to Disseminate ESPA Insights on Urbanisation
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Project Summary
ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability has been commissioned to plan and deliver a stakeholder engagement event to disseminate ESPA insights on urbanisation. Located between the outer limits of urban and rural centres, peri-urban areas are considered as transitional zones. Peri-urban areas are critical ecosystems, support several ecosystem services and play a significant role in building urban resilience.
Cities do not operate in isolation but within a “sphere of dependence” on surrounding areas and their ecosystems. The ecosystem services produced by peri-urban ecosystems and through peri-urban agriculture play significant roles in multiple aspects of urban sustainability and resilience, ranging from food security to disaster risk management.
Expanding urban zones are rapidly degrading and destroying peri-urban ecosystems. Continued unplanned urban and peri-urban development, paired climate change, is stressing ecosystems to the point where ecosystem restoration is arduous and expensive. The degradation of these peri-urban ecosystems results in loss of ecosystem services that support urban and peri-urban populations. Water provision, storm- and waste-water regulation, along with protection from natural disasters and erosion, and food security are the impacted services.
The ESPA programme has supported over 100 projects on ecosystem services and their role in poverty alleviation. In the final year of programme delivery, the ESPA directorate intends to deliver a legacy-focussed event in Delhi to share ESPA insights on urbanisation with targeted decision-maker audiences in India, and facilitate discussion on the emerging issues of urbanisation in India and its impacts on, and linkages to, surrounding ecosystems, including the rural-urban/urban- peri urban continuum.
In this context, ICLEI South Asia will conduct the following:
- Support development of a Policy Brief
- Plan and conduct a stakeholder engagement event
- Develop a report on the stakeholder engagement event