Cities are growing and changing so fast that many authorities are struggling to cope. ICLEI’s aim is to boost sustainable urban development, through city-to-city International Urban Cooperation (IUC) on and foster sub-national actions under the Global Covenant of Mayors initiative. ICLEI supports regional innovation strategies and inter-regional cooperation for local and regional development.

Through the Together for Climate project, municipalities are helping to lead a collaborative co-developed planning exercise with key local groups including regional governments, First Nations, chambers of commerce, land developers, academics, and health professionals. ICLEI is building capacity on climate action by convening eight municipalities in a collaborative adaptation planning process. The process identifies, assesses, and plans for local impacts – with a focus on long-term implementation.

While many island urban settlements are growing rapidly, climate change and increasingly frequent disasters are stressing urban systems. ICLEI promotes sustainable island and urban development through resilience and systems planning, clean energy, coastal fisheries management, infrastructure, innovative finance, ecosystems services, post disaster recovery and sustainable tourism. ICLEI collaborates with Mayors and leaders, through twinning of island cities with other cities and regions, to create fruitful partnerships to deliver scalable solutions to build resilience on islands and globally.

ICLEI is in charge of making a review on barriers and opportunities for the development of bio-based value chains; identifying stakeholders and expected benefits from mutual learning; mapping bio-based products (applications) based on stakeholders’ interests; creating guidelines for the BIOVoices Mobilisation and Mutual Learning approach; engaging the plurality of voices through creation of the BIOVOICES community and establishing a mechanism for communication of their needs, through the methodological approach for Mobilisation and Mutual Learning (MML) workshops; creating the on line BIOVoices social platform and on line mutual learning activities; co-designing of the BIOVoices social platform and organising a series of European, National and Regional MML co-creation events. All of these actions will promote the dialogue among civil society, business, policy makers and researchers as well as develop a common understanding of the different needs and possible solutions and produce policy briefs in order to increase the societal confidence related to bio-based products and industries.

ICLEI’s ‘Holistic strategy and action plan for plastic waste management in GHMC’ will act as a guideline for various stakeholders for reducing the use of plastic waste in the city with the focus of making the city single-use plastic free by 2022.

The project also includes design and implementation of a pilot project and dissemination of policy implications by developing guidelines for plastic waste management which can be used as a model case for development of state level plastic waste management policy. The experience will later be shared with central government ministries and other stakeholders to consider as a model for implementing national guidelines on plastic waste management.

The project ‘Urban-Rural Assembly’ (URA) aims to build a better understanding of the urban-rural constellation and interdependencies that are emerging along China’s vast urbanisation corridors, and which can no longer be described through traditional binaries of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’. The region Huangyan-Taizhou, part of the Chinese ‘prefectural-level city‘ Taizhou, will be examined as an exemplary case study and learning context: a rapidly urbanising region where diverse and seemingly contradictory transformation processes take place simultaneously in close proximity, producing multiple dimensions of urban-rural interrelations. URA combines leading partners in the field of sustainable urban and regional transformation in Germany and China. ICLEI supports the research project in creating an interface between the research partners and policy makers, both within the case region as well as nationally in China and internationally. Through the development of transferable strategic instruments, enabling tools and guidelines, the project seeks to foster knowledge dissemination and transfer across the coastal urbanisation corridor – contributing to the urgent need for creative approaches towards localisation and implementation of the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda in China and beyond.

ICLEI is the Technical Support Group enlisted to assist 21 local Biodiversity Management Committees to produce their People’s Biodiversity Register, a repository of local knowledge on Biodiversity.

Through a set of 31 pre-formulated formats, information is collected on various aspects of biodiversity relevant in the local context. This is supplemented through photo documentation and in some cases video documentation. The register is confidential and cannot be shared outside of the main stakeholders at the local level, such as the Goa Biodiversity Board, the Biodiversity Management Committee and the National Biodiversity Authority.

ICLEI is carrying out a baseline assessment of the ecosystems and the services they provide to the city of Gangtok. ICLEI will complete a review of the policy environment with regard to biodiversity conservation is and a natural asset map for the city, which will all help to set the baseline for the Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan for the city. This will be in line with the State Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.

The project promotes sustainable management of high range Himalayan ecosystems to secure conservation of globally significant wildlife, including endangered snow leopard and their habitats and ensures sustainable livelihoods for local community in the four high altitude landscapes in the Trans- and Greater Himalayan region. These actions are aimed at maintaining ecosystem values and ameliorating climate change impacts, enhancing surveillance, monitoring and trans-boundary cooperation to reduce wildlife crime and related threats, and improving knowledge and communications. ICLEI will undertake extensive biodiversity surveys and mapping to identify the drivers of degradation in the alpine and sub-alpine landscapes of Himachal Pradesh. Based on the information thus collected, the project aims to develop a restoration plan for two degraded sites.

ICLEI supports the Assam State Government to prepare a nomination dossier which highlights Majuli Island’s Unique Natural and Cultural heritage which will enable it to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.