Through the project, ICLEI will support in the development of a technical training for Baixada Santista Municipalities for identifying vulnerabilities and developing adaptation measures to prevent the impacts of climate change on water resources. The overall objective of this project is to ensure that the target audience is trained on the issue with a focus on adaptation, in order to identify vulnerabilities, propose adaptation measures to prevent risks to water resources and to access financial resources for elaboration of plans, programs or projects for the implementation of adaptation actions in the Baixada Santista region.

The objective of the project is to analyze the development of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services concepts and practices in urban areas and better integrate them into the science and policy discussions that are taking place in the context of the preparation of CoP15. ICLEI´s focus on key Chinese actors since China is the host country of the CBD CoP 15, as well as on German, European, and other international actors who play a major role in the implementation of measures that promote urban biodiversity and ecosystem services at the local and sub-national level. The specific goal of the project is to provide an overview of the current scientific discourse and environmental policy processes and to raise awareness of the identified key actors through a series of consultation workshops taking place in Europe and in China.

ICLEI connects like-minded cities to exchange experiences and lessons learned on the way towards the circular economy, advocates the necessity of closing-the-loop thinking, identifies cities’ circular good practices, shares the latest knowledge and provides suggestions on mainstreaming the circular development in urban strategic planning and policies.
ICLEI raises the attention on the circular development in cities and encourages multi-stakeholders dialogues by facilitating peer-learning and exchange. ICLEI pairs up like-minded cities and supports organizing on-site visits, workshops and offline meetings (whenever resources available), and distributes newsletters to feature good practices, innovation, and latest reports.
Through the Coalition, local governments from Europe and East Asia are increasingly recognizing the circular development concept as a potential approach to achieve mutual-benefits, and are gradually shifting their mindsets from the end-of-pipe treatment of waste towards closed-loop thinking. This mindset change can have a positive influence on local governments’ actions to achieve zero-carbon society and the SDGs. Cities can further review, synergize and optimize existing policies and strategies via the lenses of circularity and life-cycle management.

ICLEI works in collaboration with FAO, ICLEI, RUAF and C40 to collectively promote and support subnational take-up and engagement regarding food policy and action in African cities, in line with global targets and ambitions articulated in SDG 2 and through initiatives such as the Milan Food Pact. This collaboration is also intended to build on the existing ICLEI-RUAF CITYFOOD Network and related initiatives of all the partners in Africa.

Through this project, ICLEI as a leading member of the implementing consortium leads the work package set up to help enhance institutional frameworks through political advocacy and networking. ICLEI leads the project’s support to address legal and institutional frameworks and promote multilevel governance in pilot countries to provide an enabling environment for local and national governments to coordinate and streamline their urban planning and relevant priority sector activities. To this end, ICLEI establishes dialogues (including Talanoa dialogues) and explores partnerships and networking opportunities with political leaders at all levels and leveraging on its role as focal point to the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) constituency of the UN Climate Change and the Friends of Cities group.

ICLEI also provides technical expertise to the local governments in the development of their Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plans (SEACAPs); supports the project’s work to enhance local climate finance and supports the project’s communication and awareness raising activities.

ICLEI co-organizes the Human City Forum, which is hosted by Suwon City, in close cooperation with partner institutions and organizations based in Suwon. The forum aims to leverage the collective local actions for recovering human value in urban space. ICLEI mobilizes speakers from around the world and addressing the importance of the agenda in relation to SDG Goal 11, so that local governments in South Korea get unique insights on global trends on inclusive society and development.

ICLEI cohosted this side event “Social Innovations and Civic Engagement—City as Living Lab” at the 2019 Smart City Summit and Expo, Taipei. Participants from local governments learned about the smart city model of inclusive, ambitious climate action, mainstreaming public participation development strategies and creating new local leaders. Additionally, the event discussed how to test new ideas and co-create effective solutions in a Living Lab using agile methodologies. From idea identification to conceptualization and from rapid prototyping to testing, combining the Living Lab way of working and citizen engagement in a learning-by-doing approach shows great promise for inclusive city development.

ICLEI Oceania has posted a ‘science communications toolkit’ on the website, a collation of useful resources for sustainability students. Through the Young Writers Network students and graduates are empowered to become engaging communicators. Sharing evidence-based knowledge in credible and persuasive ways is paramount to the health of a mindful and engaged society, and is a prerequisite for sustainable development policies at all levels of government, especially local and regional governments, who interface most closely with communities. Through capacity building, and offering online resources and social networking events in partnership with other sustainability organisations in Melbourne, Australia, ICLEI is assisting academic researchers in translating their sustainability research into practice. ICLEI is assisting researchers and students in translating their sustainability research into practice.

The Urban Transition Alliance connects industrial legacy cities from Europe, USA and China committed to accelerate ambitious and inclusive transitions, as well as showcasing their sustainability leadership. Alliance cities share their own transition experiences, knowledge and good practices based on social, economic and environmental challenges within their unique industrial legacy context. Through a tailored exchange platform hosted by ICLEI, the Alliance helps cities to identify and leverage expertise to co-create implementation strategies for sustainability-related projects.

During the current project phase, the ICLEI further encourages the Alliance member cities to include an equity-based approach in their transition projects, not only to achieve climate and environmental targets, but also to provide opportunities to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. Alliance cities receive support on key equity-focused sustainability issues through two challenge cycles in 2020 and 2021 with 4-5 challenge topics selected per round. The outcomes of these challenge support cycles will shape a blueprint of lessons and good practices for cities worldwide on how social equity and climate action can reinforce each other.

To assist SI-CAT in its efforts, ICLEI is compiling the best practices in urban resilience and adaptation programs/projects taking place outside of Japan. In 2017-18, ICLEI conducted a set of interviews with local governments worldwide, analyzing those practices and submitted reports which will be used to help researchers and local government officials to further develop understanding of urban resilience and thus contributing to the development of adaptation plans at local level. In 2019, ICLEI will research and compile examples of how local governments are utilizing and systematically managing scientific data in its resilience planning and in its adaptation programs/projects.