The impacts of the UNFCCC COP 23 on the ongoing dialogues on urban resilience and experience sharing were discussed in the third Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific 2017 (RCAP 2017).
RCAP 2017 was organised in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on 7-8 December 2017 by ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) in partnership with Ministry of Planning and Investment, Government of Vietnam, Asia LEDS Partnership, and LEDS Global Partnership (GP).
The RCAP series provides a platform for urban resilience and climate change adaptation. Its dialogues aim to foster partnerships, with the goal of identifying implementable solutions and create lasting impacts for cities in the region. The RCAP 2017 Congress held discussions on the impacts of the UNFCCC COP 23 on the ongoing dialogues on urban resilience. Experts and practitioners shared their experiences and encouraged cities to plan through local actions on resilience.
The Urban Nexus project contributed to the thematic and plenary sessions on finance on the first and second days respectively. The thematic session on sharing best practices in building city resilience via the Nexus approach, a new dynamic and interactive format called “Market Place”, was adopted to generate discussion and exchanges among the presenters and the audience. Project partner cities including Chiang Mai and Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand, Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, Tanjung Pinang in Indonesia, Nagpur and Rajkot in India, Naga City in the Philippines, and Danang in Vietnam set up “Market Stalls” around the room. Each city gave 5-minute presentations on the Nexus initiatives.
On the second day, the Financing Urban Resilience session brought together bilateral and multilateral agencies involved in financing climate action for local and sub national governments. It linked financial institutions’ priorities with cities’ needs and capacities for implementation of resilience actions. The discussion included integration of climate initiatives in development finance mechanisms.
Ms. Ruth Erlbeck, the Urban Nexus project director, reiterated the need for innovative solutions to achieve resilience and the need for financing institutions to diverge from conventional financing criteria in support of the innovative solutions. “Banks don’t love integrated projects, they like to go the conventional way,” she said, adding, “Bureaucracy continues to be our challenge in coming up with innovative solutions that might be more sustainable. Thus, the funding mechanism is also highly dependent on cities’ leadership and commitment to enable the environment.”
The outcomes of the RCAP 2017 will be presented at the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur in February 2018 as well as the ICLEI World Congress in Montreal in June 2018.
“The Urban Nexus approach perfectly responds to the implementation challenges of the SDGs and the NDCs.” Ruth Erlbeck, GIZ’s Project Director