Climate Action and Adaptation Plan Training: ICLEI provided in-person training for Los Angeles City staff on Climate Action Planning. The training focused on the following topics:
•Climate equity and community driven processes;
•5 Milestone Process: Data Driven Planning;
•Inventory: what sectors are usually measured, what it can tell you, determining trends; emissions forecasting and emissions reduction planning;
•Vulnerability assessment: criteria to consider, sectors, ranking; ensuring relevance by including the correct stakeholders (e.g., community members); place-based, model-informed, expert-driven, transparent;
•Best practices in the process and structure; and
•Action monitoring and report.

In 2011 ICLEI Africa launched the inaugral Local Climate Solutions for Africa. It brings together key national, subnational, local government and private sector leaders from across Africa to discuss and explore collective solutions for addressing climate related challenges that threaten to derail sustainable development in Africa.

The 2020 theme “Financing for Change” will respond to the growing acknowledgement worldwide that to tackle climate change, city-scale finance must be mobilised. Local finance will give subnational actors access to the resources they need to harness the emission reduction potential in cities, and to respond effectively to climate change at the local level. Improved multi-level governance and increased finance flow to the local level will speed up implementation of current national and international climate change commitments.

ICLEI is an implementing partner in the LGCCSP4 through the development of training material and provision of capacity building. The methodology used in the implementation of the activity is three fold as follows:
-To inform the development of the capacity building workshops, training materials and in-depth technical assistance, ICLEI undertook a desktop research and reviewed relevant studies, papers, and projects undertaken in South Africa, Africa and globally, with a specific focus on local government climate action and climate finance.
-To foster a thorough understanding of climate/green finance principles for local government officials, ICLEI developed a training manual drawing on the key lessons and implications for climate and green finance in South Africa.
– Conducted highly interactive training to 200 municipal officials using a learning-by-doing approach and to provide a review of municipal project proposals to determine the best-suited types of funding and financing and the best type of funders.

As the frequency and intensity of climate change related disasters increase, local communities are severely impacted. In response to recent climate related disasters on the continent, ICLEI Africa is stepping up to support cities in reducing their disaster risk. We draw on two decades of on-the-ground work in Africa, building and strengthening resilience through proactive planning.

•Conduct Sustainability Assessment of Existing Programs
•Develop Sustainability Baseline Assessment and Gaps
•Set Sustainability Goals
•Develop the Sustainability Plan
•Implement the Plan and Monitor Program
•Develop Sustainability Work Program Document
•Engage the Public, City Council, and Other Stakeholders

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 PROMISE Tool has helped strengthen capacity of local government for integrated, participatory, inclusive and sustainable development and efficient resource mobilisation and utilisation to enhance service delivery, increase community participation and promote diversity in the urban system. Local authorities have been supported to create, enable and institutionalize equitable and inclusive governance mechanism and facilitate the development of smart and sustainable growth in cities through the project. Cities identified the projects that are most desirable and needed by the community. Local governments have recognized the need and importance of citizen engagement.

ICLEI East Asia and UNDRR co-hosted two workshops for two Chinese cities – Ningbo and Chengdu – to raise awareness of urban resilience with specific focuses on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction among local officials.
The workshops were structured in sessions of concept and tools introduction, and presentations of international and domestic cases on resilience and adaptation. Assessments of local resilience were also conducted via group exercises followed by suggestions on improvements.
ICLEI East Asia and UNDRR will continue to work to support 2 more local governments in China in implementing the Sendai Framework and other urban resilience objectives via workshops. It is expected that local disaster risk reduction planning will be better risk-informed when cities are equipped with skills to assess their respective risks, identify gaps, and ultimately lead to projects to address those gaps. A learning publication will be produced as the final output of the series, to share lessons learned on improving urban resilience in the context of global warming with other cities.

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.

The IADAPT project addresses the water management issues in Indian cities, moving from existing water management practices that plan, establish and operate water supply, wastewater and storm water systems as separate entities to more integrated and collaborative approaches. ICLEI is helping two Indian cities – Solapur and Vijayawada to be climate resilient by developing an integrated catchment management plan guided by the decision support tool developed to move from conventional water management approaches to an ‘Integrated Approach’ based on the principles of IWRM and IUWM. The project will institutionalize climate adaptive water resource management at catchment level guided by participatory catchment planning, simple decision support tools, preparation of catchment level action plans and multi-pronged financing approaches.