Steve Gawler, ICLEI Oceania Regional Director facilitates a workshop to evaluate what worked and what did not work including lessons learned from the ICLEI – ACCCRN process. (Photo by: Helen Scott)
Bangkok, Thailand – ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) organized a two-day workshop last February 29 to March 01 to capture lessons and insights of selected Asian cities which were part of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN).
ACCCRN is an initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. It supported cities in preparing their city resilience strategies (CRS) by following a toolkit called the ICLEI – ACCCRN process. ICLEI and IIED are long-term partners in ACCCRN and have worked together to analyze and compare the CRS which were developed by the cities engaged by ICLEI.
The regional workshop was organized to gather inputs of selected city representatives regarding the analysis and to reflect on the implementation of the ICLEI-ACCCRN Engagement Building grants. The grants provided financial support to implement small-scale pilot projects identified by the cities in their respective CRS. Funded projects focus on a wide range of thematic areas including but not limited to setting up of urban gardens, road pavement, installation of rainwater harvesting facility, and youth empowerment for climate change. During the workshop, Mr. Ashvin Dayal of Rockefeller Foundation launched a project catalogue highlighting all initiatives supported by the ACCCRN Engagement Building funds.
Mr. David Dodman, Director of the Human Settlements Group at IIED highlighted the importance of linkages across scale and across sectors as a recurring theme during the workshop. He also observed that the discussion on financing resilience strategies no longer revolves around difficulty in accessing finance because cities are able to share potential means of supporting their proposed actions. “The way we talk about financing resilience is more forward-looking than it used to be. This is a positive development,” Dodman concluded.
Participants came from the four ACCCRN countries namely Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Three ICLEI offices including Oceania, South Asia, and Southeast Asia were also present. A total of nine Southeast Asian local governments joined the workshop including Balikpapan, Bekasi, Bogor, and Tanjung Pinang in Indonesia; Marikina City, Naga City, Quezon City, Santa Rosa City, and the Municipality of Tublay, Benguet Province in the Philippines.
Download the ACCCRN Engagement Building catalogue and the case studies for Indonesia and Philippines.
