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	Pipeline Projects

Capacity development to increase Asian and Pacific Cities resilience to climate change impacts

Project description

In the face of the changing global climate, the future of millions of people in Asia and the Pacific will be determined by the pace and quality of adaptation and mitigation undertaken by its cities. The region is home to more than 4 billion people with its urban population growing at the rate of 2.4 percent per annum. Significant climate change pressures will challenge environmental sustainability, the structure of economies, patterns of settlements, livelihood and employment. It is, therefore, imperative for the urban sector to take action and to be part of the global discourse on climate change. Rapid urbanization in Asia and the Pacific is also leading to a rapid increase of poverty in cities with about 1/3 of the region’s urban population now estimated to live in slums. The urban poor are particularly vulnerable to climate change as their settlements are often on marginal land, with poor quality of housing and infrastructure and as they lack adequate coping mechanisms and asset security when disaster strikes. If these climate change challenges are unmet by cities and no adaptive measures are set, it would compromise the achievement of most targets in the Millennium Development Goals and exacerbate the situation of the region’s urban poor.

Location: Asian and Pacific

Branch:

-	Regional and Technical Cooperation Division
-	Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

Partner: ICLEI – Local Councils for Sustainability, Rockefeller Foundation (RF), World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), Citynet, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Network of Local Government Training and Research Institutes in Asia and the Pacific (LOGOTRI), International Urban Training Centre (IUTC) in Korea

Themes:

-	Environment and Climate Change

Budget: USD 568,500

Received/Pledged:

Focus Area(s)

-	FA1: Effective advocacy, monitoring and partnerships

Background

This project aims to assist local governments in Asia and the Pacific to increase their resilience to climate change impacts. More general knowledge sharing and capacity development throughout the Asia-Pacific region is to be complemented with a particular focus on towns and cities of Pacific SIDS (esp. Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati and Samoa). This proposed project will build directly on the tentatively approved Development Account project “Capacity development for cities in the Asian and Pacific Region to increase resilience to climate change impacts (UN-HABITAT in collaboration with ESCAP)” by disseminating the developed tools through “training of trainers” workshops to local government training institutions, support networks and local government policy makers, including their translation into local languages. It will collect urban climate change adaptation and mitigation good practices (with a particular focus on the Pacific), and mobilize the predominantly Asian urban Climate Change support programme partners such as ICLEI – Local Councils for Sustainability, Rockefeller Foundation (RF), World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), Citynet, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Network of Local Government Training and Research Institutes in Asia and the Pacific (LOGOTRI), International Urban Training Centre (IUTC) in Korea and others, to share their lessons learned with the Pacific SIDS.

Objective

To build and enhance capacities of urban and national governments in the Asia-Pacific Region to address climate change adaptation and mitigation needs.

Activities

Translate and print the “Quick Guide on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in Urban Poor Communities in Asia and the Pacific” in five local languages of Asia and the Pacific.

Conduct two regional Training of Trainers (ToT) workshops based on the developed tools - one workshop, possibly in Bangkok, for Asian local government training institutes (LGTI) and networks such as LOGOTRI, ICLEI,UCLG and Citynet, and one ToT, possibly in Nadi, for Pacific LGTI and other regional support programmes and institutions like the Commonwealth Local Government Forum’s (CLGF) Pacific Capacity-building Project and the University of the South Pacific .

Provide technical support through LGTI and network partners to build the capacity of at least one city local government in each of the six selected Pacific SIDS to develop local climate change responses such as climate change action plans and city development strategies through participatory approaches, and integrate them with their budgetary systems.

If you may be interested in funding this project, please contact us: info.rmu@unhabitat.org