Greetings readers!
 
The success of this year’s Resilient Cities conference confirms that resilience and adaptation are high on the urban sustainability agenda - even more so in South Asia, a region particularly vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate. Our cities and national/state governments, guided by ICLEI South Asia, are however very active in taking measures to prepare for and adapt to the upcoming challenges, and reduce their vulnerability to them, as this edition of the e-news will show.
 
ICLEI South Asia is committed to supporting cities in adapting to climate change and financing, through the several tools developed, the expertise of its staff and the knowledge deriving from examples of cities in other regions in the world. 
 
We are also proud to have such engaged cities, among our members, and wish for many more to come on board and work, with us, towards a more resilient future.
 
Emani Kumar, Executive Director

Integrated solutions was the answer at “Resilient Cities 2013 - the 4th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation”. How should cities move towards adaptation and resilience to climate change? was the question. This edition of ICLEI’s yearly event on resilience took place on 31 May - 2 June 2013, and gathered 528 participants, including 117 local government delegates from 60 cities.

ICLEI South Asia and its representatives considerably contributed to the wealth of examples and experiences shared during the event; with a delegation of seven people, representing the cities of Shimla, Cochin and Rajkot (India), Kathmandu (Nepal), Matale (Sri Lanka) and Barisal (Bangladesh), as well as the Indian National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), and through several contributions to the programme, ICLEI South Asia showcased the intense work being carried out in the field of adaptation in the South Asia region, focusing on the AsianCitiesAdapt, ACCCRN toolkit and Urban Vulnerability Assessment projects. Read more..

Those who could not make it to Bonn can still find an extensive report of the conference through its website, daily blogs, presentations and pictures. Read more...

ACCESSanitation final conference accelerates sustainable sanitation in Indian and Philippine cities
 
Representatives from project cities as well as other interested Urban Local Bodies, from the Ministry of Urban Development, the European Commission and technical institutions – they all came to the same conclusion: while local governments are crucial actors when it comes to sanitation provision, they need support from regional and national governments, in terms of policy guidance, financial support and institutional capacity, to be able to provide citizens with sustainable sanitation services.  This was one of the key messages that emerged during “Towards Cleaner and Healthier Cities”, the final conference of the “ACCESSanitation - Accelerating City to City Exchange on Sustainable Sanitation” project, that took place on 7-8 May 2013 in Delhi.

Other success factors for sustainable sanitation provision, identified during the discussions were: early stakeholder involvement to guarantee locally appropriate and culturally acceptable sanitation plans; capacity building of the local administration; generation of awareness and of a demand for sanitation; financial sustainability through integration of O&M costs and income generated from reuse and recovery; replication of best practices. Read more...

It was not just listening, talking and networking at the Resilient Cities conference in Bonn, Germany, for Mr Chammany (Mayor of Cochin, India), Mr Chauhan (Mayor of Shimla, India), Mr Hilmy (Mayor of Matale, Sri Lanka) and Mr Adhikari (Chief Executive Officer and Acting Mayor of Kathmandu, Nepal): the high-level South Asian representatives showed their commitment to advancing sustainability by signing the Durban Adaptation Charter – a global agreement between mayors to mainstream climate change adaptation.
 
Led by the Mayor of Bonn, overall 11 new cities signed the Charter, representing 15 million constituents and committing to integrating climate adaptation into urban planning and bolster their resilience against climate risks: Bonn, Germany; Kathmandu, Nepal; Seoul, South Korea; North Vancouver, Canada; Cochin, India; Linköping, Sweden: Tevragh-Zeina, Mauritania; Seferihisar, Turkey; Shimla, India; Matale, Sri Lanka; and Pekalongan, Indonesia. Read more...

On 17 May 2013, Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) hosted the kickoff workshop that launched the Nashik Sustainable Urban Habitat Action Plan (SUHAP) project, proposed by GIZ (German International Cooperation), under the Indo-German Environment Partnership (IGEP) program.
 
ICLEI-South Asia is supporting GIZ-IGEP in providing technical assistance to NMC, other relevant departments within the city and the state of Maharashtra for the preparation of the SUHAP. In the preliminary phase of the plan, a status report will be prepared for all relevant sectors and will include an energy baseline and a green gas houses inventory. After an analysis of this data and an assessment of the impacts of climate change on the various sectors within the corporation, a SUHAP specifically tackling global warming and climate change related issues will then be developed, in line with the Government of India’s “National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH)”.
 
ICLEI South Asia encourages other Indian cities to comply with the Government’s “National Mission on Sustainable Habitat” and consider developing their own SUHAP. For more information on the project, click here or write to iclei-southasia@iclei.org

Image courtesy of SWITCH. (c) Carol Howe

“Taking the right decisions under uncertainty: What do local governments need?” was the tagline of the session organised as part of the AsianCitiesAdapt (ACA) project at the Resilient Cities 2013 conference.  The session, meant to summarise the outcomes of the three-year project now coming to an end, focused one on how researchers and decision-makers can make up for the gaps in knowledge and move forward with their adaptation processes. 
 
Despite the often lack of quality, reliable, and up-to-date data, the need to move forward with those available was emphasised. Language barriers between science and cities were highlighted as another current difficulty; developing local knowledge and capacity building was identified as one of the solutions to it, together with inter-organisation collaboration and coordination and the sharing of information among different countries. Bringing in local universities, scientific, and research partners– as it was done in the ACA project – is also another way to fill the knowledge gap and can be extremely beneficial to advancing local adaptation efforts.
 
The need to involve the scientific community in the city’s resilience planning was acknowledged by Mr Chammany, Mayor of Cochin, one of the Indian cities involved in the project, who also stated "Scientists have knowledge, politicians have power. Combining the two will bring social change".

Multi-stakeholder coordination, knowledge access and management, green growth, communication, community engagement and partnerships: these are the main issues that emerged from the Cities for Life: Cities and Subnational Biodiversity Summit, that took place in Hyderabad, India, on 15-16 October 2102 in parallel to the CBD COP 11, and that are examined in more detail in the Summit report that has just been released.
 
The Cities for Life Summit report captures the wealth of ideas, tools, resources and messages that came out during the Summit, when more than 500 participants from local and regional governments, UN agencies, academia, business, national and international organisations came together to share their progress on the Plan of Action on Subnational Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities for Biodiversity and to discuss the next steps needed to meet the Aichi targets.
 
The report is released as the Korean Ministry of Environment announced the selection of the CBD COP 12 location: ICLEI member Pyeongchang, Gangwondo-Province will host the event from 29 September to 18 October 2014. Click here to download the report.