The Asia Pacific Climate Week provided an opportunity for the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility Team to share lessons learned and best practice for how communities, local partners, cities, and local governments can deliver adaptation results. Here a summary of some of the main takeaways.

On the 7th of July 2021, LoCAL co-led a session on “Scaling up collaboration on integrated approaches and actions for urban and local climate resilience” as part of track 2: Integrated Approaches for Climate-Resilient Development of the Asia Pacific Climate week.

The session focused on three pillars: capacity building for climate change mainstreaming into local/urban public planning and budgeting systems, innovative financial mechanisms, and adaptation measures aligned with Nationally Determined Contributions.

Bringing together a mix of national and local speakers, from different countries in Asia, the discussion underscored the importance of scaling up successful solutions, mechanisms, and actions that enhance the effectiveness of adaptation finance and ultimately empower cities and local governments to contribute towards the implementation of adaptation measures.

Among speakers were Mr. Pitambar Aryal, Nepal Red Cross Society’s Secretary General; Mr. Sanjaya Bhatia, Head of the Office of UNDRR Office for Northeast Asia (ONEA) and Global Education and Training Institute (GETI); Mr. Richard Gomez, Mayor of Ormoc City, in the Philippines; and Mr. Vatanak Chheng, Deputy Director at the National Committee of Subnational Democratic Development from Cambodia, a LoCAL country.

Key takeaways from the discussions can be summarized as follows:

1. Scaling up collaborations and partnerships across different sectors, institutions, areas of expertise, governance levels, and building on good practices and solutions, are key factors to promote adaptation and resilience of communities.

2. Access to predictable and sustained finance, access to reliable climate data and low capacities to interpret them are among key barriers cities and local governments face to properly address climate change impacts and promote climate resilient communities.

3. Communities are being hit hard by climate change and climate efforts need to put communities at its core. With ongoing rapid urbanization, strengthening urban and local resilience must be a priority.

4. The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity for cities and local governments to mainstream climate resilience and green recovery into local and urban plans (climate resilient and green recovery local plans).

5. Key factors to ensure coherence between National Adaptation Plans and Disaster Risk Reduction frameworks include a legal foundation that provides the enabling environment and clarity – the localization of global agendas - to match local capacities. Active participation of communities is also vital as well as institutionalization and coordination, including via community-based disaster platforms, to ensure climate risk tools are harmoniously applied.

The session was made possible through a collaboration between UNCDF, UNDP and UN-Habitat, as well as partners such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), United Cities and Local Governments Asia Pacific (UCLG ASPAC), International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) Asia-Pacific.