Sustainable Urban Development in the International Climate Initiative (IKI)

This Networking Event introduces the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Environmental and Buildings Ministry (BMUB) for the first time on a World Urban Forum and provides an overview on its new priority funding theme of Sustainable Urban Development.

The event will highlight how IKI is working, what it is currently funding and how actors can become involved. The Networking event will also provide the opportunity to exchange in depth on selected key topics for achieving climate friendly sustainable urban development. These exchanges will take place in three parallel working sessions:

1. Integrated Urban Low Carbon Planning;

2. Digitalisation in Urban Mitigation/Adaptation to climate change;

3. Sustainable and Affordable Housing in Urban Quarters.

The sessions are introduced by IKI project partners and subsequently followed by an open discussion among participants ranging from IKI and non-IKI project partners, implementation organizations, urban stakeholders, donors, and civil society.

The International Climate Initiative (IKI) of Germany's Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) has been a key innovative actor in climate financing since 2008 and has supported more than 500 projects in developing and emerging countries. Cities are key in both driving as well as being vulnerable towards climate change, for example highlighted by the climate negotiations in Paris 2015 (COP21), reiterated in Marrakech 2016 (COP22) and in Bonn 2017 (COP23). Sustainable Urban Development has therefore become a cross-sectoral funding priority in the IKI since 2015, with a range of new projects that started recently. IKI projects support partner countries to develop sub-national strategies on climate change mitigation and on adaptation to the effects of climate change in cities while fostering sustainable, integrated planning with special emphasis on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA).