Welcome to our new members

ICLEI Africa is honoured to welcome its five newest members - a group of coastal cities from Mozambique.

All five cities are important coastal ports; all are threatened by flooding and climate change; and all came as a united delegation to the LoCS4Africa 2017 Congress in Ekurhuleni, South Africa. These cities already have strong linkages, through the USAID Coastal City Adaptation Project. To start from the south and head northwards, they are: Quelimane, Ilha de Moçambique, Nacala, Pemba and Mocímboa da Praia.

ICLEI Africa at Resilient Cities 2017

ICLEI Africa attended and participated in Resilient Cities 2017 held in Bonn, Germany from 4 to 6 May. The team was actively involved in the congress, chairing various sessions and appearing on panels, including the Insurance Industry & Cities Summit and the Urban Food Forum.

Find out what happened on day 1, day 2 and day 3 of Resilient Cities 2017.

This year’s Resilient Cities Congress aimed at tracking local progress on the resilience targets of the 11^th Sustainable Development Goal.

Insurance Industry & Cities Summit

The Insurance Industry & Cities Summit (IICS) marked the first step in a partnership between ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the UNEP FI (United Nations Environment Programme- Finance Initiative) Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) Initiative.

The PSI-ICLEI Summit produced the “Bonn Ambition”, which has three deliverables by the time of the ICLEI World Congress in June 2018 in Montréal, Canada. The overarching ambition is to create “Insurance Development Goals for Cities”, harnessing the insurance industry’s triple role as risk managers, risk carriers and investors to help realise the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A second ambition is to create city-level sustainable insurance roadmaps to drive strategic approaches and collaborative action by insurers and local governments. The final ambition is to hold the first-ever roundtable of insurance industry CEOs and city mayors at the 2018 ICLEI World Congress to accelerate global and local action.

"We are aiming for a future where we can reconcile the protection of the environment with the needs of people.”

Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Urban Food Forum

The Urban Food Forum was held from 5 to 6 May 2017 under the banner of the CITYFOOD Network. A number of interactive and informative sessions took place at this forum, including bilateral meetings between a range of stakeholders, which was the kick-off of local action in working towards more sustainable city food systems.

CITYFOOD Network: Invitation for cities to join & participate

ICLEI and the RUAF Foundation came together to launch a CITYFOOD Network, aiming to accelerate local and regional government action on sustainable and resilient city-region food systems by combining networking with training, policy guidance and technical expertise to its participants. An invitation has also been extended to local and regional governments to join and participate in this network.

Contact cityfood@iclei.org for more information.

Mayor Manuel de Araújo intervention at UNFCCC TEM-M

Mayor Manuel de Araújo of Quelimane, Mozambique addressed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's Technical Expert Meeting on mitigation focusing on cross-cutting issues in urban environment and land use, on 8 May 2017 as a keynote speaker.

Among the key messages of his speech were how to solve problems and challenges on the ground, the importance of different levels of government enabling one another, and the need to learn from previous experiences.

EUEI PDF publishes flagship study

In April 2017, the EU Energy Initiative Partnership Dialogue Facility (EUEI PDF) published the flagship study “Future Energy Scenarios for African Cities – Unlocking Opportunities for Climate Responsive Development”.

The study was developed by the EUEI PDF in collaboration with two partner organisations, ICLEI Africa and Sustainable Energy Africa (SEA), and under the guidance of the consulting firm Atkins International.

ICLEI Africa attends Western Cape Water Security Indaba

ICLEI Africa recently attended and participated in the Western Cape Water Security Indaba 2017 in South Africa. The aim of the Indaba was to create common understanding and catalyse action by bringing together key sectors. Delegates shared ideas and innovation on current and future regional water planning and discussed solutions for long term water security, as well as ways to address the impacts of both the current and potential future droughts.

The Western Cape Water Security Indaba 2017 was hosted by the National Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, and Provincial Minister Anton Bredell.

City Innovation Platform guide released

"The City Innovation Platform: A guide to multi-sector collaboration on resilience" captures learnings from a unique workshop held in partnership with ICLEI Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, east Africa’s largest city, in 2016. This guide captures a partnership between insurance industry organisations and city officials, united by the need to deliver more sustainable, financeable and insurable public infrastructure projects across emerging economy cities.

LoCS4Africa 2017: Water & Climate Congress

The bi-annual Local Climate Solutions for Africa (LoCS4Africa) 2017: Water & Climate Congress saw over 400 registered delegates, from 53 cities and 40 countries, with over 150 city representatives, including 40 mayors and government heads.

LoCS4Africa 2017 was a culmination of the Sustainable Resilient Water 4 Africa (SuREWater4Africa) project, which worked in six African countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Ekurhuleni Declaration on Water & Sanitation for Cities

Mayors from across Africa met to discuss and endorse the Ekurhuleni Declaration on Water & Sanitation for Cities. The Declaration can be endorsed by local governments, local government associations and local government networks.

Add your voice in support of the Declaration here

AfriAlliance Newsletter out now

Read the first AfriAlliance newsletter after the official inaugural launch conference, held at ICLEI Africa’s Local Climate Solutions for Africa: Water & Climate Congress.

Download English version here / Download French version here

Winners announced

We are proud to announce the three winners of our SURe Water 4 Africa project Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) Competition: Bulawayo, Lusaka and Walvis Bay.

As winners of the competition, these three cities were awarded the opportunity to jointly develop a CBA of their city with the assistance of leading industry experts. The analysis will focus on the costs and benefits of adapting to or neglecting to adapt to climate change.

Look who’s talking

The Local Action for Biodiversity: Wetlands South Africa team visited Nolufefe Primary School where the children had prepared a play on the importance of wetlands.

Watch short version

Watch extended version

Special announcement

The 5th Global Biodiversity Summit of Cities and Subnational Governments, a parallel event to the Convention on Biological Diversity's 13th Conference of the Parties, was held in Cancún, Mexico from 9 to 11 December 2016. The Cities Summit was convened by ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity Center, which is housed in our ICLEI Africa office.

You can read more about the Summit and see the photo gallery here.

Look out for the event report, which will be launched on World Environment Day this year, 5 June 2017.

Contact biodiversity@iclei.org for more information.

Opportunity

Continual Professional Development (CPD) training on sustainable energy transitions

The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana and the Energy Institute, University College London are jointly organising a conference on the theme “Strategies for sustainable energy transitions in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa” in Accra, Ghana from 19 to 20 June 2017. Following the conference, a 4-day CDP accredited course (21-24 June) will be presented. The aim of the course is to build capacity of local government actors and various stakeholders to champion the implementation of sustainable solutions and responses to climate change in the urban environments of Africa.