For a decade, the annual ICLEI Resilient Cities Congress has been providing an open, global space where local governments, researchers, businesses and civil society could meet as equals, contributing with their knowledge and expertise to the advancement of urban resilience. With up to 500 participants and more than 30 partners each year, Resilient Cities is a milestone event where ICLEI engages local, national and global decision makers, adaptation experts and city staff to assess global resilience indicators and forge new partnerships to advance resilient urban development.

This workshop focused on exploring solutions, technology and applications on building a more resilient and water smart city by a series of indoor lectures, technical visits and group presentations. The target participants include government officials, executives, and research and development personnel responsible for the water management and technical implementation. Experts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, New Zealand, Australia and Netherlands shared their expertise with representatives from fifteen countries.

The EcoProcura conference series is where public procurement policy meets practice, and where future innovations originate. For 20 years EcoProcura conferences promote exchange and dialogue amongst purchasers from all levels of governments, suppliers, policy-makers and multipliers on strategies and the latest practical solutions on SPP every 3-4 years. The purpose of the EcoProcura is to provide a forum to encourage public authorities (with a focus on local governments) and their partners, such as businesses, to exchange experiences and coordinate their actions and purchasing power in favour of sustainable and innovative products and services.

The City-Business Collaboration Accelerator (CiBiX) is a platform to increase engagement and collaboration between cities and businesses on city-led urban sustainability challenges. Through CiBiX, ICLEI provides a neutral platform that enables local government to take an active role in presenting their challenges to relevant private sector experts. Together they are able to participate in an early-engagement workshop that helps the city to receive new contributions as well as identify potential solutions and partnerships which they can choose to further explore. For businesses, it provides a strong networking opportunity to connect with local governments and learn exactly what their needs are in a particular sector or challenge scenario. The CiBiX Platform encourages cities to frame their urban challenges with a private sector engagement perspective- helping them to take the first step towards exploring potential partnerships relevant for their needs. The first service is a short-form ideation and early engagement workshop to stimulate an open and transparent interactive dialogue between a lead city and well-matched private sector representatives with a sustainability challenge framing.

Through the Biodiversity Forum in Ulsan, ICLEI aims to develop and facilitate local driven policy action and raise citizen participation by co-planning, organizing and summarizing results together. Every year, biodiversity activists and NGOs participate and share their problems and solutions on chosen local biodiversity issues. This local Biodiversity Foru is a self-driven biodiversity event that gives local governments and residents a unique experience of raising awareness around the linkage between biodiversity and sustainable development, and biodiversity activities around the country.

The 2019 European Mobility Week (EMW) project guides and aggregates volunteer local action for EcoMobility. This campaign in Korea accelerates sustainable mobiliy actions at the local level by voluntarily setting cities’ plan of weekly activities and permanent policy change. ICLEI’s one week campaign helps local governments to raise citizens’ awareness about sustainable mobility and its effects and linkage with climate change and contribution to sustainable development. Activities within the campaign include the creation of regional forums around sustainable mobility, educational programming, and car-free days for public offices. These activities often draw media attention, which can add to the civic awareness and participation.

ICLEI East Asia supported the Seoul Metropolitan Government in organizing the 9th Northeast Asia Forum on Air Quality Improvement as a co-organizer. The Forum was attended by officials of 35 local governments, including all EACAC cities except for Guiyang. On this occasion, Tokyo, Beijing, and Shenzhen introduced their policies on vehicle emissions reduction; Sichuan presented in the stationary emissions reduction section. ICLEI East Asia shared its experience of strengthening regional cooperation and collaboration through EACAC together with other city networks including C40, CCAC, and GUAPO.

Since 2011 the ‘Municipal Climate Partnerships’ project has aimed to strengthen partnerships between municipalities in Germany and developing countries for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The fifth phase of the project involves partnerships between German municipalities and municipalities in the Philippines and Vietnam, such as the three between Filipino and German municipalities, namely Muñoz – Marburg, Dumangas – Herdecke and Lubang – Ebhausen.

Through a process of professional peer-to-peer dialogue and exchange of experiences, in conjunction with mutual visits by delegations of local government experts, the municipal actors from Germany and their counterparts develop a joint bilateral program of action for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Both municipalities will identify specific project activities to be implemented in the joint program of action, and the resources needed for this.

ICLEI provides support in implementing workshops, delegation visits, and advisory services. The delegation visits provide partner municipalities a peek of the realities on the ground. This will then be one of the basis in prioritizing projects and activities in their joint program of action. All project activities are conducted in close coordination with Engagement Global/SKEW.

ICLEI East Asia has works with SHRDC to conduct annual training programs to support local officials from ICLEI Member and other cities in Asia in strengthening their efforts to achieve sustainable and low emission urban development.

In 2019, two training programs were organized – one solely dedicated to Chinese Cities who participated in the 2019 International Forum on Air Quality Improvement jointly organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and ICLEI. And the other one for Southeast Asian Cities via the Ambitious City Promises project. Each program was designed to focus on policies that can be applied per the participating cities’ local context, considering their general socio-economic development and cooperation with the private sector and citizens. Through the policy presentations, site visits and group discussions, the participants were able to gain the latest insight on climate change mitigation and adaptation, energy transition, transportation, waste management, and citizen-led governance.

As a take-away of the training, participants presented their drafted action plans, combining learnings from the week-long training and their daily tasks.

ICLEI is one of organizers of the Global Corporate Sustainability Forum which brings together organizations, institutions and academia and features diverse and engaging activities. The implementation of corporate sustainability initiatives is one of the main activities that are now expected from the international business community, not only for their own long-term interests but for the world’s common interests. To bridge the gap and open the dialogue between public and private sectors on sustainability in Asia, ICLEI will host a parallel session on Cities Initiatives during the opening day of Global Corporate Sustainability Forum, in cooperation with the Organizer, Chinese Taipei Institute for Sustainable Energy (TAISE), ICLEI Member Cities in Chinese Taipei and other local partners.