Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) partners joined more than 100 representatives from governments, municipalities, development banks, associations of municipalities working to combat climate change, and international organisations in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) on 25-26 September 2019. The workshop, led by IUC-Latin America and the Caribbean (IUC-LAC), focused on financing sustainable urban development and climate action.
IUC-LAC, in partnership with the European Union, fosters high quality, sustainable and resilient urban planning in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, turning such plans into funded projects remains a challenging hurdle. The September workshop sought to clarify funding options, mechanisms and tools to ensure that IUC-LAC cities can put their plans to action.
In addition to difficulties in accessing climate finance, which is usually allotted by national authorities, cities face a lack of local technical capacity, lack of experience in developing bankable projects, and a shortage of alternative financial mechanisms.
The workshop addressed these challenges, focusing on mobilising investments for sustainable urban development. Working groups enabled participants to delve more deeply into specified topics: “City-to-city cooperation: implementation of the New Urban Agenda through local action,” or “The Global Compact of Mayors for Climate and Energy in Latin America and the Caribbean: from commitment to action.”
The meeting was attended by representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay, as well as participants from Europe, including representatives of the European Commission. Bringing this diversity of voices together is crucial, as Sergio Otth, Temuco Municipality, explained: “It is very important to be able to participate in these activities in order to be able to bond, learn about experiences outside our countries, and thus work together with other cities in our country to unite and pursue common goals, since our concerns are transversal.”
Sol Rivas Aguilar, head of the International Cooperation Department of the City of Miraflores (Peru), expressed a key belief that underlines all of the IUC programme, namely that, “there is no city too small that it cannot teach and no city too large that it cannot learn.”
For more information on the workshop, view the full article [in Portugese] here.
Header image by IUC-LAC