Urban-Act: Integrated Urban Climate Action for low-carbon & resilient cities

Urban-Act supports a transformation towards low-carbon and resilient urban development in the Asia-Pacific. The project assists its government partners to align policies, regulations, and services for urban development with climate and sustainability targets. The project invests in knowledge transfer to strengthen the capacities of institutions, decision makers and technical staff. At the local level, the project supports 14 pilot cities to integrate climate change into urban plans and budgets. Cities are enabled to identify targeted measures for GHG emission reduction and resilience building related to urban mobility, urban environment, building or circular economy and leverage finance for the preparation and implementation of urban climate actions. At the Asia-Pacific level, through UNESCAP and UCLG ASPAC, the project supports advocacy through intergovernmental and city-to-city dialogue and facilitates knowledge sharing to enable scaling-up of projects results and good practices.

Project data

Countries: China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand
IKI funding: 22,625,000.00 €
Included preparation phase: 525,000.00 €
Duration: 04/2022 till 12/2027
Status: open
Political Partner: Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) - Philippines

Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning (DPT) - Thailand

Ministry of Ecology and Environment - China

Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) - India

Ministry of Natural Resources - China

State Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) - Indonesia
Implementing Partner: Chulalongkorn Universität - Thailand

Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center, Inc. (Clean Air Asia) - Philippinen

Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC) - Philippines

National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA)

Shanghai Urban Planning Development & Research Institute (SUPDRI) - China

Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) - Thailand

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) - India

Tongji University (TJU) - China

TU Dortmund University (TUD) - Deutschland

United Cities and Local Governments Asia-Pacific(UCLG ASPAC)

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) - Thailand

Universität Stuttgart - Deutschland

World Meteorological Organisation

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State of implementation/results

Project completed.
The High-Level Communique for Sustainable Urban Development in Asia-Pacific has been released at the 8th Session of the Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-8), following engagement and consultations with the project partner countries, regional advocacy and expert meetings on multi-level climate action in the region (twitter.com/…).
The Urban-Act project released a working paper led by ESCAP on Enabling Innovative Investment for City Climate Action: Examining the key barriers and opportunities faced by city climate finance matchmaking programmes in partnership with the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA) and the Leadership for Urban Climate Investment (LUCI) initiative (www.unescap.org/…).
In partnership with the Cities Development Initiative Asia (CDIA) and UCLG ASPAC, Urban-Act implemented a training programme on “Urban Governance and Developing Bankable Urban Climate Projects” for local government officials in the Philippines to complement the proceedings of the Philippine Mayors Forum 2023.
In November 2023, a Thai delegation consisting of government officials and representatives of academia visited Germany to exchange with key experts and learn about approaches to climate-sensitive urban planning, nature-based solutions, flood protection and the application of the Sponge City concept (www.thai-german-cooperation.info/…).
Urban-Act Thailand showcased approaches on urban climate resilience for the World Town Planning event “Shaping the Future: Urban Planning for Climate Change Adaptation” hosted by the Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning in November 2023. Key take-away messages of the event highlighted the importance for Thailand to address climate change impacts in cities and the urgent need for integrating climate considerations into spatial and urban development planning (www.facebook.com/…).
The Urban Act project supports the Philippines under the EU Green Economy Program additionally to sustainable waste management and circular economy. The program is part of the Team Europe initiative for the Philippines on Green Economy and is implemented together with UNDP, IFC and Expertise France (EF). The aim is to unlock the potential and improve the framework conditions for a transformation to a circular economy.
A first application from the project has been submitted to the Cities Climate Finance Gap Fund on October 25, 2023. The purpose is a pre-feasibility study in the waste management sector covering six cities (two each from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand) in the context of subregional cooperation under the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle Initiative, leveraging up to EUR 200,000 per country for (early) project preparation support.