BACKGROUND
 

 The Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific of the Asian Institute of Technology (RRC.AP) has been supporting developing countries in the region on climate change adaptation planning via capacity building and knowledge exchange activities. With support for the Ministry of Environment, Government of Japan, and in collaboration with a variety of organizations with incidence in climate action planning including the Secretariat of the Green Climate Fund, AIT-RRC.AP has focused its recent activities on climate finance for climate change adaptation and the GCF Simplified Approval Process. Concurrently, RRC.AP has spearheaded capacity building and knowledge exchange activities focusing on building cities’ resilience to climate and disaster risks, grounded on UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s ten essentials for making cities resilient and its Making Cities Resilient 2030 campaign.  To date, over 1000 participants from nearly 40 countries in the region have participated in training, knowledge exchange, and mentoring activities.

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A 2022 Technical Paper by the Paris Committee on Climate Change titled “Enhancing the ownership of developing countries of building and maintaining capacity for climate action” suggests that domestic-oriented capacity building interventions by international providers refer to priorities and needs, warning that short-term interventions can prevent ensuring the required buy-in from participating stakeholders. One of the key recommendations is to ensure following a multistakeholder approach across capacity building interventions. A 2021 Cities’ Climate Finance Leadership Alliance report on the state of climate finance for cities note that whereas as human populations concentrate in urban settlements, the finance gaps to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change is at a crucial moment that requires unlocking multisectoral partnerships to access and unlock finance. Finance needs for cities are estimated at USD 4.5. to 5.4 trillion annually, yet estimates of mobilized finance are significantly lower (USD 384 billion on average in 2017/18) and concentrate in OECD countries and China, and mitigation activities.

 

Urban Climate Change Resilience in Indonesia

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Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia, and the fourth most populous country on the planet, with human settlements concentrating in cities and coastal areas. Thirty Indonesian cities and local governments are listed members of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, and almost the same number of cities in the country have populations exceeding 300 000 residents. According to the Center for Climate Finance and Multilateral Policy (2021), the Indonesian government estimates forecasted economic losses from the impacts of climate change at USD 38.92 billion between 2020-2024. Concurrently, the country’s Climate Resilience Development Policy for 2020-2024 list four priority sectors for climate change adaptation planning: water resource management, climate-smart agriculture, marine and coastal areas, and community and environmental health.

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Indonesia’s GCF Country Programme (2021) note that the country’s capacity to access international climate finance needs improvement on various fronts including (a) balancing financial disbursement in overlooked areas, (b) leveraging private sector investments at scale including via blended finance and, (c) engaging multi-level stakeholders including Direct Access Entities and sub-national actors.

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OBJECTIVES
 

With an ultimate vision of increasing finance flows for urban climate change resilience, the training intends to build and strengthen capacities among stakeholders involved in climate change adaptation project design to develop quality concept notes to seek climate finance, particularly from the Green Climate Fund.  The objectives include the following:

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• To strengthen the know how among officers involved in climate change adaptation project design to conceptualize project ideas seeking climate finance, particularly from the Green Climate Fund;

• To bridge and strengthen networks among practitioners to explore partnerships towards meeting common goals on resilience building; and

• To collaboratively identify ways forward for building urban climate change resilience, including by leveraging climate finance from the GCF.