The conference aims to inspire the next frontier of research focused on the science of cities and climate change.

The primary goal of the conference is to assess the state of academic and practice-based knowledge related to cities and climate change, and to establish a global research agenda based on the joint identification of key gaps by the academic, practitioner and urban policy-making communities.

Deadline for submission: October 6, 2017

Conference Themes:

Cities & climate change (Imperatives for action)
Urban emissions, impacts and vulnerabilities (Science and practice of cities)
Solutions for the transition to low carbon and climate resilient cities (Science and practice for cities)
Enabling transformative climate action in cities (advancing science and advancing cities)
Call for proposals for sessions

You are invited to submit a proposal for a complete 90-minute session.

Sessions with innovative formats that best foster the delivery of the unique conference objectives and expected outcomes identified above are especially welcome. In order to meet the conference objectives, all sessions must incorporate a clear and visible element of knowledge exchange or co-generation among the scientific community and the practitioner and/or policy-making communities. You are encouraged to focus session proposals on the themes identified in the conference outline, but sessions with foci that cut across several themes are also welcome. Sessions are encouraged to draw on contributors from various world regions, especially the Global South; and to involve early career scientists and consider gender balance among contributors. Proposed sessions will be assessed by the Scientific Steering Committee based on the Conference objectives.

Call for abstracts for oral session contributions and posters

In addition to complete sessions, proposals for individual contributions (oral presentations in sessions as well as posters) are also invited.

Accepted oral presentations will be organized into sessions by the Scientific Steering Committee to complement accepted sessions from the call above and in order to best meet the conference objectives. Posters will be presented in specific poster sessions during the conference. Contributions need to relate to the conference themes, and can take several forms in order to help achieve the conference objectives, including scientific presentations, oral elaboration of lessons learned from case studies/best practices, or posters. Posters may be shown through interactive electronic displays. Submit an abstract summarizing your proposed contribution under one or more of the conference themes (see above).

More information: https://citiesipcc.org/en

Under the overarching framework of “Cooperation and solidarity in the fields of management and development of water resources”, this Sixth Edition of the Great Prize gives recognition to candidates making significative contributions toward the theme of “Working towards greater solidarity and inclusion in order to ensure water security and climate justice.”

Presented every three years in conjunction with the World Water Forum, the Prize will be awarded at the 8th World Water Forum that will take place in Brasilia, Brazil, 18 to 23 March 2018. The winner will be granted an award of US$100,000.

Candidates – an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization – must be nominated by at least two individuals and/or organizations active in the water resources sector.

All candidatures must be submitted before 30 November 2017 by using the online registration form available at: www.hassan2gwwp.org

All information on World Water Council website.

On 11 July, Mayor of Ultrecht and President of VNG, Jan Van Zanen presented a report to the HLPF entitled “National and sub-national governments on the way towards localization”.

The report, a contribution of UCLG to Global Taskforce, provides evidence of the current and potential role of local and regional governments in the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs. It is based on first-hand information collected by UCLG from local government associations in over 30 countries, complemented by an analysis of the 63 official National Voluntary Reviews (NVRs) and ‘Main Messages’ presented by national governments.

Read the full report : https://www.uclg.org/sites/default/files/localgov_report_localizationsdg_hlpf.pdf 

more information about the localisation of the SDGs process on UCLG 

The Commission took stock of the implementation of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development and of the peer review process.

A foresight exercice on Mediterranean 2050 was proposed and approved.

The Mediterranean Commission of UCLG alongside MedCités brings a territorial visionto Members States of the MCSD.

Following a decision of the Contracting Parties to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Region of the Mediterranean (Barcelona Convention), the Secretariat of the Mediterranean Action Plan (UN Environment/MAP) is launching the “Istanbul Environment Friendly City Award” (Istanbul Award).

Through Decision IG.22/19 (COP19, Athens, Greece, February 2016), the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention decided to establish the “Istanbul Environment Friendly City Award” to be conferred to Mediterranean coastal cities.

The Istanbul Environment Friendly City Award aims to recognize and reward the efforts of local authorities to improve the environment and the quality of life and promote sustainable development in Mediterranean coastal towns and cities. It also aims to encourage local authorities to move towards a more environment friendly future and enable them to act as a role-model to inspire other towns and cities.

By definition, a sustainable coastal city is: “A coastal city in harmony with the sea, utilizing its resources efficiently, equitably and sustainably, reducing its impact on marine and coastal environment and climate change, and managing the environment for the benefit of current and future generations”. Therefore, an environment friendly city is a coastal city in which people enjoy a high quality of life and where sustainable development takes place within the carrying capacity of healthy ecosystems.

The Award will be conferred at the next Conference of Parties (COP20) in Tirana, Albania, on 17-20 December 2017.
Application process

The call for applications is open until June 16, 2017.

Please complete the istanbul_award_application_without_logo and sent it by email to [email protected] copied to [email protected]

Applications should be submitted by the local authority of a Mediterranean coastal town or city of a Contracting Party of the Barcelona Convention, in English.

The application can either be signed by the mayor (or his delegate) or be accompanied with a mayoral declaration.

For this first edition, which is a pilot test, the working language is English.

Eligibility criteria

Both small towns and metropolitan cities are eligible to apply.
It is encouraged to develop partnerships with NGOs, the scientific community, the private sector or other stakeholders for the submission.

Evaluation and selection

The evaluation will be undertaken through the criteria/annotations proposed in the Annex of Decision IG.22/19 and defined under four main categories:

Nature and Biodiversity Protection
Built Environment
Social, Economic and Cultural Sustainability
Governance
In addition to the proposed criteria, the historical perspective of the candidate city will also be considered. The improvements observed in the city are very important regarding the city’s efforts towards sustainability, the progress achieved as compared with its past, as well as the city’s efforts and perspectives for further future improvement. Improvement achieved will be a benchmark criterion.

The selection will be carried out in three steps:

First step: Initial screening
Second step: Short-listing
Third step: Selection (including public voting)

Source: Plan Bleu

Over time the Mediterranean region has developed a unique blend of tourism activities associated with sea, health, sports, nature, business, as well as cruise and culture, offering consistent employment (11% of total employment) and economic growth (11% of regional GDP). However, the economic growth due to tourism development has often been to the detriment of environmental integrity and social equity. Sea-Sand-Sun (3S) dependency, weak governance and degradation of cultural heritage, environmental pollution and resource depletion, contribution to climate change and climate vulnerability, political insecurity and social instability, economic and human capital leakage are some of the issues that threaten the longterm sustainability of the Mediterranean region and the tourism sector itself

Inherent societal characteristics and the exponential development of the tourism sector are generating a need for a dedicated set of actions to be included in Strategic Directions for Sustainable Tourism in the Mediterranean to be implemented by regional, national and local policymakers and stakeholders under the following shared vision: “Promote sustainable Mediterranean tourism in which visitors and hosts enjoy balanced, respectful and fruitful relationships and value the unique Mediterranean environmental, human and cultural heritage, while ensuring inclusive socio-economic development, taking into account the carrying capacity of healthy natural ecosystems, and developing complementarity between various economic activities at the tourist destination level.”

This workshop convened more than 50 national and local government representatives, urban practitioners, researchers and urban activists from six countries – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and, Tunisia – along with other international and national stakeholders –including Urban Hub members – from Brazil, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the US.

The workshop, which was organized around interactive working sessions allowing participants to share their experience and learn from others approaches and initiatives, had the following objectives:
To identify the key levers of territorial cohesion and regional development and to advocate the key role of cities when designing and implementing territorial policies;
To promote knowledge sharing through encouraging exchanges on good practices and lessons learned from the ground and discussing how they could be adapted to different contexts;
To encourage multi-stakeholder networks (including policy makers, practitioners, academics, etc.) to inform policy-making.

Read the programme and the results on CMI website

Source: CMI

The Agenda of Metropolises, cities and territories

The fourth edition, GOLD IV, examines the challenges and issues that local and regional governments face in our current urban age through three main chapters on metropolitan areas, intermediary cities, and territories (including regions, small towns and rural municipalities) as well as the solutions that can be devised to co-create the inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities of the future, as advocated in Goal 11 of the SDGs.

Source: UCLG

The programme is designed to support synergies, cross-disciplinary activities and innovative project ideas related to intercultural dialogue (ICD), involving young actors from both shores of the Mediterranean, giving them the spaces to gain new perspectives on how to drive positive change.

The Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) is especially welcoming applications from key actors that will work on projects related to:

Migration and Intercultural Cities
Anti-radicalisation and Gender
Translation and Publishing
The EuroMed Exchange Programme is working on two modalities:

Twinning Exchange: an organisation can send an ICD Actor and host another ICD Actor. The organisations have to be in different countries. The exchanges don’t need to take place at the same time.
Sending Exchange: an organisation can send an ICD Actor to be hosted by another organisation. The organisations have to be in different countries.
Priority will be given to North-South twinning exchanges between members and between members&non-members. However, South-South and West-East (Europe) patterns will also be supported.

APPLICATION

To apply for the traineeship you are kindly asked to read the guidelines fill out the application form application_form_2017_-_en and send it to [email protected]. Applications must be in English or French. Applications sent to any of the ALF staff members email addresses are automatically excluded from the call.

Call is open from 18 April – 15 June 2017.

Source: ALF

This action falls within the framework of “Southern Neighbourhood Activities” under the “Platforma Strategic Partnership” with the European Commission.

The questions of this survey are addressed to local and regional authorities (LRAs) of both rims of the Mediterranean (even if some are more specifically tailored to Tunisian and Moroccan authorities). The answers of all stakeholders will be relevant for better shaping the training module in terms of needs, experiences or visions to capitalize on.

We warmly encourage you to respond to the survey by following the link : https://form.jotformeu.com/70726323549358.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration!