Urban Pathways

The Urban Pathways project will help delivering on the Paris Agreement and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the context of the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. It will establish a facility to support national and local governments to develop action plans and concrete implementation measures to boost low-carbon urban development. The project will develop national action plan and local implementation concepts in key emerging economies with a high mitigation potential (India, Brazil, Kenya, Viet Nam). The plans will include an assessment of the political, technological, socio-economic and financial viability of the measures. The local implementation concepts will be developed into bankable projects, focusing on the access to urban basic services to create a direct link between climate change mitigation and SDGs, mainly in the area of energy, mobility and waste management. This process will then be replicated regionally with policy development and implementation support and advice on stakeholder engagement and financing mechanisms.

The four main activities of the project are:

• Inform:
  Factsheets on mitigation & sustainable development potential; Guidelines on implementation of low-carbon development solutions; Urban implementation action tracker to showcase good practice; Coordination with other implementation oriented programmes
• Inspire:
  Knowledge sharing and co-creation of solutions with city officials, young professionals, urban development practitioners and NGOs as part of the "Urban Change Maker" capacity building and e-learning programme
• Initiate:
  Set up city twinning partnerships to facilitate city-to-city exchange; Policy advice & implementation guidelines for up to 20 cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America
• Implement:
  Feasibility studies, implementation and finance plans developed for 4 pilot countries; Analysis of the political and institutional framework and advice on policy process.