Parallel Session 2.4: Integrating human settlements in NAPs (UN-HABITAT)

Rationale:

More than 55 percent of the world’s population live in urban areas, and this number is expected toincrease to over 66% by 2050. Urbanization will be the most rapid in emerging and developing countries. This settlement growth will result in growing and changing economies and requires large investments in infrastructure, both a challenge and opportunity for building resilient nations. Adaptation needs, and priorities of countries expressed in the Paris Agreement and NDCs are massive, 113 countries have urban or urban related adaptation priorities in their NDCs, and much of these are focused on city level plans to address critical challenges in cities. In order to deliver the adaptation portion of NDCs, robust and comprehensive NAPs are important, because translating these commitments to national plans and strategies, and identifying and programming the large adaptation needs is crucial in the coming years, and will require improved coordination, communication, and mutual support linking national and local climate adaptation planning with private and international sources of financing. Integrating urban and human settlements issues into NAPs will enable countries to help large populations and important economic centers adapt to climate change, and achieve more resilient and sustainable urban development, critical to the achievement of the goals and targets of SDGs 11 & 13. However, this integration requires close cooperation between national 35 governments, private actors, academia, various government levels and institutions and non-state actors.

As a step towards supporting cities and countries with this this integration, UN-HABITAT has developed a supplement to guidelines for the formulation and implementation of NAPs entitled “Integrating Human Settlements into National Adaptation Plans”. The supplement is designed to support national and city level planners, experts and decisionmakers working on climate change issues to better understand the need and opportunities that adaptation actions in human settlements bring, and particularly how these link with broader goals and ambitions laid out in the NDCs under the Paris Agreement.

Objectives

• To consider adaptation in human settlements, actors and processes in the formulation and implementation of NAPs;
• To consider opportunities for mobilizing financing by identifying and programming ‘urban’ projects as part of the process to formulate and implement NAPs.

Expected outcomes

• Understanding of approaches to integrating human settlements into the formulation and implementation of NAPs;
• The opportunities of adaptation action in human settlement to mobilize climate finance

Link to presentation

Integrating Human Settlements in NAPs