Delegates from Iloilo City joined more than 300 leaders and experts from around the globe to participate in the 8th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation in Bonn, Germany May 4 to 7.
Organized by ICLEI, the forum focused on urban resilience and adaptation to climate change challenges through sessions on localizing global frameworks, disaster risk reduction planning and policy, financing resilience, risk transfer and insurance, and mechanisms for measuring, reporting and accelerating action for resilience building, among others.
Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog and Mary Ann Gumban, Dean of the College of Management of the University of the Philippines Visayas, represented Iloilo City.
The delegates were able to avail of fully-funded scholarships for the trip.
The forum was part of the Resilient Cities congress series. It was first launched in 2010 in Bonn with the goal of forging partnerships between local government leaders and climate change adaptation experts to pursue solutions for adaptation challenges in urban environments.
The delegates also joined a pre-conference training on the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities (EPIC) framework in conjunction with the Resilient Cities 2017 May 3.
The EPIC framework, previously known as the “Oregon Model”, was pioneered by the University of Oregon in the United States in 2009.
The framework is known for its scalability and replicability across cities and universities, by matching city needs with university capacity—overcoming the gap between knowledge and practice—to come up with innovative solutions to local quality of life issues.
The city-university delegates were expected to replicate the EPIC model in their cities with the urban development learning centers that will be established by the SURGE Project.
The knowledge hubs are envisioned to foster urban development, climate-resilient land use and infrastructure planning, and sustainable water and sanitation services.
