Virtual Regional Technical Capacity Development Workshop

Participants (M/F): 19 (11/8)

Main Objectives:

• Explore trends and best practices from the region;
• Showcase useful resources developed under the DA13 project;
• Discuss continuing challenges and successes in response and recovery;
• Validate findings and recommendations of the Regional Policy Brief; and
• Develop a stronger regional peer-network.

Description: COVID-19 has significantly impacted cities across the globe, forcing countries to implement various movement control measures. The pandemic has also resulted in the closure of businesses, shrinkage of economic activities as well as massive revenue losses of governments. Although the effects of COVID-19 provided some brief, positive environmental outcomes, such as reductions in emissions and improved urban air quality, the opportunity to have a sustainable and green urban recovery has yet to reach its full potential. The UN is committed to assisting cities and countries to “build back better” as a society, utilizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a framework for localizing COVID-19 recovery planning. Keeping this in mind, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is funding a global project aimed at supporting local governments’ recovery from the COVID-19 impacts in coordination with all UN Regional Commissions. In three phases, this project aims to: 1) collect and analyse data and information; 2) develop support activities to share best practices and inform recovery plans; and 3) assist cities to develop recovery plans. UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific (ESCAP) is the implementation partner for the Asia-Pacific region, whose approaches would be built on the Socio-Economic Response to COVID-19: ESCAP Framework and The Future of Asian and Pacific Cities 2019 report, which identifies 15 policy pathways for sustainable cities across four thematic pillars. These 15 policy pathways provide guidance on the interventions necessary for cities to build back better and accelerate progress on the SDGs.

During the 1st and 2nd phases, cities have collected information and data which were featured in UN-Habitat’s Global Compendium of Practices and organized stakeholder visioning workshops to set a recovery vision and priorities. Benefitting from extensive data collection and expert panel reviews, cities have finalized their Urban Economic Resilience Diagnostics and Resilience Performance Reports. These have been fed into the development of recovery plans in each city, which are the main outcome of this 3rd phase.