Cities around the world face similar barriers to financing climate action. The event will share FELICITY’s experience in Ecuador and link to EUROCLIMA+’s policy advice. It will focus on challenges and opportunities for cities in accessing climate finance, suitable policy frameworks and capacity development mechanisms, and a joint outlook to finetune the support to cities and financiers. Three Ecuadorian cities – Antonio Ante, Jipiapa, and Atacames – and the Ecuadorian National Development Bank (BDE) will share from results in working with FELICITY’s tailored assistance. Following from it, these medium-sized cities are able to develop bankable water and sanitation projects. BDE incorporated climate considerations into its project identification framework, and a pipeline of another 40+ city interventions has been identified. Thanks to this, Ecuador secured a 100 Mio EUR loan with European Investment bank (EIB). This success case shows how strengthening innovative partnerships can create impact and action. EUROCLIMA+, through its Sustainable Urban Mobility Sector and its Climate Finance Action Line, is supporting Uruguay, Chile and Ecuador in building national sustainable mobility policies to move from policy to action by strengthening the institutional framework, setting up clear common goals and actions, and identifying financing mechanisms for a long-term implementation. This networking event will connect partners to uncover the potential of needs-based capacity building to leverage urban climate finance. Representatives of Ecuadorian Cities and the Development Bank of Ecuador (BDE) will set the scene with their experience. Secondly, a representative of the Ministry of Environment of Uruguay supported by EUROCLIMA+ will share the experience on designing a national financing mechanism that enables the local level to implement sustainable mobility. Finally, high-level EU and German Government representatives will transfer the examples on the ground to accelerate urban climate investments in the run-up to COP27. Draft agenda 1. Introduction to topic and event objective: Moderator (5 Min) 2. Scene-setter: Video input by FELICITY 3. Online questionnaire: who is in the audience? What major challenge do you see to access climate finance? (see section on interaction)? (5 mins) 4. Roundtable discussion, first guiding questions to everyone, then vivid exchange and audience engagement (45 mins): a)Mayor or the City of Antonio Ante, Ecuador – City Perspective b) Head of the Ecuadorian Development Bank BDE – National Financier Perspective c) Ministry of Environment of Uruguay – Policy Perspective d) EIB Global – International Financer perspective 5. Visualization: Show results of the poll to visualise further inputs (5 mins) 6. Closing remarks: Reflection on the debate by GER / EU high-level representatives, connecting to political debate (2x5-10min) 7. Key take-away and suggestions for next steps by all participants (5 Min)