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Nature, Land, and Cities: What nature positive cities look like in the Arab region

Join us to explore how Arab cities can adopt Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to combat land degradation and enhance urban resilience. Discover global frameworks, actionable strategies, best practices and success stories to create sustainable cities.

Dr. Karen Sudmeier-Rieux

Moderator

date November 6, 2024 | 13:00 - 14:30
place
SDGs in Action - room B
organization
UNCCD
country
Germany
language
English, Arabic
Reference: 
SDG-B 8

Summary

The escalating challenges of the climate crisis and increasing pressure on and degradation of land systems prompt countries to act swiftly to protect their people and ecosystem services. The MENA region, the most urbanized region in the world, is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, already experiencing higher temperatures and increased frequency of extreme weather events e.g., drought, flash floods, and heatwaves, besides exacerbated water stresses and desertification. In response to these pressures, and to help achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and work towards the G20 ambition to reduce degraded land by 50% by 2040 under the G20 Global Land Initiative at the UNCCD, integrated land use and landscape management and the adoption of science-based targets and frameworks that promote nature-based solutions (NbS) are essential.

Cities can enhance their resilience and adaptive capacities by working with nature and its ecosystems, bringing nature into the city, and enhancing resilient urban-rural linkages. Strengthening and safeguarding surrounding ecosystems enhances the provision of necessary basic services for city dwellers and their livelihoods. Besides adaptation benefits, the integration of NbS in urban planning and land management practices can also contribute to climate change mitigation through reducing urban emissions. Thus, NbS have the potential to provide long-term environmental, societal, and economic benefits including healthy and accessible food, green jobs, disaster risk reduction, and fostering biodiversity.

This event aims to promote sustainable practices including NbS through reflecting on global frameworks, guidelines and initiatives focused on land restoration and reducing land degradation, climate change adaptation, LDN, and nature-positive cities and how they can be effectively employed in the Arab region. The event shall present tools and case studies from Arab cities, highlighting local climate action and best practices as well as exploring key challenges to the implementation of NbS and how these can be addressed. This is a pivotal time for Arab cities to demonstrate their commitment to global initiatives on safeguarding land and nature and integrating it into the built environment. This event builds momentum for the role of cities in promoting NbS for climate change adaptation and LDN towards the UNCCD’s 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16).

Objectives

• Regionalize Global Frameworks: identify opportunities and potential barriers to effectively adapt and apply global frameworks to the regional context of the Arab region
• Explore the incorporating the principles of land conservation and restoration and the concept of nature-positive cities and their role in urban land management, and the various co-benefits—from ecosystem services to climate resilience—arising from integrating nature into Arab cities
• Explore the Role of Arab Cities on the road to COP16: build on global actions to support regional and local transformation towards better land use planning and a nature-positive era
• Exchange Success Stories, best practices and implementation challenges: share inspiring success stories that highlight the transformative power of nature-positive cities, showcasing strategies for integrating nature, better land use planning and the principles of land conversation and land restoration into urban planning and achieving LDN
• Promote collaboration and action towards establishing nature-positive cities and explore how knowledge and practices can be transferred within and across regions to bolster urban-rural linkages and sustainable land governance
• Facilitate an interactive discussion to envision ideas and strategies for promoting nature-positive cities
• Raise awareness on the importance of incorporating NbS and the principles of land conservation and restoration in cities, exploring viable pathways for effectively replicating and scaling up existing successful approaches.

Session panelists

Panelist
Role
Organization
Country
Mr. Ahmed Malkawi
City Manager
Greater Amman Municipality
Mr. Ehab Eid
IUCN SSC Steering Committee Member & Natural Heritage Conservation Expert
Freelance Consultant
Ms. Johanna Alcala
City Resilience and Climate Finance Advisor
Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy GCoM
Ms. Marwa Khalifa
Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning
Ain Shams University
Ms. Nadine Bitar
Co-founder And Executive Director
Baladiya Catalyst
Ms. Simone Sandholz
Academic Officer, Head of Urban Futures and Sustainability Transformation (FAST) Programme
United Nations University - Institute for Environment and Human Security UNU-EHS