Global Knowledge Exchange on Urban Climate Risk Assessments

The Water Adaptation Community held a knowledge exchange to showcase and share experiences on risk assessment work conducted by GCA, as well as similar work from partners, through city official-led discussions

About Climate Risk Assessments

A climate risk assessment is a tool used by many international development organizations, city-resilience focuses NGOs and environmental consultants. A risk assessment can be used to understand the likelihood of future climate hazards and the potential impacts of these hazards on cities, and their inhabitants. A completed assessment is a support tool for decision-making for prioritizing action and investment into climate adaptation and resilience. Some climate risk assessments require a lot of investment in time, effort and funds, therefore more rapid assessments have been developed.

Event Description
The knowledge exchange aimed to create space for city officials (speakers and participants) to discuss the benefits and learnings from the risk assessment process, provide feedback, and co-explore challenges and opportunities for addressing informal settlements as well as taking action, financing and implementation after the assessment.
 
Through city official-led discussions, the knowledge exchange showcased risk assessment work done by GCA’s Water & Urban team (with a focus on African cities).
 
The exchange provided an opportunity for personal and informal networking and sharing of implementation challenges and opportunities. It was also a platform for interaction with experts and practitioners and decision-makers who would not typically gather for knowledge sharing.

Format
The exchange event was aimed at consultants, experts, researchers, city planners and decision-makers. After a plenary session, there was a round of one-hour breakout sessions with three parallel discussions focused on specific themes (next steps after assessment and assessing/addressing informal settlements).  

The roundtables were followed by a panel discussion exploring areas for growth and potential supports for forward momentum in climate risk assessment and post-assessment implementation.

Join the Water Adaptation Community to access recordings and join discussions following this event.