"Financing Greener Cities" is a capacity-building event, which will focus on "Strengthening the capacity of local authorities and practitioners for making informed decisions on financing nature-based solutions".
The event takes the shape of an interactive workshop that will increase the participants’ capacity and community development need of financing arrangements for local biodiversity, ecosystem services (ESS) and nature-based solutions (NBS) interventions in response to local urban challenges. "Financing Options for Greener Cities" is developed in close cooperation with ICLEI, EKLIPSE Mechanism and the NATURVATION project.
The objective of the event is to improve the expertise of local stakeholders to better understand (1) the financing landscape, (2) financing options, (3) possible ‘investment’ cases and (4) financial arrangements (such as blended financing).
The 2-day workshop will actively involve 20-40 participants from across Europe, representing local level policy-makers, decision-makers, economic scientists and civil society. During the workshop participants will (1) observe the most urgent challenges; (2) map the financing landscape and (3) reflect on the financing options, (4) make the case for investing in biodiversity, ESS and NBS; and (5) will stimulate outside the box thinking around financing arrangements.
A short survey after the workshop will collect the reflections of the participants and the lessons learned. This information will be summarised in a report, which will serve as a knowledge base for the future development and implementation of 'green' projects.
- The workshop will take place 8-9 October 2019 in Athens, Greece.