Key Messages from the ICLEI Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Forum in Melaka, Malaysia, March 2016

By Renard Teipelke

The following are a couple of key messages and interesting thoughts from the ICLEI Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Forum, held in Melaka, Malaysia, 2-4 March 2016.

On capacities and partnership:

• There will always be trade-offs for convincing actors to join your effort.
• Youth are not only leaders of tomorrow, they are also leaders of today.
• You need to build the capacity of people before they will listen and engage.
• Use smart monitoring – engage stakeholders, as they provide the feedback service at no cost.
• Mayors better use the youth, as they are a strong force.
• Pay attention to capacitate several departments, as often qualified city staff is leaving to new opportunities.
• We should rather talk about mistakes: Not what we have delivered informs others, but what we have learned.

On successful management:

• We cannot get rid of our city, but we can improve it.
• Complaints by citizens are an opportunity for improvement, not a nuisance to local government.
• It is good to plan for everything, but to prioritize along timelines and budgets.
• You should have initiatives run by non-electives.
• Financiers go for those cities that have their house in order.
• To start with, mayors can ensure the wellbeing of their citizens by earning enough revenues to maintain services and infrastructure.
• In our city, we introduced an electronic budgeting system where every 50 seconds I can see what money comes in and out of my city’s pockets.
• If city officials have the courage and motivation to approach partners with their ideas and plans, they will receive support and money. But they have to ask for it.
• If you offer pilot projects for investment and capacity support, development partners can do their preferred cherry picking and political decision-makers can put their commitment behind projects, which they will need to seek reelection.

On sustainable development:

• How to achieve a sustainable city? No flip-flopping, consistency.
• Resilience is about continuity.
• It is a big challenge that still spatial and socio-economic planning only show weak linkages.
• The institutional fragmentation of budget preparation along sectoral lines limits investment capacities.
• Often cities are not aware of how disasters and recovery actually impact on their budgets.
• Even if there is no money, appointing a budget head for disaster risk reduction helps to initiate a change of mindset in your local administration.
• The 3Es (economy, environment, and equity) are fine, but they do not make a compelling story – livable city, however, provides a nice frame.
• If you look too much at the bigger picture, you forget about the common people – why not take the perspective of a single person from time to time?!

On international agreements:

• Often national governments come back with all the nice international agreements, but then it is usually up to the local and regional level to implement them.
• Local government should push higher-level governments by pointing out imminent risks and related international agreements for which these governments can be held accountable.
• The regional level can bring together actors effectively.
• Local actions are decisive over the success or failure of the SDGs.
• We should not forget that there are existing plans and policies, thus international agreements do not enter an empty field of implementation.
• Combine relevant agendas in the implementation.
• Connect your local actions with boxes – boxes of UN agencies, national policies, international agreements, regional programs, etc.
• The fact that most people have not heard about the MDGs during their many years of preparation and implementation teaches a valuable lesson about the importance to communicate and educate with the SDGs.
• If you let stakeholders imagine their preferred future first, you can then check how these dreams link up with SDGs.