This past August, I co-facilitated the CityLinks Climate Leadership Academy (CLA) on Urban Adaptation in Jakarta, Indonesia. In partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the US Mission to ASEAN, and USAID, the CLA brought together eight city teams from seven ASEAN member states to exchange ideas on how to address new climate change challenges in the face of rapid urbanization.

As a member of CityLinks partner organization the Institute for Sustainable Communities, I have designed and facilitated several CLAs in the U.S. However this was the first time I had the opportunity to bring the model overseas (although the model has been used by colleagues in China and India). It was also the first time that the CLA was brought to Southeast Asia, and the first time we brought together city teams from different countries. Despite these firsts, I was struck by how well it was received, and encouraged by its impact.

CLAs use a peer-learning methodology that aims to enhance the capacity and skills of urban sustainability practitioners. This is done by bringing together teams – each representing a diverse cross section of city and national leaders together– to create maximum impact in sustainability areas such as low-carbon transportation, sustainable economic development, and urban climate adaptation. Each CLA workshop is customized to the needs and wants of participants: we interview each participant team to better understand where they stand in their sustainability programs, where they would like to be, what particular implementation challenges they face, and what replicable “promising practices” they would like to share with their peer teams.

For the Jakarta workshop, we had to find common ground among the diverse national and city-level political structures. For example, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, had strong national directives to develop a climate adaptation plan, while in other cities, like Chiang Rai, Thailand, the non-profit sector played a leading role. We also found a diversity of urban adaptation priorities. Legazpi, Philippines had a strong disaster preparedness focus (they face increases in climate-related events such as flooding, sea-level rise, and tsunamis on top of other threats from volcanos and earthquakes), while others, such as Jakarta, Indonesia prioritized working with highly adaptive coastal slum dwellers to inform their overall zoning codes. 

In the end, the CLA peer-learning model transcended these differences because it enabled us to hone in on what mattered most to our participants, and target the content accordingly. We identified common themes across teams (e.g., building broad-based support, restoring urban ecosystems, re-thinking urbanization, aligning financial investments, and elevating social equity) and created an open learning and sharing environment where discussion of challenges, successes, and lessons learned inspired each participant to implement critical actions in their own city. Each team left the workshop with an impressive list of action items that they will pursue in the next three to six months. We promised to follow up with the teams to check in on their progress. Stay tuned for an update!