This is an official side-event of the 12th World Urban Forum.
Date: Friday 8 November 2024
Time: 13:30-14:30 EEST
Location: Urban Library Room A in the Egypt International Exhibition Center, El-Moshir Tantawy Axis, Al Hay Al Asher, Nasr City, Cairo Governorate 4440301, Egypt
Organizers
- The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
- University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)
Description
UNEP’s 2023 State of Finance for Nature report estimates that the total annual finance flows to NbS have increased by 11 per cent, reaching approximately US$200 billion in 2022. However, although gaps in finance flows towards NbS are well established, a critical missing piece of the puzzle is how much of these gaps are attributable to urban areas. In recent years, global policy and financial institutions have begun to recognize and measure financing at subnational and urban scales and identify them as a critical focus for green investments. Efforts to gather data and define the costs and benefits of urban NbS are still in their early stages. For example, the World Bank and the Nature Conservancy have ongoing assessments while Naturvation, an EU focused database, recorded USD 800 million to USD1.1 billion worth of urban NbS investments from 2008 to 2017 before it discontinued its counts.
In this nascent space, UNEP and the Penn Institute for Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania, have developed the State of Finance for Nature in Cities report to take stock of urban NbS investments. The publication aims to establish a framework that enables cities to begin collecting such requisite information, as it outlines gaps and opportunities for NbS financing in cities, best practices from around the world, and actions that local governments, financial stakeholders, private sector, and knowledge partners can take to scale up investments for nature in cities.
In 2024, UNEP and the University of Pennsylvania will release the second edition of the State of Finance for Nature in Cities report, which will build on the key findings of the 2023 report. This event will serve as a launching platform for the report, which will outline the benchmarking framework and process, delving deeper into the challenges and delivering new insights and actionable recommendations for closing the data gap. Experts in finance and urban planning will discuss the implications of this analysis and present their views on how additional finance for urban NbS projects can be achieved and support global and local sustainable development goals.
Additional Links
State of Finance for Nature in Cities: Time to Assess (1st Edition)
