The first Urban Nexus Training was held for representatives at the governance and country levels as well as those with development experience from Bangkok, India, Mongolia, the Philippines and Indonesia in Bangkok on 11 – 12 December 2017.

The training module was developed by the Urban Nexus project. The Urban Nexus approach designs sustainable urban development through integrated planning and management of the key resources including energy, waste, water and food. The module aims to link such Global Agendas as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement and the New Urban Agenda with the Urban Nexus approach, plan and project implementation, as well as govern the Urban Nexus initiatives.

The training was rolled out by the Urban Nexus project in collaboration with the Academy for International Cooperation (AIZ) Bonn and AIZ Bangkok Training Hub. Twenty-four participants represented the governance level, countries, and development and included the Commissioner of Rajkot and city representatives from the Indian cities of Rajkot and Nagpur, national level representatives from Mongolia and Ulaanbaatar city, officers of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, representatives from UN-ESCAP, officers from associations of cities – ICLEI (Philippines) and APEKSI (Indonesia), management and staff of GIZ projects based in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines, as well as student interns working for UN-ESCAP and GIZ.

The participants learned how to identify stakeholders and pursue synergies between sectors, jurisdictions and technical domains, how to increase institutional performance, optimise services quality and contribute to greater resource efficiency in the context of a circular economy. How integrated planning prevents poorly coordinated investments and underutilised infrastructure and the relevance of cities for global agendas were also elements of this training. The knowledge from the training will lead individuals and organisations to contribute to the global sustainability drive.

Pedagogic and content components of the training programme will be modified by AIZ Bonn and the AIZ Bangkok Training Hub so as to cater to specific target groups in the future, thus creating an effective learning environment as a sustainable platform to disseminate the Nexus approach.

“The Urban Nexus is an action-oriented principle guiding us towards the circular economy and the implementation of the International Agendas.”  Ruth Erlbeck, GIZ’s Project Director