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Project country: Colombia

Sector: Low-carbon policy

Expert Partners: Ricardo Energy & Environment

This skill-share worked with local governments across 21 cities in Colombia to facilitate their participation in the Cities Race to Zero (R2Z) global campaign. R2Z aims to build momentum around the shift to a decarbonised economy, motivating governments and other actors, including cities, to strengthen their commitments to the Paris Agreement and creating more inclusive and resilient economies.  

Led by experts from Ricardo, counterparts at local governments were supported to define their implementation plans for their decarbonisation strategies and set clear goals and methods for measuring progress across an inventory of projects. Through this process, each city was encouraged to identify one or more climate actions that link to their selected project to work on. Through targeted capacity-building workshops, participants strengthened their technical understanding of R2Z themes, including green and healthy cities, zero waste, atmospheric pollution, and electric mobility.  

Key Actions 

• Cities were assessed and placed into tiered groups (beginner, medium and advanced) according to their level of expertise on R2Z themes and climate action concepts 
• For each group, the expert team organised workshops to cover the main capacity gaps and campaign themes, such as how to set a climate action plan, resources for creating a GHG inventory, mitigation actions and long-term strategies (LST) 
• Each group attended four capacity-building workshops which demonstrated UK and international best practices on the key themes discussed 
  

The expert team provided in-depth knowledge of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) relevant to Colombian cities. As part of the skill-share and each city's planning processes, the experts recommended that the cities engage with gender and social focal points and stakeholders to ensure inclusive approaches. The project has highlighted the differentiated needs and roles of women and men by embedding gender responsiveness in the development of strategies and policies. 

 

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• Local government officials from 21 cities across Colombia attended capacity-building workshops and received technical assistance on topics such as electromobility in cities (including challenges and solutions), emission reduction, mitigation action, and climate action 
• Participants gained an understanding of requirements to develop and implement key environmental indicators and strengthened their understanding of climate action concepts, to further reduce GHG emissions in each city 
• The approaches and topics selected were fundamental to enable local governments to learn and identified the key issues that are needed to co-create solutions at the local level