12-13 September, Beirut, Lebanon. The Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) of 2019 UNFCCC Forum on “Climate Finance and Sustainable Cities provides a platform for a wide range of stakeholders.

Governments, climate funds, financial institutions, civil society, think tanks and the private sector discussed 3 topics of interest in climate finance and promote linkages and coherence in the mobilization and delivery of climate finance:

1. Financing cities' low emission development;
2. Financing climate-resilient cities;
3. Capacity-building of local authorities to finance sustainable cities;

The role of climate finance in facilitating a transition towards inclusive, participatory and gender-responsive and youth-oriented cities. The objective of the Forum is to enhance the understanding on how to accelerate the mobilization and delivery of climate finance for sustainable cities by:

1. Bringing together key stakeholders and sharing good practices and lessons learned in financing sustainable cities and integrating climate considerations into cities’ broader domestic infrastructure development, and urban planning processes;
2. Identifying challenges faced by actors at the city level to access and attract climate finance and sharing information on available support and;
3. Exploring the role of climate finance to facilitate inclusive, participatory, gender-responsive and youth-oriented cities.

UNCDF LoCAL shared experiences on a Breakout session “Planning and financing urban climate projects” and moderated the group on the financial needs and investment priorities for cities: how cities assessed their financial needs and investment priorities in different sectors. Participants' group - Mr. Mauricio Rodas Espinel, former Mayor of Quito, Ecuador ; Mr. Arnaud Heckmann, Principal Urban Development Specialist, ADB Mongolia; Ms. Sophie de Coninck, UN Capital Development Fund - discussed the role of financial institutions in response to the needs identified.