An international conference was organised under the Integrated Rural Urban Water Management for Climate-Based Adaptations in Indian Cities (IAdapt) project in New Delhi on 20th November 2019. The purpose of the event was to share valuable learning experiences from the two project cities – Solapur in Maharashtra and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, and to showcase the success achieved under the project.

ICLEI South Asia was invited by the Ministry of Jal Shakti to share project implementation experiences in India on integrating resilience in water management at the India Pavilion at COP 25. Speaking on the topic, Mr. Emani Kumar, Executive Director, ICLEI South Asia, highlighted how most cities bring water from distant sources and more than 40% of water in many Indian cities is lost as non-revenue water. It was also mentioned that cities are key in addressing climate change through integration of water, energy nexus and climate resilience strategies into local development planning. ICLEI South Asia’s regional (IAdapt) and city (adopt IUWM) level projects on Integrated Water Management were showcased.

A session on climate adaptive water management was organized on the second day of the 4th Asia-Pacific Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation - Resilient Cities Asia Pacific Congress 2019 held in April in New Delhi. The session was attended by participants from various cities of the Asia Pacific region. The session focused on governance and technological interventions that support water management in a changing climate. It discussed collaborative means of dealing with impacts of climate on water quantity and quality, particularly resulting from the amplification of hydrological extremes.

ICLEI South Asia was part of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) organised session ‘Tackling Complex Urban Challenges: The Role for Collaboration’ for the 10th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation held from 26th to 28th June 2019. The panel shared the results from collaborative approaches and reflected on factors that enable or hinder effective collaboration for significant action to build more climate-resilient cities. ICLEI South Asia presented the experience of developing a RURBAN Platform involving rural and urban stakeholders for catchment level planning in Solapur.

A presentation on ICLEI South Asia’s regional (IAdapt Project) and city (adopt IUWM) level projects on Integrated Water Management was made during a side event at India Pavilion on 12th December, 2018. ICLEI South Asia was invited by the Ministry of Water Resource, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation to showcase its IUWM related project implementation experiences in India. The concept of rural urban cooperation as developed under the IAdapt project was explained at the event.

The IAdapt project was presented at the ICLEI World Congress 2018, hosted by Ville de Montréal, Canada in two sessions. One session focussed on building science in cities to drive action on SDGs and the other one on gender, urban development and climate change adaptation. The session focussing on gender was organised by IDRC. The event was held at Montréal, Canada from 19th to 22nd of June 2018.

The Project IAdapt was presented at the Resilient Cities Congress, 2018. The project activities as well as outcome were shared during the presentation. The highlight was the RURBAN platform as collaborative adaptive measures for sustainable water resource management platform, the decision support tool developed under IAdapt as effective tool to support decisions and augmentations in the proposed investments to promote equitable outcomes on allocation and use of water resource among all catchment stakeholder, and the climate and hydrological modelling for water resource management.

ICLEI South Asia presented the IAdapt project as a case study for innovative methods of addressing water issues in a session that focused on Smart Solutions for Wastewater Management in Liveable Cities at the Smart City Expo, held from 13th to 15th November 2018 in New Delhi, India.

The mayors of Solapur and Vijayawada participated in the 3rd Asia-Pacific Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation, held on 7th and 8th December 2017, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The congress provides a platform for urban resilience and climate change adaptation dialogues, with the ultimate goal of identifying implementable solutions. Both cities shared the initiatives that they are implementing with regard to water resource management and acknowledged the support extended to them through the project.

The 11th World Aqua Congress (XI WAC-2017) was organised on the 9th and 10th of November in New Delhi, with an objective to bring the best of solutions from around the world on a single platform, and to present them to the Indian government, policy makers and industry. At the congress, the project concept was presented to the audience.

ICLEI South Asia presented the project in a session focussed on technology solutions for the water-energy nexus session at India Water Week, held the 11th of October 11 2017 in New Delhi. The session saw high levels of participation and was attended by city leaders, engineers as well as research organisations. The tools and frameworks as well as governance mechanisms developed under the project were presented. The audience appreciated the thought process behind the conceptualisation and implementation of the project and also saw high potential of replicability of the same.

The Moscow Urban Forum was organised from the 6th to the 12th of July 2017. At the event, ICLEI presented its work on biodiversity conservation, natural resource management and nature based solutions. The IAdapt project and its objectives was also discussed in the forum.

Resilient Cities, Bonn 2017 was organised in Bonn by ICLEI from 4th to 6th May 2017. During the event, a panel discussion focussing on innovative strategies for water management in fast-growing cities was organised by IDRC. The IAdapt project was presented and discussed in this session.