The 11th Focal Point Forum of the Nairobi work programme (NWP) was held under the guidance of the Chair of the SBSTA in conjunction with the 47th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 47) in Bonn, Germany.

Focus of the 11th Focal Point Forum

The 11th Focal Point Forum focused on the topic of human settlements and adaptation, in accordance with the outcomes of SBSTA 44 (cf. paragraph 15b of the SBSTA 44 report). The Focal Point Forum was informed by submissions contributed by Parties, NWP partner organizations and other relevant organizations, on the following topics:

• Assessing sensitivity and vulnerability to climate change;
• Integrating both short-term and long-term climate considerations (including both extreme and slow onset events) into planning;
• The role of national governments in supporting adaptation at the local level;
• City-to-city partnerships on climate change adaptation;
• Cross-cutting issues and linkages to the process to formulate and implement national adaptation plans (NAPs).

A summary of the key findings of submissions is available here (1727 kB)

The 11th Focal Point Forum provided an interactive space for information-sharing and the informal exchange of views among NWP partner organizations, Parties and other relevant organizations, as well as facilitated collaboration and partnerships among NWP partner organizations, Parties and other relevant organizations. Such partnerships contribute to translating the key findings and gaps identified into concrete adaptation actions. For instance, UN-Habitat and other expert organizations expressed interest in developing supplementary guidelines on how to integrate the consideration of human settlements in the process to formulate and implement national adaptation plans (NAPs) in collaboration with the Least Developed Countries Expert Group (LEG).

The 11th Focal Point Forum was structured as follows:

Full paper available here (294 kB)

Pre-COP technical dialogue

As mandated at SBSTA 46, a pre-COP technical dialogue was co-organized with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) on Sunday 5 November in order to enhance the effectiveness of the Focal Point Forum. 

Fifteen experts from organizations such as C40 Cities (United Kingdom), Erasmus University (the Netherlands), Griffith University (Australia), ICLEI (Germany), the Indian Institute on Human Settlements (India), the International Institute for Environment and Development (United Kingdom), the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University (Germany), Makerere University (Uganda), the University of Ibadan (Nigeria), United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (Germany), and UN-Habitat (Kenya) participated in the pre-COP technical dialogue and the Focal Point Forum. Experts from developing countries were also included thanks to the support provided by UN-Habitat, and Canada's International Development Research Centre.
 
The pre-COP technical dialogue contributed to refining the key findings of the submissions and enhancing the engagement of experts in the Focal Point Forum and follow-up collaborative activities.

Submissions   

The deadline of the call for submissions is 20 September 2017.

Submissions are preferably concise documents gathering information on recent activities and research, which can include good practices, lessons learned, as well as available tools and methods. For each topic addressed in the submission, Parties and organizations are invited to provide the following information:

• Description of relevant activities;
• Key results;
• Description of lessons learned and good practices;
• Description of key challenges;
• Planned next steps (as appropriate)
• Relevant hyperlinks for further information.

For more information, please download the following submission template in English, Spanish or French.

Parties are invited to submit information online while organizations (e.g. universities, research centres, non-governmental organizations, private companies and local governments) should send their submissions as one Word document to secretariat@unfccc.int and nwp@unfccc.int.

To access submissions contributed by Parties, click here. 

To access submissions contributed by NWP partners and relevant organizations, click here.

The key findings of the submissions, including good practices and lessons learned, as well as the outcomes of the Focal Point Forum discussion, will be captured in a synthesis report. This synthesis report will be considered by Parties at SBSTA 48 (May 2018).