ICLEI promotes programs for local-level adoption and implementation, providing tested, practical advice for connecting international agreements and targets with initiatives and actions at local levels. The network develops and shares operational manuals, guidelines, best practices, and methods for monitoring and assessing progress. ICLEI is unique in having held observer status as a local government network for all three of the
Rio Conventions. This contributed to the formation of the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity, and the UN
Convention to Combat Desertification. ICLEI supports
Agenda 21, from which it developed the Local Agenda 21 (LA21) framework for use by local governments. The LA21 framework is "grounded in a broad inclusive process of consultation" which can help local stakeholders to identify common goals, reconcile differences and create working partnerships. ICLEI has also supported the Habitat Agendas (
I,
II and
III) the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, and the
Millennium Development Goals, which were succeeded in 2015 by the
Sustainable Development Goals. ICLEI provides oversight for the
Compact of Mayors, a global coalition of city leaders founded to
address climate change at the local level, as well as acting as the focal point for the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency, which has represented networks of local and regional governments at the UNFCCC process since 1995.
Resilient cities ICLEI is recognized for realizing the significance of cities for urban sustainability and for supporting their initiatives through ongoing efforts for over 30 years. ICLEI launched the campaign "Cities for Climate Protection" in 1993, following an earlier project on urban CO2 reduction. The campaign identified five milestone steps for cities attempting to reduce local
greenhouse gas emissions: • Conduct a baseline emissions inventory and a forecast for one year, for use as a benchmark • Identify an emissions reduction target for the forecast year • Engage with stakeholders to develop an action plan • Implement policies and actions from the action plan • Monitor and verify results In 2002, ICLEI coined the term "
resilient cities" and launched the Resilient Cities initiative. They identified resilience as the city's ability to respond "creatively, preventively and proactively to change or extreme events, thus mitigating crisis or disaster". Consideration of resilience can include not only climate change mitigation and adaptation and
disaster risk reduction but also issues like
food security and housing. In 2010, ICLEI and the city of Bonn, Germany hosted the first Resilient Cities conference. ICLEI is a proponent of the Cities Race to Zero campaign, encouraging cities to actively engage in planning to become
Zero-carbon cities. They are actively involved in gathering and analyzing data to assess changing conditions and the impact of initiatives.
Ecomobility Ecomobility means travelling through integrated, socially inclusive, and
environmentally friendly transport options, including and integrating walking, cycling, public transport and other climate and people friendly innovative modes of transport. By enabling citizens and organizations to access goods, services, and information in a sustainable manner, ecomobility supports citizens' quality of life, increases travel choices, and promotes social cohesion. ICLEI's agenda promoting ecomobility in cities is titled the EcoMobile City (
sustainable transport) Agenda. Under this agenda, ICLEI supports activities such as the EcoMobility Alliance, the EcoMobility World Festival and the EcoMobility World Congress. The EcoMobility Alliance was formed in October 2011 in Changwon, Korea at the World Congress on Mobility for the Future of Sustainable Cities. The first chair of the alliance was
Wan-su Park, then Mayor of Changwon. The EcoMobility Alliance was a transformation of the earlier
Global Alliance for EcoMobility, which was a
non-governmental organization founded and launched in
Bali on 10 December 2007, on the occasion of the
2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC-COP-13). The first EcoMobility World Festival occurred in
Suwon, South Korea in 2013 where a neighborhood in the city was transformed and became largely car-free for a month. It was followed by events in
Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015 and
Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 2017. ==Governance==