Date: Thursday, 21 May 2026
Time: 16:00 - 17:30 (UTC+4, Baku time)
Location: ONE UN Room C, UN Building - Baku, Azerbaijan
WUF13 ONE UN Event | Convened by the African Union under the Aqinile Partnership (AU, UNEP, UNDP, UN-Habitat)
About the Event
African cities are at the frontline of climate change. Intensifying floods, prolonged droughts, water scarcity, and ecosystem degradation are converging with rapid urbanisation, expanding informal settlements, and overstretched infrastructure to deepen urban water insecurity. Conventional grey infrastructure has proven insufficient on its own, particularly in resource-constrained and high-risk urban contexts.
This session convenes policymakers, city leaders, development finance institutions, and technical practitioners to advance water-responsive urbanism as a pathway for urban resilience in Africa. It centres on sponge city approaches and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) that integrate water management, climate adaptation, ecosystem restoration, and social inclusion into urban planning and design. Drawing on experience from African cities and comparative lessons from China’s Sponge City Programme, the Netherlands’ Room for the River, and Australia’s Water Sensitive Urban Design, the session will surface practical case studies, including from Garissa County, Kenya, policy entry points, and institutional innovations, with specific attention to implementation in informal settlements and fragile urban contexts.
The event is organised under the Aqinile Partnership for Urban Resilience, a joint initiative of the African Union, UNEP, UNDP, and UN-Habitat. It will examine financing pathways, including blended finance, first-loss capital, and use-of-proceeds instruments, required to scale water-responsive infrastructure across the continent, and will strengthen South–South and triangular cooperation. The session positions African cities not as recipients of imported solutions but as leaders developing context-specific frameworks for climate-resilient, inclusive, and nature-positive urban futures, in line with the New Urban Agenda, Agenda 2063, and the SDGs.
If you have any questions or would like more information about the event, please contact estefania.rodriguezdelpuerto@un.org.
