With a new year comes new visions and goal setting for environmental organisations for the months ahead. In this vein, a key nature-based solutions capactiy-building programme has launched a website to help global nature-based solutions leaders access course materials free of charge, as well as discover learning opportunities from across Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The new website marks a first step in ensuring the programme’s long-term continuity. This capacity-building programme, known as UrbanByNature, was born out of the EU-funded Connecting Nature project, which will conclude in May 2022. With this new website, its resources will remain accessible and 'alive' long after Connecting Nature officially ends.

UrbanByNature was launched to promote exchange among EU and global cities on nature-based solutions, and has established nature-based solutions hubs in Brazil, South Korea and the Caucasus. Additional hubs are planned in Spain, Scotland and Flanders. In parallel, Connecting Nature’s sister project CLEVER Cities is expanding UrbanByNature’s global reach by establishing hubs in China (jointly with Connecting Nature), Latin America and South Eastern Europe.

The programme is led by ICLEI Europe and implemented regionally with the support of ICLEI’s World Secretariat, ICLEI's East Asia Secretariat and ICLEI South America, among other local partners.

These projects’ work builds bridges between nature-based solutions communities across the globe, and takes participants on a learning journey divided into seven thematic modules that cover a range of topics relevant for planning and realising green and blue cities. These include an introduction to nature-based solutions, an overview of enabling conditions and barriers to their implementation, as well as insights on the technical implementation, monitoring, evaluation, replication and upscaling of these solutions.

To learn more, explore the new UrbanByNature website.

Join the community: learn more about the UrbanByNature learning programme here, and register for the programme by clicking here.