Climate Change and Intermediary Cities: An opportunity for Sustainable Development was jointly prepared by the OECD Development Centre and UN-Habitat, under the overall leadership of Director Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir. Federico Bonaglia (OECD), Deputy Director, and Annalisa Primi (OECD), Head of Economic Transformation and Development Division, supervised the project. Vicente Ruiz (OECD) and Melissa Permezel (UN-Habitat) coordinated the report. Support from Semhar Haile (OECD) and Hazel Kuria (UN-Habitat) has been invaluable for the preparatory activities and research for the report. Marco Kamiya (UN-Habitat) coordinated the report in an early stage.
Vicente Ruiz and Semhar Haile authored chapters one to three. David Satterthwaite and Jorgelina Hardoy, from the International Institute for Environment (IIED), drafted a paper that served as the basis for Chapter 4; while Michael Lindfield, Climate Finance Expert, authored Chapter 5 under the supervision of Melissa Permezel. Farah Kammourieh assisted with the initial research for the project, while Rebeca Perez Lopes provided support with quantitative and statistical analysis. Eugenia Klimenka and Myriam Andrieux provided support in co-ordinating administrative tasks. The report was edited by Meg Bortin. Delphine Grandrieux and Elizabeth Nash turned the draft into a publication. Melodie Descours designed the cover.
We are extremely grateful to OECD and UN-Habitat colleagues, as well to external experts, for their technical inputs, insights, and comments. The contributions from colleagues in the OECD Development Centre are gratefully acknowledged, they include Daniel Gay, Manuel Toselli, Vasiliki Mavroeidi, Elisabeth Lambrecht, Yumika Yamada, Antonio Vicencio, Thang Nguyen, Antoine Bonnet, Alexander Pick, and Henry-Bernard Solignac-Lecomte. Aimee Aguilar and Mariana Mirabile from the OECD Environment Directorate provided extensive comments and invaluable insights that help shaping the report. We are also grateful to David Burgalassi, Tadashi Matzumoto, and Isabelle Chartry from the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions, and Cities for their useful comments and feedback. From UN-Habitat, Melissa Permezel and Hazel Kuria in the Innovation Section provided extensive inputs and comments to all chapters in the report. Remy Sietchiping and Maria Tellez Soler from the Policy, Legislation and Governance Section contributed with helpful comments; Bernhard Barth from the Climate Change and Urban Environment (Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific) provided extensive feedback and insights. The report also benefited from comments and feedback from external partners including Prof. Angela Penagos (Universidad de Los Andes), Karim Hussein (Senior International Development Expert and Strategic Advisor to IFAD), Jeremy Gorelick, Strategic Advisor (Green Finance Institute), Marco Kamiya, Chief of Division of Innovation Strategies and Digitalization (UNIDO).
The study’s draft results were presented and discussed with different stakeholders and experts in multiple international fora. The interactions with several participants in the various online and physical events organised along this project help to develop and refine the policy insights presented in this report. These events include an expert meeting organised by the OECD and UN-Habitat that took place between the 17th and 19th of November 2020; two sessions in the UCLG Second World Forum on Intermediary Cities, October 2021; a panel of experts during the Innovate4Cities Conference organised by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCOM) and UN-Habitat, October 2021; a session during the 9th Edition of Africities Summit, in Kisumu (Kenya), May 2022; and through a network event during the World Urban Forum in Katowice, Poland, June 2022. We wish to thank all who participated in these events.
This document has been financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. Sida does not necessarily share the views expressed in this material. Responsibility for its contents rests entirely with the author.