CoCHAP Learning Agenda 2023-2027

Introduction

One of the premises of CoCHAP is to build a foundation of practice and knowledge which can be learned from and scaled in regard to building resilience to extreme heat and coastal hazards in secondary cities. The Project has indicators and monitoring and evaluation plans at detail. We also strive for learning in a broader sense which requires a parallel process of reflection and learning from not just our experience but of our partners and the communities. This Learning agenda outlines the learning questions, moments and indicators for the key stakeholders and partners of the COCHAP based on the initial discussions during the first team meeting in Geneva in June 2023.

This learning agenda is meant to be living document to be adjusted at any point in time during the life of the Project -and beyond hopefully.

Learning Questions

Q 1. What makes a city resilience coalition meaningful and effective? What are the different operating modalities of city resilience coalition?

• Document different modalities of city resilience coalition models and operating procedures in each Project city.
• Based on above, create a tool/process for effective coalition modalities including tracking stakeholder participation in COCHAP projects that surveys for “meaningful” and “effective” and asks, “who else should be at the table?” in different contexts.
• Share this tool/process and its outcome in learning events.

Q 2:  What kind of process and approaches are effective in identifying interventions/activities in cities? What capacities do NSs need to identify and implement these activities?

• Document how different NSs have carried out city profiling, assessments, surveys to identify the target communities/neighbourhoods. Compile and analyse the tools and the processes used.
• Analyse whether/how research and scientific data, particularly for extreme heat and coastal hazards are used and how effective they have been.
• Create tools to increase the capacity of NSs in targeting and delivering services effectively in cities.

Q 3:  What are the most effective solutions in reducing the adverse impacts of extreme heat in cities?

• Map the local solutions adapted by different groups/communities in COCHAP cities.
• Learn from the COCHAP experience in developing ideas and solutions to reduce extreme heat for different groups and communities. Document and share as described in the below section.
• Integrate the learnings into the related tools of RCRC.

Q 4:  What kind of nature-based solutions to address the impacts of climate change in cities are implemented by the cities under COCHAP? 

• Map the NBS solutions adapted by the COCHAP cities.
• Learn from the COCHAP experience in applying NBS in cities, capturing the role/contribution of RCRC and the other members of the city coalitions to advance NBS in cities.
• Integrate the learnings into the related tools such as urban resilience toolkit, coastal cities toolkit (new?) and Nature Navigator etc.

Moments of Learning and outputs

Sharing and Learning Days:

These could be annual in person events with online semi-annual events to share lessons learnt and challenges experiences, present products and update each other on progress. In-person events can take place in a place that is convenient to everyone (could be in project countries on a rotating base). Efforts should be made to piggyback other events such as regional forums, UCP meetings, WUF etc. Semi-annual S&L days can be 1-1,5-hour sessions over 2-3 days convened by the Climate Center and co-hosted by the NSs.  The first in-person S&L event took place in Geneva in June 2023. The online semi-annual S&L days will be organized on 27-28 November 2023.

Topical deep-dive sessions

Annually the team will facilitate at least one deep-dive session on a specific topic – asking and exploring pertinent and challenging questions that arose during project implementation. The result could be shared as a webinar or a session during and regional/international event such as World urban Forum.

Exchange visits

This will promote a closer connection and allow participants to experience the different project related challenges and activities, stimulating dialogue and synergies between the different project sites. The frequency of the trips and the participants will be discussed and determined through a consultation with country teams/NSs to be facilitated by the global technical/management support team.

After action reflection

Every project engagement will be followed by a short reflection, documenting the original objectives of the engagement/ process, lessons learnt (what did work well and what was not so good and what should we do differently next time?)

Africa Region Learning agenda (IFRC supported)

This is a separate program supported by the IFRC Africa region aim to scale up the methodologies and tools and lessons learned of COCHAP among the NSs in Africa region.  The outputs of this process will be shared among the COCHAP countries to augment the learning.The documents can be found at this link.

Sharing

Creative communication of key lessons and stories

Stories of lessons learnt stories of inspiration or think pieces are published throughout the project lifespan. These stories will be published on the project microsite, website of partners and social media platforms.

The approaches to sharing these stories can be chosen by the consortium members, depending on the story and intended audience. These approaches can include cartoons generated through a co-production process with cartoon artists, cardboard theatre, memes, short video stories, virtual reality experiences, augmented reality apps.

Publications

Key learning moments and outcomes of the project will be published in a series of publications and managed by the project team. All publications will be reviewed by at least two persons within the consortium and one external reviewer prior to publication.

These publications can include:

• Working papers on specific thematic areas
• Scientific papers (peer reviewed journal publications)
• Briefing documents on specific tools and approaches