Nature-Based Solutions

Prioritize NbS

Recognize why cities should prioritize Nature-based Solutions in response to urban challenges.

Applications of NbS

Understand the different applications of NbS in an urban and peri-urban context.

Benefits & Co-benefits of NbS

Recognize the benefits and co-benefits of NbS, understand how to take stock of and assign value to those benefits, and recommend multifunctional NbS for greater impact.

Stakeholder Engagement

Identify a broader landscape of stakeholders and learn strategies for engaging these groups for optimum success.

Barriers to Implementation

Acknowledge the common challenges for creating a good enabling environment (finance, governance, policymaking) to implementing NbS in cities across the global South, and develop strategies to overcome barriers.

Localized Solutions

Adapt and apply global concepts and solutions to local context.

Section 1

The concept of Nature-based Solutions is new to some and the application and purposes are not often well-known or well understood.

The course begins with an introduction to NbS by exploring some of the major urban challenges facing cities around the world, such as urban heat, flooding, and drought. We explore how Nature-based Solutions are being used in and around cities to build resilience and adapt to a changing climate. Different types of NbS interventions are discussed and evaluated across different scales, providing a foundation upon which the rest of the course will build.

Section 2

In order to understand the loss of of nature in and around cities, and to recognize the opportunities that restoring nature can bring, cities must first acknowledge and capture the full range of benefits that nature provides to people.

Section 2 moves beyond benefits to discuss the co-benefits of NbS and how to identify and assign value to the ecosystem services provided by nature. We highlight how NbS can be used as multi-functional solutions that also address economic and social challenges. We introduce the concept of valuing the benefits of nature, and explain why cities must take stock of their existing natural infrastructure, using different methodologies, to establish an understanding of what is at stake when urban development threatens to replace or degrade these valuable ecosystems.

Section 3

Executing successful Nature-based Solutions requires long-term commitment, a diversity of skillsets and partnerships, and a clear plan for engagment, communication and adaptive mangement.

In Section 3, we explain the need for improving governance structures horizontally, vertically and with a broader range of stakeholders, to create trust and secure the viability of NbS projects. In particular, we focus on creating inclusive and equitable stakeholder engagement processes that allow NbS projects to be co-created with communities that have historically been excluded from decision-making in their cities. We provide tools and resources to help identify, seek out, and communicate with these groups, set within a broader stakeholder engagement paradigm.

Section 4

From a global to local scale, we are seeing an uptake in policies that are legitimizing and enabling NbS interventions. Yet, there remain many hurdles within the policy environment, down to the project implementation and evaluation phases.

In Section 4, we introduce international and national level policies shaping the agendas of cities around the world, and discuss how cities are responding to these mandates. From there, we move downstream to explore the project cycle of NbS and how both developers and the public sector can build on the lessons presented from the previous section, including robust stakeholder engagement processes, project site evaluation, and the identification of policies and regulations that can create stumbling blocks for the project.

Section 5

Nature-based Solutions are often overlooked by private investors because it is easier to make the financial case for traditional, gray infrastructure projects. Given that public budgets are already constrained, this gap in bankability has been a major challenge for NbS to scale-up as quickly as needed.

In Section 5, we confront the realities of existing funding and financing mechanisms for cities in the Global South, along with the challenges of establishing creditworthiness. We reiterate the need for cities to quantify their natural capital to make economically sound decisions about where and how to grow, protect, restore and create natural infrasturcure. We underscore the need for funding monitoring and evaluation of NbS pilots to establish the business case for future projects. And we draw on examples of successful public-private partnerships and other financing mechanisms that are being leveraged around the world to implement NbS.