Category: News

Gender plays a key role in resilience building and sustainable development. Vulnerabilities, exposure to risks, but also social capacities towards disasters are very much related to gender roles and norms*. Understanding these conditions and embracing a resilience approach that takes them into consideration leads to a more inclusive and sustainable environment where no one is left behind.  

European projects have a great potential to contribute to an improved understanding of gender dynamics in resilience and disaster risk reduction by mainstreaming a gender-sensitive perspective in their activities. By involving many international and local stakeholders, while developing a significant amount of research, EU-funded projects have the capacity to standardise a new approach to innovation and research that raises awareness on gender biases and their implications, and that at the same time fights against them.  

The REGILIENCE project is committed to including gender and intersectionality as transversal aspects in the project’s activities. In line with EU guidelines, the project’s consortium recognizes the importance of advancing gender analysis and sex-disaggregated data collection in the development of scientific research.  

The project has set up a strategy for gender mainstreaming and created a working group on gender in order to guarantee that gender mainstreaming is considered throughout all the activities of the project. The strategy consists of 3 pillars:  

Research:  

• Collecting sex-disaggregated data, when possible, as well as asking our regions for such data;  

• Collecting information on gender from interviews, surveys and questionnaires;  
• Validating said surveys, interviews and questionnaires and feedback for platforms, indicators, activities development etc. only if coming from a balanced number of women and men.  

Events:  

• Striving for an equal number of women and men as speakers to workshops, conferences, forums and other events;  
• Providing equal space and power to all genders when moderating a discussion;  

• Inviting a balanced number of female and male representatives attending workshops, conferences, forums and other events;  
• Organizing at least one specific activity with a focus on gender targeting up to 10 European regions.  

Potential:  

• Including the gender results from the project in presentations and other external activities;  
• Use gender sensitive terminology in all dissemination materials and platforms.  

 Below you can find a downloadable version of the ongoing Strategy for Gender Mainstreaming of the REGILIENCE project. This strategy is a dynamic document, aimed to be updated regularly.  

As climate change continues to pose a significant threat to our environment and communities, it’s important that we take steps to build resilience against its effects. The REGILIENCE project is one such initiative that aims to support European regions in their efforts towards climate resilience.  

In the recent REGILIENCE Open Training Session, held on 21 April 2022, on the topic of “Step by step towards climate resilience”, speakers shared valuable insights and experiences to help participants develop the skills needed to boost resilience. The event, moderated by Jen Heemann (IEECP), was part of the REGILIENCE Open Training Session, which aims to share knowledge and inspiration to help regions structure their climate resilience journey.

The training session provided insight into pathway development approaches including user experience reports. It focused on technical and sectoral approaches to resilience. It explored available solutions and showcased good practices from regions to enable skills for boosting resilience. The goal was to provide know-how and inspiration on how to structure your climate resilience journey. The session explored tools to structure climate resilience pathways, concrete results and implementation of nature-based solutions, engagement of stakeholders and citizens, and sharing of inspiring good practice solutions. 

Speakers at the session shared their expertise on various topics. 

• Josipa Arapović (REGEA) provided insight into thethe principles and practices of transformational pathways and illustrated good practices to achieve transformative changes including implementation in real-world contexts. The importance of identifying barriers to allow an easier and more smooth implementation has been highlighted and tools for the climate resilience journey developed by the REGIELIENCE project cluster introduced 
• Lucy Gregersen (EEA) and Linda Romanovska (Fresh Thoughts) presented the Adaptation Support Tool (AST) within the Climate-ADAPT platform and the importance of the tool to navigate the available information on the Climate-ADAPT website. They demonstrated live how to use the Adaptation Support Tool (AST) to identify the most relevant knowledge for all the steps of the adaptation policy cycle and how to screen the extensive knowledge available on the quality-assured database proven by external experts. 
• Filiep Dewitte and Lynn Michaux (Verhaert) presented the TransfromAr playbook on resilience pathways development and the creation process. The aim of this tool is to provide local people with hands-on information on how to pursue climate adaptation. The focus on a wide variety of users from public or private entities increases the usability of the tool. With this purpose, the book contains information about climate adaptation, instructions on how to lead the designed series of 3 workshops, and canvases and tools to ease the process of making transformational adaptation pathways visual and simplified. 
• Giles Rickard (Westcountry Rivers Trust) reported on his experience as first user of the  TransfromAr playbook supporting the agricultural sector. He provided insights on the process and user experience as well as on the outcomes of the case study. The feedback from the first testing helped to further increase the usability of the tool. 
• Amaya Soto (CETMAR) showcased the experience of the Galicia shellfish gatherers and mussel aquaculture farmers with the implementation of the methods of the TransfromAr playbook. It was applied following the proposed steps of the tool (identifying, planning, implementing, and reporting). The outcomes including the feedback from the local community offered useful ideas for adaptation. 

 Key takeaways: 

• Regional actors can get information, guidance, and support from different sources to structure and succeed in their climate resilience journey.  
• The Adaptation Support Tool offered on the Climate-ADAPT website helps to identify available materials and information according to your advancement on climate resilience developments. 
• The playbook developed within the TransformAr project gives regional actors guidance on how to codesign regional climate resilience pathways with local stakeholders and citizens. 
• Different approaches to engaging local communities and implementing the methods of the TransfromAr playbook have shown equally successful and convincing results in the pathway development as well as in the identification of users with the agreed actions and their support during the implementation. 

If you have missed the session, you can access the slides as well as the recordings. You can learn more about all past and help us tailor future sessions according to your needs on the dedicated REGILIENCE page here.  

You can watch the full recording below:

On the 22nd of March 2023, it took place the first Open Training Session, organized by the REGILIENCE project.

This training session provided a holistic overview of European strategies and initiatives on climate adaptation and gave an insight into initiatives and projects supporting regions. The interactive session allowed all participants to contribute and exchange with the speakers:

• Johannes Klumpers (DG CLIMA) – explained the EU landscape on resilience including the EU adaptation strategy and the Climate Law including the links to the recently published IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report. He explained the approaches of the EU-wide climate risk assessment and the Adaptation Mission Charter.
• Jole Lutzu (REGILIENCE) – introduced the first Mission Adaptation project cluster and provided the speakers with an introduction to the developed tools and specific case studies.
• Richard Smithers (MIP4ADAPT) – highlighted the opportunities for regions to receive technical support from MIP4ADAPT to build adaptation strategies and the activities of the initiative.
• Alison De Luise (Covenant of Mayors Europe) – showcased the Policy Support Facility of the Covenant of Mayors and its initial results and ongoing activities on adaptation. She explained how the policy support facility can help local and regional authorities to move from the planning to the implementation of adaptation actions.
• Matthias Watzak-Helmer (FEDARENE) moderated this session held on March 22^nd 2023

The speakers provided valuable insights into their work on climate resilience and offered knowledge and inspiration. Benefits and offers for European regions and inspiring good practice solutions completed the contributions and steered fruitful discussions with the participants. The sessions stressed the importance of adaptation to reach climate resilience and underlined the need for timely actions of all actors within their fields of action and due to multi-level governance cooperation. Regions can benefit from plenty of ongoing opportunities to build up knowledge and capacities for adaptation or exchange in communities of practice.

This event is part of the REGILIENCE Open Training Sessions which aims for sharing knowledge and inspiration. You can learn more about all upcoming and past sessions and help us tailor future sessions according to your needs on the dedicated REGILIENCE page here.

The next session “Step by Step towards climate resilience” will provide insight on pathway development approaches including user experience reports held on the 21^st of April 2023 from 11 am to 13 pm. Find more info on the particular session or register here before the session.

You can watch the full recording below:

March is the month we celebrate women!

Together with our sister projects, ARSINOE, IMPETUS and TransformAr, we decided to interview impactful women from our programs, who are working actively on resilience and adaptation tools, solutions and initiatives to mitigate the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

As part of REGILIENCE, we spoke to Ms Lina Liakou, Global Director of Network Engagement and Head for Europe and the Middle East for REGILIENCE partner Resilient Cities Network.

Q.: Ms Liakou, you are a Global Director of Network Engagement and Head for Europe and the Middle East for REGILIENCE partner Resilient Cities Network, and you are also the former Deputy Mayor for Urban Resilience and Development planning for the City of Thessaloniki. How does your expertise as Deputy Mayor inform and translate into your work as part of the REGILIENCE project?

Ms Lina Liakou: When you work within a local government, you understand better the day-to-day challenges and internal barriers. Thanks to this experience, I have a better sense of what enables innovation within to trigger systemic change. And this is now embedded in me and translates into my work and contribution to REGILIENCE—I look through the lens of cities to identify and maximise the value this can bring to them.

Q.: What made you want to get involved in city governance, sustainability, and resilience?

Ms Lina Liakou: When I realised this is where true change takes place, I knew I had to get involved in local governance. Every aspect of our lives is affected by how a city is governed. And this is true for every life in a city—that’s when resilience becomes essential for change. Resilience brings perspective and understanding of how to enhance the lives of people and the performance of the systems—it’s like a glue that puts together all the values and aspects of what makes a city great.

Q.: How have your studies contributed to the research on climate change and how does your field of expertise complement other disciplines in the projects you are now working in?

Ms Lina Liakou: As an architect, I understand the city as an interconnected system which is key if you want to measure and build resilience to climate change. This way of seeing cities and the world also applies to the project. It helps us understand our expertise’s interconnectedness and how we can integrate and intervene most effectively.

Q.: What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome in this career path and what has been the most important lesson you’ve learned?

Ms Lina Liakou: Bringing people together and mobilising them for a common goal. Even when we want to achieve the same, interests and perspectives always differ. That is why storytelling and creating narratives that speak to the interests of the various stakeholders is so important—they allow us to convey the importance and urgency for resilience building.

Q.: As an expert in transforming cities and organizations, what would you say is Europe’s biggest challenge now regarding our ability to adapt to climate change?

Ms Lina Liakou: Our biggest challenge is how we ensure that in the process of adapting to climate change we don’t leave anyone behind. We need to have equity in the heart of our climate action.

Q.: What makes you most hopeful for the future?

Ms Lina Liakou: The younger generations. For them climate action is not “good to have” but our duty towards each other.