Adopting Nature-Based Solutions to Improve the Climate Resilience of Local Governments (NBS4LOCAL) – Interreg Europe

  Project description:Adapting to climate change is a key challenge of local governments. Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer eco-friendly interventions building a sustainable approach in societies, restoring and protecting NbS as an integral part of local level climate change adaptation interventions, ultimately increasing resilience of local communities. The overall objective is to improve selected policies to support and prioritise NbS, thus turning climate-related support systems to a systematic application of eco-conscious solutions in local interventions, and introducing a framework approach for policy makers and stakeholders to mainstream NbS lined to evaluation, planning, funding schemes and monitoring. For a deeper investigation of thematic solutions, partners form two clusters, one focusing on water management and urban greening, the other on forestry and land use, regularly exchanging ideas to share universally applicable knowledge, methods and practices. Climate-related policies most often apply top-down approaches, while in the case of locally applied NbS, bottom-up initiatives and engaged, highly aware stakeholders have enormous added value. Therefore, NBS4LOCAL relies on intensive stakeholder involvement, collects and shares good practices and applicable measures, reinforces targeted policies and also develops and open-use self-assessment tool, exploring the triggers and criteria of bottom-up NbS initiatives in relevant policy instruments. As a results of interregional knowledge sharing, good practices and potential measures are collected, policy improvements with the highest impact potential are identified, and targeted policies are reinforced via key outputs such as Practical Awareness Guide, adaptable financing schemes and Practical Policy Guide.

Project NBS4LOCAL expected results:

1. Investigated local context and ambitions that are necessary for proper preparation of NbS solutions;

2. Improved planning at the policy level and financial requirements that effectively support NbS solutions;

3. Improving the political environment to support the implementation of the NBS solution.

The overall objective is to improve local policies, i.e. selected policies and strategic documents in Hungary, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Spain and Croatia to support and prioritise NbS thus turning climate-related support systems to a systematic application of eco-conscious solutions in local interventions, and introducing a framework approach for policy makers and stakeholders to mainstream NbS lined to evaluation, planning, funding schemes and monitoring.

Main goal is to reach local municipalities and stakeholders in partner countries and develop an optimal political environment for implementation at the local level.

Total budget: 1.819.180,00 EUR

ERDF funding:: 1.438.441,80 EUR

CEKOM’s total budget: 167.868,00 EUR

Rate of funding: 80% (134.294,40 EUR)

Project duration: 51 months, from March 2023

Project Holder: Ministry of Public Administration and Regional Development

Partners: Flemish Land Agency - Belgium, Regional Council of Lapland - Finland, Rzeszow Regional Development Agency - Poland, Provincial Council of Alicante - Spain, Competence Centre Ltd. for research and development - Croatia, Burst Non-profit Limited Liability Company - Hungary, National Development Centre - Hungary

Competence Centre Ltd for research and development (CEKOM)

In the framework of NBS4LOCAL project, main goal of the Competence Centre Ltd for research and development is to implement a progressive change in the management of the targeted policy through the collection of best practices and organisation of meetings with local stakeholders, continuously emphasising the bioeconomy (especially the forestry and the wood sector) and related environmentally conscious innovation activities. The involvement of NbS is planned as the main means of achieving these policy changes.

This will further strengthen the local community and connect value chain stakeholders. Prerequisites for increased production of high value-added wood products based on natural solutions will be strengthened. In addition, the cascading use of wood and natural resources will gain more importance, as NBS4LOCAL will be linked to the needs of the local community aligned with the European strategic documents contained in the European Green Deal, Forestry Strategy and local development plans, especially the Vukovar-Srijem County development plan 2021-2027, and conditions will be created for the application of Nbs in future economic and management planning processes.

Official web site link: https://www.interregeurope.eu/nbs4local

Official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094393698757

Disclaimer:

The project partner is responsible for the content of this project subpage. The project partner's contact information can be found in the "Contacts" section. Interreg Europe program bodies are not responsible for any information contained herein