Nexus Solutions for Sustainable Urban Farming Empowering Displaced Communities through Adaptive Water Management

Climate change is likely to have significant direct and indirect consequences for cities. SDGs 11 and 13 aim to address these challenges. Further, the New Urban Agenda states that addressing the indirect consequences of climate change requires support for the implementation of integrated, polycentric and balanced territorial development policies and plans aimed at strengthening the role of cities and towns in enhancing food security and nutrition systems and promoting urban agriculture and farming, in alignment with SDG 2. The Agenda also stresses the need to coordinate food policies with energy and water policies as well as the importance of sustainable water management in these contexts.

This session will shed light on how UN-Habitat, ESCWA, and UNICEF are working collaboratively with municipalities in Jordan and Lebanon to localize work around SDGs 2, 6, 11, and 13 by using a nexus approach to solve the interconnected climate-sensitive challenges of food insecurity, water scarcity and fossil fuel dependence in urban environments with displaced people. The large influx of displaced people into countries like Lebanon and Jordan, coupled with increasing water shortages as a result of recurrent droughts and dependence on finite and scarce fuel resources for water pumping, are significantly jeopardizing food security in these vulnerable contexts. This is further complicated by rising climate change risks invariably pointing to the need for increased, diverse and resilient water and energy supply systems in general and in the agricultural sector in particular.

The session will be informed by concrete, innovative and climate resilient solutions implemented by partner UN agencies in Lebanon and Jordan together with national and subnational governments to address water scarcity and energy shortages particularly as they pertain to urban farming. Visited solutions include sustainable treated wastewater reuse systems, the use of lagoons to improve treated wastewater quality, and the practice of agrivoltaic farming.

Besides visiting the technological aspects of the above solutions and how they work towards SDG fulfillment at the local level, the session will include government representatives from both countries who are working to strengthen the regulatory and institutional requirements to efficiently apply the showcased solutions and enhance their replication at a regional level in support of SDG attainment.

The format of the session will be as follows:
• Discussion by UN experts, national and subnational government officials and practitioners of nexus-based approaches for urban farming including wastewater treatment with the aim of fulfilling SDGs 2, 6, 11 and 13.
• Discussion by government representatives on regulatory and institutional governance requirements to make the proposed solutions actionable and to maximize their replicability in support of SDG achievement.
• Interactive discussion with panel and audience.