From climate change to urbanization, the rate and scale of global transformation are unprecedented. These impacts are altering the "face" of daily life and pose a substantial risk to communities and natural systems.

Sustainable urban development will play a decisive role in global development. As cities grow and change, so do the demands for social infrastructure, economic systems, and natural resources. It is essential that we fundamentally reorient patterns of daily life, our built environment, and natural systems within and around cities worldwide. The success and scale of urban transformation will determine whether we meet the goals set out in the global sustainable development agenda.

So how do we make this happen?

The 5 strategic paths of ICLEI

ICLEI has outlined five strategic pathways for development that enable local and regional governments to implement comprehensive changes in urban systems:

Low-emission development to curb climate change, create new economic opportunities, and improve the health of people and natural systems.

Nature-based development to protect and enhance biodiversity and ecosystems within and around our cities, which underpin essential aspects of local economies and the well-being and resilience of our communities.

Circular development and new models of production and consumption to build sustainable societies that utilize recyclable, shareable, and regenerative resources, to end the linear model of production, consumption, and disposal, and to meet the material and developmental needs of a growing world population.

Resilient development to anticipate, prevent, absorb and recover from shocks and stresses, particularly those that generate rapid environmental, technological, social and demographic changes, and to improve basic response structures.

Equitable development and centered on people to build more livable and inclusive urban communities and to tackle poverty.

These pathways create dynamic interactions within and across urban systems. They offer a way to design holistic and integrated solutions.

But what does that mean, in concrete terms?

The 5 Paths and Systemic Change

In essence, the five lanes are designed to create connection points.
The pathways offer a framework for examining the various systems within a city, from ecology to economy to traffic, observing how they interact. This requires investment from stakeholders in different municipal departments and levels of government.

Any individual project, partnership, or ICLEI initiative can be guided along a specific path, such as resilient development. Along the way, we explore points of connection with other paths. For example, ICLEI experts analyze how to leverage resilient buildings for greater equity or where nature-based solutions make a community more resilient. By guiding the work in this way, ICLEI leads local and regional governments along multiple paths simultaneously. The paths allow local and regional governments to design interventions and solutions that lead to social, ecological, and economic change.

The multiplier effect towards global change.

As a global network, ICLEI connects local and regional governments around the world, facilitating peer-to-peer exchange and knowledge transfer. This amplifies innovative sustainable development strategies, creating a multiplier effect for advancing sustainable development globally. By joining forces to share and test strategies, solutions, and methodologies, our network sparks global action.

In our urban age, the transformation of cities is key to a more sustainable world, which requires comprehensive systemic change.

We need to reorient the patterns of daily life, our built environment, and the natural systems within and around our cities through the five interconnected pathways of ICLEI.

ICLEI offices design our projects, partnerships, and initiatives to leverage the potential of the interconnections between the 5 pathways. As a network, ICLEI creates a multiplier effect and sparks collective action around the world.

This is how we promote the advancement of development on a global level.

*This article has been adapted from the original version published on June 19, 2018. Read the full article on the CityTalk Blog.