The ACCCRN Regional Network builds from lessons, experience, and legacy of its eight-year program in four core-countries in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Rockefeller Foundation launched the ACCCRN in 2008 and invested the commitment in ACCCRN programing completed in 2016 with a legacy of portfolio of urban climate change resilience (UCCR) work that has engaged cities, communities, and professionals to boost resilience in 6 Asian countries, adding Bangladesh and Philippines into the initiative.

ACCCRN as a program has aimed to both improve the capacities of cities and their communities, while encouraging new approaches and practices among all stakeholders. The outcomes of ACCCRN included:

  • Capacity – there is improved capacity to plan, finance, coordinate and implement climate change resilience within ACCCRN cities;
  • Knowledge, learning and deepening of experience – individual and shared learning and practical knowledge to build urban climate change resilience deepens the quality of awareness, engagement and application by ACCCRN cities and other stakeholders;
  • Expansion, networking, scaling-up – Urban Climate Change Resilience (UCCR) is expanded, with ACCCRN and new cities sharing experience through existing and new networks, taking action through existing and additional support (finance, policy, technical) generated by a range of actors.

The program was implemented in four phases as shown in the graphic below:

ACCCRN is a successful initiative which has developed a relevant approach to UCCR, tested and adapted this approach in a range of cities, built capacities to strengthen UCCR, produced a good body of published documentation on ACCCRN, and leveraged new funding and actors for building UCCR. A growing number of Asian cities have improved their UCCR through ACCCRN contributing a number of smaller pieces in the larger UCCR jigsaw.

Throughout ACCCRN program implementation, there are several achievements highlighted such as:

  • Innovations for impact. ACCCRN has been the source of new technologies, processes and partnerships that have helped to improve local strategies to tackle climate change impacts. These innovations present significant opportunities for replication in other cities facing climate change vulnerabilities;
  • Policy and investment: scaling, replication, expansion. Co-financing, cost-sharing, and institution building have been important goals of ACCCRN. This has taken place on the city, national, and international levels.
  • Methods, capacities, and knowledge. ACCCRN has been built through a combination of sustained engagement, a focus on institutional strengthening, and an emphasis on putting local stakeholder ownership at its core. Iterative methodologies such as ‘Shared Learning Dialogue’ (SLD) have helped enhance knowledge among local political agents, civil society actors, business, academia, and local communities about the benefits of investing in UCCR.