Last Thursday, July 17th and Friday, July 18th, the Technical Support Workshop for Internationalization Strategies of BiodiverCities was held at the headquarters of CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean in Bogotá (Colombia), organized by the Center for International Strategies of Governments and Organizations (CIG) of the Universidad Austral together with CAF and the BiodiverCities Network.
The workshop brought together technical teams and representatives from five cities in the region: Barranquilla and Cali (Colombia), Cuenca and La Libertad (Ecuador), and Santa Bárbara (Honduras), with the aim of strengthening their strategic planning capacities for international projection.
This in-person event is a continuation of the online course “How to Internationalize Biodiverse Cities?”, offered by the CIG between May and June, which had the participation of more than 35 cities from 9 Latin American countries. The turnout far exceeded expectations, demonstrating the growing interest and need of local governments to project themselves internationally in order to address the challenges of sustainable development, climate action, and productive transformation.
The workshop was led by Francisco Resnicoff, Senior Fellow of the CIG, and Emiliano Martinez RoyanoThe CIG's Executive Director guided the participating cities in designing their internationalization strategies through practical exercises, diagnostic methodologies, goal setting, identification of priority areas, tools, institutional design, and the development of indicator and monitoring frameworks. The exchange of experiences among cities was also promoted, with a technical support approach tailored to their specific circumstances.
This workshop in Bogotá —as well as the one that will take place in Buenos Aires next Thursday, July 24, and Friday, July 25— is part of a new stage of the program, focused on providing personalized support to 10 selected cities to advance in the development and strengthening of their internationalization strategies.
The initiative is part of a strategic alliance between the CIG of the Universidad AustralCAF and the BiodiverCities Network, which reflects a shared commitment to strengthening the capacities of subnational governments in Latin America.
The BiodiverCities Network is a regional platform promoted by CAF that already brings together more than 200 local governments from 17 countries, committed to a sustainable urban development model that recognizes biodiversity as a strategic asset for territorial planning.
