Welcome Remarks - Knowledge Partnership Forum: Innovation for Resilient and Smart Communities

Asian Development Bank's Executive Director for Japan Kazuhiko Koguchi commended the Bank's initiative on a knowledge matching exercise for resilient and smart city development with private sector firms that offer innovative solutions and technologies. He expressed hoped that the forum will help staff increase their capacity to develop and incorporate innovative ideas into their project designs.

Asia's Urban Challenge

Cities in Asia increasingly face the triple challenges of rapid urbanization, aging population, and climate change. Smart urban development is an imperative given the challenges. A business-as-usual approach, however, will simply not achieve sustainable urban development and smart cities; a combination of leadership, partnership, and innovation is needed.

Climate Proofing ADB Investment in the Transport Sector: Initial Experience

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) publication produced by the Transport Sector Group and Environment Thematic Group, "Climate Proofing ADB Investment in the Transport Sector: Initial Experience" exemplifies a joint approach that addresses cross-cutting issues, such as climate change. The publication’s aim is to review ADB transport operations approaches to and experience of climate risk management.

Toru Kubo

Toru joined ADB in 2004 as the organization's first full-time climate change staff. He designed and established ADB’s Carbon Market Program including one of the world's first post-Kyoto carbon funds, led ADB's work to promote climate change technologies through venture capital funds, and helped establish various other initiatives focused on the nexus of climate change and energy security. In 2011 he was seconded to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat to help design the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Technology Centre and Network.

Preety Bhandari

Keywords

In her role at ADB, Preety was responsible for providing policy and strategic direction to ADB’s initiatives on climate change and disaster risk management, including mobilizing concessional financing from multilateral funds such as the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). She also had an oversight on climate financing from ADB’s own resources including through investments in private sector.  

The Cities Development Initiative for Asia: Enhancing the Quality of Urban Infrastructure Investments

The task of Cities Development Initiative for Asia, a regional technical assistance facility established in 2007, is to develop or prepare priority urban infrastructure projects. The focus of the initiative is to bridge the gap between urban infrastructure investment planning and programming.

Waste-to-Fuel Technology Training

“Transport and climate change” is one of the priority pillars identified under the Asian Development Bank's Sustainable Transport Initiative Operational Plan, 2010 (STI-OP). Transport investments or the use of transport typically lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and so increased knowledge and capacity on how to mitigate emissions to the extent possible will significantly benefit the transport sector.