Following the success of the ICAT Partner events held in 2021 and 2022, the ICAT Community Meetings welcomed over 91 participants, including representatives from 21 ICAT partner countries, as well as implementing partners, members of ICAT’s Advisory Committee and Donor Steering Committee, and other transparency stakeholders, for three days of vivid exchange of knowledge and experience. Taking into consideration that the ICAT Adaptation Conference was planned for September 2022, and that the feedback from the previous virtual partner events brought out a clear demand across the ICAT community for more in-person meetings and exchange opportunities, the ICAT Secretariat and the ICAT Adaptation project implementing partner, UNEP-CCC, joined forces to deliver a full agenda on mitigation, adaptation and cross-cutting transparency topics.

Photo:Rebekka Olschewski for UN City Copenhagen Communications

The topics for the different sessions were selected after consulting ICAT partners, including through a pre-event survey, and focusing on the most relevant and urgent areas for fulfilling international transparency reporting requirements and national goals alike. The final programme included workshops on current priority topics such as loss and damage and linking Article 6 to the Enhanced Transparency Framework. The event also addressed topics of universal interest among countries, such as transparency for mitigation and adaptation in the agriculture session, and tracking and mobilizing climate finance, as well as dedicated sessions on ICAT tools, such as GACMO, TraCAD and SINAMECC, and previews of new methodologies under development. 

The ICAT Community Meetings achieved their objective, by delivering a platform and programme to enable robust knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer engagement and in-depth discussion, enabling ICAT to learn from the experiences of countries and regional activities, understand their priority needs, as well as the gaps that participants identify in the global transparency support landscape. Finally, the event brought together the ICAT community, including the Advisory Committee and Donor Steering Commitee, to advise on ICAT’s plans and priorities.

The ICAT Secretariat thanks those partners involved in the organization and delivery of the event, with special thanks to all those who generously committed their time and energy as moderators, speakers, panelists and rapporteurs, sharing valuable knowledge and experiences to advance our global transparency efforts.

Based on the positive experience from the ICAT Community Meetings, the event will return in the future. Taking into account the respective advantages and disadvantages of online and offline meetings and events, ICAT has decided to follow an approach encompassing both virtual and in-person formats for its future knowledge sharing partner events. Therefore, a virtual Partner Forum will be planned for early 2023, in line with the previous years’ partner forums, while an in-person meeting of the ICAT community will take place in early 2024.

Video: Kvistholt Photography