C40 Water Safe Cities Diplomacy and Advocacy – Consultant

Request for Proposal (RfP)
C40 Water Safe Cities Diplomacy and Advocacy -
Consultant
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Inc.
120 Park Avenue, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10017
United States of America
20 July 2026

Contents
1. C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Inc. 1
2. Summary, purpose and background of the project 1
3. Proposal guidelines 2
4. RfP and project timeline 4
5. Proposal evaluation criteria 6
6. Project budget 7
7. C40 policies 8
8. Submissions 8
1. C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Inc.
C40 is a network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities working to deliver the urgent action
needed right now to confront the climate crisis and create a future where everyone, everywhere, can thrive.
Mayors of C40 cities are committed to using a science-based and people-focused approach to limit global
heating in line with the Paris Agreement and build healthy, equitable and resilient communities. We work
alongside a broad coalition of representatives from labour, business, the youth climate movement and civil
society to support mayors to halve emissions by 2030 and help phase out fossil use while increasing urban
climate resilience and equity.
To learn more about the work of C40 and our cities, please visit our website or follow us on X, Instagram,
Facebook and LinkedIn.
2. Summary, purpose, and scope of work
OVERVIEW: We are seeking a short-term individual consultant to support the development of C40’s
strategic approach and engagement on global water advocacy & diplomacy, as part of the C40 Water Safe
Cities (WSC) Programme. The WSC Programme supports cities in tackling the dual challenges of too much
and too little water by delivering water-safe solutions, mainstreaming multi-sector collaboration, and
leading a global movement of city action on water resilience.

Request for Proposals: C40 Water Safe Cities Diplomacy and Advocacy - Consultant 1

The Global Leadership pillar of the WSC Programme, focused on advocacy and diplomacy, complements its
programme delivery and mainstreaming work to support C40 cities in achieving their ambitious Water Safe
Cities Accelerator targets. It aims to influence select national governments, multilateral institutions, and
other key stakeholders to support cities in accelerating and scaling urban water resilience. To achieve this,
the following three key needs have been initially highlighted by C40 mayors surveyed as part of the
programme:
1. Vertical integration across all levels of government: Cities need to be proactively integrated into the
design and implementation of national frameworks and plans related to climate and water resilience (such
as policies and investments in housing, water, sanitation, transport, disaster managements, environment
etc. as well as NAPs), in order to have the necessary resources (data, mandates, financing, funds) to
protect their communities.
C40 high level advocacy ask: Partner with cities in the design and implementation of national
roadmaps and strategies to deliver on climate adaptation and resilience targets by 2030.
2. Disaster preparedness with a focus on Early Warning Systems for All in cities: To expand multi-hazard
early warning systems to all residents, cities need alignment with national and regional governments on
authority over preparedness and response, data-sharing and communication protocols, as well as clear policy
mandates to implement effective, multi-hazard EWS and disaster response systems in their cities.
C40’s high level advocacy ask: Partner with cities to expand multi-hazard early warning system
coverage to 100% of residents by 2027, prioritising the most vulnerable and equipping cities with
the mandates and data to detect, monitor, and communicate warnings in time.
3. Urban inclusion in the financial global ecosystem (transform): To transform, cities need direct access to
funds and financing needed to deliver both the emergency response systems and the transformative
resilient infrastructure required to build water-resilient cities.
C40’s high level advocacy ask: Increase channels in global and national financial architecture for
cities to directly access resilience funds and financing (specific finance asks to be developed).

Request for Proposals: C40 Water Safe Cities Diplomacy and Advocacy - Consultant 2

These three needs above are being used to inform C40’s theory of change and narrative framing - that
cities need to be integrated into national plans (national resilience, adaptation and disaster risk
management plans); that in the short term cities urgently need support to ‘protect’ their cities for example
giving them the mandates and power to expand early warning systems; but in order to ‘transform’ cities for
long term resilience cities need access to direct financing and funds to implement, maintain, and scale up
resilience-building for urban flooding and water security via large scale infrastructure.
To focus and prioritise in 2026 we will focus our advocacy on the integration of cities into