The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) convened a multi-stakeholder consultation to discuss and review the city’s progress on disaster and climate resilience on 23 July 2025, under the Climate and Development Knowledge Network’s (CDKN) Accelerating Inclusive Climate Action programme, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Netherlands and Canada’s International Development Research Centre. ICLEI South Asia is an implementation partner for the Asia region under the CDKN programme.

The meeting brought together representatives from state and local government departments, including the Andhra Pradesh Water Resources Department, Greening and Beautification Corporation, Central Power Distribution Corporation Limited, Vijayawada Traffic Police, Vijayawada Municipal Corporation, and civil society organisations to validate  the findings in the city’s disaster resilience scoring and gather local inputs on the scoring and the issues faced by different urban systems in the city. Stakeholders identified next steps for strengthening the city’s preparedness for climate-induced risks.

Learning from the ground-level insights and knowledge gained during the preparation of Vijawada’s Net Zero Climate Resilient City Action Plan (Net zero CRCAP), the VMC, with support of ICLEI South Asia, is assessing the city’s disaster preparedness and resilience using the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities to evaluate Vijaywada’s vulnerabilities and capacities across infrastructure, governance, and services. The assessment process also involved rounds of discussions with the local community members to factor in ground-level inclusivity and equality in disaster management process.

Reflecting on the city’s disaster readiness, Chandra Sekhar Dastimi, Additional Commissioner (Projects), Vijaywada Municipal Corporation, highlighted the need for inter-agency coordination, capacity building and skill transfer for effective disaster response. He acknowledged ICLEI South Asia’s efforts under CDKN for its role in helping cities in Andhra Pradesh, including Vijayawada and Kakinada, in building their disaster resilience and developing structured and long-term disaster-ready strategies.

Key learnings from the meeting included measures such as protecting local biodiversity, adopting green & low-impact infrastructure, maintaining key assets such as power and water supply mechanisms, and strengthening inter-departmental coordination and citizen outreach.