Urban Resilience and Informality

ICLEI South Asia and ICLEI South East Asia, in partnership with Nashik Municipal Corporation, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Denpasar Municipality and Local Government of Quezon City has successfully launched the Misereor funded project on Urban Resilience and Informality in January 2016.

The project aims to assess and disseminate key lessons on resilience building and inclusive governance, with a focus on residents in informal settlements, to local, sub-national and national governments in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

The project will address this issue by connecting the informal sector to decision-makers from national and local governments, with support from intermediaries, e.g. local and international organizations including NGOs and research institutions, in order to develop policy recommendations on resilience building opportunities for cities within informal settlements.

The project will develop ‘solution baskets’ and road maps for the implementation of the same in cities in the region. The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that the solutions basket thus developed will also be put to implementation in two of the project cities.

Project Deliverables

• Development of 4 city-specific problem statements on informal settlements and urban resilience
• Providing expert ‘knowledge sharing’ and ‘solution finding’ platforms to address the vulnerabilities faced by urban informal settlements
• Development of ‘solution baskets’ for integrating informal settlements with urban resilience actions
• Pilot implementation of the roadmap in 2 cities aimed at building resilience in the urban informal settlements.

Activities

Development of Problem Statements
Detailed study of the linkages between the informal settlements and climate resilience was carried in Bidhannagar, Nashik, Denpasar and Quezon city. Key personnel interviews and focus group discussions were carried out with the residents of the identified slums in these cities as well as with the city government officials. The problems faced by the informal settlement dwellers were classified into – physical, economic, social and governance. Based on the same, city specific problem statements have been developed which provide an insight into the present conditions with regard to the informal settlements and climate resilience. These were presented in a dedicated session in Resilient Cities Asia Pacific 2016, held in Melaka, Malaysia in March 2016.

Development of Solution Baskets
The city specific problem statements were discussed in Resilient Cities Asia Pacific 2016. Based on the outcomes of the same, along with inputs we received during the field work, another session on developing solution baskets was organised at RCAP 2016. The session saw subject matter specialists, city government officials, international experts and community representatives discuss the possible solutions. Some success stories from different parts of Asia-Pacific were also discussed. Through the session and the intensive discussions that were carried out therein, solution baskets for each city have been developed.