Working Group 4: Urban Governance for Risk Reduction: Mainstreaming Adaptation into Urban Planning a

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Working Group 4 Urban Governance for Risk
Reduction Mainstreaming Adaptation into Urban
Planning and Development

• Chair Prof. Shabbir Cheema
• Rapporteurs Dr. Kris Ebi and Dr. Dushmanta Dutta

International Workshop on Cities at Risk
Developing Adaptive Capacity for Climate Change
in Asias Megacities 26-28 February, Bangkok,
Thailand
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Key question for the Working Group

• How can adaptation and climate risk management
  best be mainstreamed and implemented in urban
  development planning and governance?
• Participants 13
• Countries from the region China, India,
  Pakistan, Thailand and Taiwan

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Framework for discussion
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Important issues in mainstreaming adaptation

• 1) Influencing factors on mainstreaming
  adaptation measures in planning (from the
  experiences of some Asia cities)
• Leadership
• Resources
• Triggering event as entry point
• 2) Planning is ongoing process and gradual
  progress in key development planning sectors has
  enhanced adaptability of cities to cope with high
  frequency, low and medium scale disasters over
  time.

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• 3) Increasing resilience of most vulnerable
  people
• Development planning is relatively long-term
  process and the implementation is a lengthy
  process and does not bring immediate benefit to
  the most vulnerable population. It is important
  to have effective urban governance mechanism to
  increase resilience of most vulnerable sectors
  that dont get benefits from long-term adaptation
  measures.
• The role of government and civil society is
  improving the resilience of most vulnerable urban
  groups through on-site upgrading shelter, basic
  urban services is one of such examples.
• 4) Decisions making process
• The process through which decisions about
  development planning are made is an important
  determinant for mainstreaming the adaptation
  strategy for climate change. Where power is
  concentrated in few quarters and transparency and
  mechanism of accountability are not place, it
  becomes difficult to go beyond narrow and short
  term vested interest.

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• 5) Role of market
• Market forces have greatly influenced the urban
  development planning in the past one or two
  decades in many Asian countries. The market
  forces can play significant role in influencing
  the climate risk adaptation measures in
  development planning and that should harnessed in
  mainstreaming adaptation strategy.
• 6) Convergence of public and private
• The Private sector has led the infrastructure
  development in many Asian cities, which were
  beyond the capability of the public sector. There
  needs to be convergence of the public and private
  sectors for mainstreaming climate risk adaptation
  measures in development planning. The role of the
  public sector in this regard is to identify and
  maintain the public standards, while the role of
  the private sector is resource generation to
  achieve the objectives.

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• 7) Government roles
• Governments at different levels need to act
  effectively and timely fashion to address the
  climate change issue and adaptation measures.
• The roles and responsibilities of governments at
  different levels (central, state/province,
  district/local, etc) should be streamlined to
  clarify who would do what and how their actions
  to be harmonized.
• Implementation of adaptation measures at
  development plans can be made effective through
  appropriate new legislations.
• The governments need to ensure the effective
  implementation of the existing and new
  legislations.
• The governments at various levels need to enhance
  the capacity of the implementing organizations.
• 8) Role of Civil society including NGOs
• NGOs can be key players in mainstreaming
  adaptation measures in several important
  components of urban governance including
• Building awareness to create political wills
• Increasing community awareness
• Contributing to enhance resilience of most
  vulnerable poor population (not under the radar
  of public or private sectors)
• Even though the role of civil society has
  expanded over the years, there is still a strong
  need for continued expansion of political
  critical space for civil society to perform its
  role in mainstreaming adaptation strategy as it
  has done in the past in particular in such issues
  as human rights and debt relief.

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• 9) Agency for climate change
• Lack of coordination among many agencies and
  organizations has been detrimental in
  mainstreaming climate risk adaptation measures.
• There is a need to improve the structure and
  processes of coordination and harmonization and
  that can be done through a central coordinating
  mechanism/entity.
• This is especially important in prompt decision
  making processes for quick responses to disasters
  and hazard reduction strategies.
• Some countries have recently established a
  central agency to coordinate the activities of
  various responsible agencies.
• There was also alternative view point was to
  strengthen existing coordination structure and
  mechanism rather than creating a new one for
  adaptation strategy.

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• 10) Effective governance at the systemic level is
  essential to mainstream adaptation strategies.
• development in the public sector especially
  concerning adaption strategy for climate change
• enhance capacity of urban local governments to
  provide urban shelters and services to vulnerable
  groups and protect the urban environment
• Expansion of democratization of governance
  process and decentralization of responsibilities
  to urban local governments to improve
  implementation of national policy, planning and
  strategies and to facilitate participation of
  civil society in local decision making process
• strengthening government and civil society
  relation and engagement of Civil Society to
  change from reactive to pro-active.
• transparency and accountability mechanism

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• 11) Boundary issues
• Hazards dont follow administrative boundary.
  Many urban vulnerable areas are at the fringe or
  outside of city administration boundaries in many
  countries. City based adaptation approach will
  not be affective and it requires an integrated
  approach of bring upstream and downstream
  together in adaptation measures.
• 12) Rehabilitation process in adaptation
  mechanism
• There needs to be rehabilitation process in
  adaptation measures that address the livelihood
  and cultural issues.

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Assessments and Future Research

• Need for looking at various Methods for
  assessments
• Need for case studies on Comprehensive assessment
  of improvement of adaptation capacity of cities
  through previous development plans various issues
  in cities/countries of different levels of
  economy, different governance structures and
  mechanism
• Case studies on mainstreaming mechanisms for
  climatic risk adaptation (learning from practice)
• How to effectively communicate with local
  governments
• Common Indicators to measure resilience

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Capacity building and Networking

• Research expertise
• Regional centers of excellence for to work with
  academics and networking
• Continued education training
• Collaborative research encored in national
  training and research institutes with strong
  network and linkages with regional and
  international institutions

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Future research

• Case studies on mainstreaming mechanisms for
  climatic risk adaptation (learning from practice)
• How to effectively communicate with local
  governments
• Common Indicators to measure resilience