Urban risk platform
From HFA-PEDIA
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What's New
World Bank and Partners Host Symposium on Cities and Climate Change
The fifth Urban Research Symposium took place from 28 June - 1 July 2009, in Marseille, France around the theme “Cities and Climate Change: Responding to the Urgent Agenda
Proceedings from the side event held at the II Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, June 16-19, 2009
Proceedings from the side event held at the II Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, June 16-19, 2009
Introduction
The Urban Risk Platform is a network of local governments from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean interested in strengthening the integration of disaster risk management within their cities’ development processes. Through the analysis of common problems, the exchange of experiences and understandings, the Urban Risk Platform brings together city officials and authorities looking to strengthen their own risk management processes through joint initiatives for cooperation among cities as well as with other strategic actors.
Objectives
- Facilitate participation and exchange among local governments within the context of a wider regional dialogue in order to analyze common aspects of disaster risk being faced by cities from throughout the region.
- Support and strengthen risk management processes currently underway in the region’s cities.
- Support and strengthen local city government capacities for political lobbying and advocacy based on their own specific realities.
- Support and strengthen ongoing initiatives surrounding research, training and capacity-building.
- Construct a common vision and understanding of disaster risk affecting the region’s cities.
- Promote and facilitate coherence and coordination between the priorities set forth in the Hyogo Framework for Action and those of sustainable development in general.
- Promote, support and facilitate south-south initiatives
- Facilitate interaction, involvement and coordination with regional cooperation agencies
Background
The Urban Risk Platform initiative was presented by the City of Bogota, Colombia during the first session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (Geneva, June of 2007). It is linked to and supported by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction - ISDR System through the UNISDR regional office for the Americas and by the World Bank.
Strategies
- Generate new capacities
- Strengthen and support ongoing training and capacity-building initiatives with inputs surrounding specific aspects of urban risk
- Support and promote applied research based on the specific needs of cities
- Foster and promote the creation of a specialized urban risk database
- Public awareness-raising
- Support and strengthen processes for disseminating public information
- Promote social values that foster safeguarding against disaster risk
- Facilitate the exchange of experiences, tools and lessons-learned among the region’s cities
- Political lobbying
- Support, enable and promote ongoing local risk management processes
- Identify windows of opportunity for lobbying among various social actors
- Increase the visibility and understanding of the realities of disaster risk
- Support existing risk management processes among cities
- Identify opportunities to promote the priorities of local governments within existing mechanisms and processes
- Facilitate communications and agreement among interested social actors
- Promote the exchange of tools and experiences among cities facing similar situations and realities
- Promote increased articulation between national and regional levels
- Support the identification and involvement of financing mechanisms and partnerships
Importance
- Increasing urban population growth and density;
- Consolidating decentralization policies increase the importance and role of local governments in disaster risk management;
- Need for comprehensive understanding of the intrinsic relation between development processes and disaster risk;
- Particular risks inherent to urban settings imply a need for specialized research and analysis;
- Local governments must have access to available tools and instruments for priority areas of action;
- A clear and determined need for a support mechanism that enables processes of cooperation among the region’s cities.
Advances to date
- The initial design phase has concluded and a technical document produced
- Important thematic inputs have been gathered, consolidated and validated with experts and development agencies from throughout the region
- The formation of the Urban Risk Platform and validation of at least 10 key cities of focus are currently underway for the Platform’s operation during the second half of 2008
Making Cities Resilient: My city is getting ready!
The 2010-2011 global DRR campaign Making Cities Resilient: My city is getting ready!
More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities or urban centres. Urban settlements are the lifelines of society. They serve as nations’ economic engines, they are centres of technology and innovation and they are living evidence of our cultural heritage. But cities can also become generators of new risks: failed infrastructure and services, environmental urban degradation, increasing informal settlements and almost a billion slum dwellers around the world. This makes many urban citizens more vulnerable to natural hazards.
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction is working with its partners to raise awareness and commitment for sustainable development practices that will reduce disaster risk and increase the wellbeing and safety of citizens - to invest today for a better tomorrow. Building on previous campaigns focusing on education and the safety of schools and hospitals, ISDR partners are launching a new campaign in 2010: Making Cities Resilient. The campaign will seek to convince city leaders and local governments to commit to a checklist of Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient and to work alongside local activists, grassroots networks and national authorities.
UNISDR and its partners have developed this checklist as a starting point for all those who want to join in the campaign. Equally important is that commitment to these Ten Essentials will empower local governments and other agencies to implement the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters, adopted by 168 governments in 2005. Good urban and local governance is the key to this resilience!
Urban risk reduction delivers many benefits. When successfully applied as part of sustainable urbanization, resilient cities help reduce poverty, provide for growth and employment, and deliver greater social equity, fresh business opportunities, more balanced ecosystems, better health and improved education.
I call on mayors and local governments to join in the Making Cities Resilient Campaign 2010-2011: My City is Getting Ready Campaign and to consider how they can implement as many of the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient as possible. They are the closest institutional level to citizens and are elected leaders, expected to respond to the needs and safety of their constituencies. Their participation and leadership are vital. I also call on civil society, planners and urban professionals from different sectors, national authorities and community groups to help develop innovative solutions and to engage with the local governments to reduce risk and to encourage good governance by working together.
The success of the campaign will be measured by how many mayors and local governments
join and commit as Champions, Resilient City Role Models and Participants; how many lasting partnerships and local alliances among citizen groups and grassroots organizations, academia and private sector develop; how many cities introduce new plans or changes to reduce risk.
The tragic 2010 earthquake disaster in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince and other cities was a wake-up call, followed by the earthquake and tsunami in Chile. Inaction is not an answer.
- Margareta Wahlström,
- Special Representative of the :Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction,
- United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
Contacts
Jennifer Guralnick - Focal point for UNISDR Americas' Urban Riks Thematic Platform: jguralnick@eird.org
Magnolia Santamaría, 2010 Coordinating Consultant (as of July 2010): riesgourbano@eird.org
Margarita Villalobos, UNISDR Americas 2010-2011 Campaign focal point: mvillalobos@eird.org
For more information: eird@eird.org
URL: www.eird.org
Related documents
Guideline for Localizing HFA - Consultation Version (PDF, 1.32 Mb)
Asia Regional Task Force – Urban Risk Reduction / United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; June 2009
Background Paper to thematic session at GP09
Planning sustainable cities: global report on human settlements 2009; United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT); 2009
This book reviews recent urban planning practices and approaches, discusses constraints and conflicts therein, including those driven by climate change and related disasters, and identifies innovative approaches that are more responsive to current challenges of urbanization.
Urban risk reduction and adaptation: how to promote resilient communities and adapt to increasing disasters and changing climatic conditions; Wamsler, Christine - 2009
This book seeks to demonstrate how disaster risk management and adaptation could be better integrated into urban development planning (i.e. social housing, slum upgrading and urban governance programmes). Based on the identification of the nexus between disasters and urban development and of the incomplete approaches to risk reduction and its mainstreaming, a comprehensive adaptation framework is presented.
Report by the World Bank, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR)
July, 2008
ISDR Urban Risk Virtual Library
Urban Risk Documentation Collection
A collection of urban risk-related documents gathered within the framework of the IDRC Canada - UN/ISDR - CRID pilot project titled Disaster Prevention Municipal Information System
Related links
- Urban Risk Reduction selected reading on PreventionWeb
- International Conference "Megacities: Risk, Vulnerability and Sustainable development"
Leipzig, Germany: September 7, 2009 - September 10, 2009
Contact: megacity.2009@fu-confirm.de
Urban Research Network - A Network for Urban Research in Developing Countries
While the world is becoming more and more urban, the need for research and expertise is drastically growing in order to understand the development of cities, especially in developing countries. This site is intended to be a place where researchers and practitionners from all over the world can meet, discuss, share ideas and documents, and create networks that will address urban issues in developing countries. The starting point of this network is the 4th Urban Research Symposium on urban land use and land markets, held in May 2007 in Washington DC, organized by the World Bank with its key partners : SIDA, Lincoln Institute of Land Policies, Cities Alliance, and GTZ.
MEGA-Learnis EMI's online platform for training, capacity building and knowledge sharing. It consists of megacity-specific tools and online training courses for disaster risk management practitioners, city managers, researchers and other professionals.
The Global Research Network on Human Settlements (HS-Net) is a network of individuals engaged in human settlements research. The objective of HS-Net is to promote global sharing of information on urban conditions and trends, principally through the 'Global Report on Human Settlements'. Monitoring and reporting priorities relevant to the implementation of the Habitat Agenda fall into three broad categories: 1. Monitoring urban conditions and trends, including progress towards realization of the Habitat Agenda and the targets of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on slums, water and sanitation; 2. Improving understanding of emerging urban conditions and issues in a globalizing and urbanizing world; and 3. Evaluating the effectiveness of past and present urban policies adopted by Governments and their partners in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda and the targets of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
See also: UN-HABITAT's Global Report on Human Settlements
- State of the world’s cities 2008/2009 - harmonious cities; UN-Habitat, 2008
This report asserts that half of humanity now lives in cities, and within two decades, nearly 60 per cent of the world’s people will be urban dwellers. Urban growth is most rapid in the developing world, where cities gain an average of 5 million residents every month. As cities grow in size and population, harmony among the spatial, social and environmental aspects of a city and between their inhabitants becomes of paramount importance. This harmony hinges on two key pillars: equity and sustainability.
Disaster risk reduction related case studies and data include: Dhaka’s extreme vulnerability to climate change; African cities at risk; Cuba: a culture of safety; Drowned and dangerous: Cities and climate change.
- UN-Habitat Annual Report 2009; UN-Habitat, 2010
As the challenge of urbanization takes on unprecedented dimensions, one of the most serious obstacles to policy development is the lack of appropriate policies and data at city level. If the cities of this world are to face the often simultaneous challenges of slum growth, access to basic services, climate change, urban poverty and shelter deprivation in any effective, sustainable way, then well-informed advocacy, partnerships and monitoring are required, along with innovative institutional arrangements and policies.
The diversity and complexity of these challenges call for extended, broader partnerships. Advocacy and monitoring also include assessing and forecasting trends and risks.
Related pages
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