High concentrations of people and economic assets, often in hazard-prone areas, means cities are vulnerable environments. The report analyses the vulnerabilities and risks of cities with a particular focus on the urban poor and the city’s adaptive capacities. It explores how the urban poor are at risk from climate change and natural hazards, the role of basic services in building resilience and the importance of local governments in supporting basic services. It recommends drawing on good practice examples to integrate adaptive measures into current urban planning.
This report draws on four case studies: Dar es Salaam, Jakarta, Mexico City, Sao Paulo. It uses an analytical framework developed by the IPPC which looks at the risks posed by natural hazards and defines vulnerability as a function of a system’s exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.
Risks are particularly high in low and middle-income countries where between one-third to one-half of urban populations live in informal settlements. People living in these areas face a range of challenges, such as access to safe and reliable water and transport. Affordable areas to live in the city for the poor are typically hazard-prone, unsafe, and overcrowded, with insecure tenure and limited infrastructure. These issues heighten the sensitivity of the urban poor to climate change and disaster risks such as landslides, flooding and other effects of climate change.
Local governments play a vital role in providing reliable basic services, which are critical to improving resilience to climate change and natural hazards. However, rapid urbanisation comes with the challenge of providing services to a growing population without the necessary resources or capacity to keep apace. Further, the perceptions that informal settlements are risky investments for infrastructure and that the urban poor are unable to pay for basic services means that governments, NGOs and the private sector are often reluctant to invest. This lack of investment in basic services (and also infrastructure) reduces resilience in a number of ways, including: the absence of drainage turns heavy-rain into a disastrous flood and lack of access roads can prevent relief efforts from reaching households.
Significant financial support is needed to meet the shortfall for service delivery and infrastructure investments. This includes investment in good information systems and tools. Not all investments need to be high to have significant direct impact on the poor. Smaller-scale investments in drainage or slum upgrades which take a neighbourhood approach may need to be prioritised over city-wide investments (such as seawalls, embankments or levees). The former are most effective when coupled with policies that tackle land-related issues.
Existing good practice examples can be drawn on to inform how adaptation and disaster risk reduction can be sustained and integrated into existing urban planning and management practices . Recommendations include:
- assessing risks at city and community levels to inform decision making and action planning.
- integrating policies for climate change and disaster risk reduction for the poor into urban planning and management
- balance policy trade-offs among risk reduction, urban development, and poverty reduction in decision making.
- strengthening institutional capacity to deliver basic services and reduce vulnerability to climate and disaster risk.
- encouraging communities and local governments to work together on local solutions.
- generate new financial opportunities for cities to address climate change and disaster risk reduction – the main source being targeted government expenditures, such as microfinance or risk insurance pools.
