Purpose of Presentation : What it Takes to Build Resilience in Semarang City Purnomo Dwi Sasongko
(5-7 minutes storytelling with photo slideshow)
Good morning, everyone!
First of all, let me introduce you to our city.
Semarang is a home for around 1,7 million people, a coastal city with size about half of Singapore. This hotel, for example, is located somewhat in the middle of the city. Going 30 minutes driving, either to the north or south of the city, you will reach the city border (if without the traffic jam). Lowlands on the north, hilly areas on the south, with elevation around 25
degree.
Therefore with this character, and with 21 rivers we have, Semarang is highly prone to flooding. Both tidal flood and flash flood. Some landslides, some land movement, and pretty significant land subsidence in the north, around 20 cm/year.
Just like the other city, we also face typical city problems; poverty, traffic, crimes, and clean water problems. And with the additional risks from climate change that worsen all of these problems, we realize that we, as government will never have enough resources to solve all of these problems alone.
We realize that it takes everyone’s roles to solve Semarang problems. Looking back at six years ago before we joined ACCCRN, each of our city agencies didn’t really talk to each other.
There’s a distrust between local communities and city government, as what often happens, is that government program was implemented in a way that it’s not flexible or strictly regulated. For example, the procurement system that is in place regulates that the implementor or vendor for a certain work is chosen based on the least inexpensive price, therefore we cannot choose implementor with the best quality.
Therefore with such cases, we’re unable to adapt if there’s new information both from
communities as the beneficiaries, or from direct observation, thus the results turns out to be not meeting the needs of the community. If communities are not satisfied with the results and complaints, their complaints were not handled properly, therefore communities are hesitant to report, and often did not know if there’s such mechanism to report.
together, to envision our goals, and to collaborate together in integration, therefore we can solve complex problem comprehensively in a simple way.
When we’re joining ACCCRN, we established an ad-hoc working group, we called Climate Change Resilience Working Group, or often called as the City Team. The City Team consists of city governments, academias, and local NGO, where we shared roles and responsibilities and work together.
Throughout the process, there’s a changing mindset, that clear roles and responsibilities itself is not enough. A shared vision is required so we can make collaborative action. In addition, we increasingly understand that when we do development planning, it should not be just healing the wound, or adapting, but also to reduce the risks, which requires us to really think about the root cause problems.
This process includes real examples by working together through intervention projects.
I think, these projects is a living lab in which it shows how exactly collaborative action is being done.
This process takes time and will not success if the approach is not adaptive or flexible.
Through this projects and processes, there are a lot of surprises. In theory, we know that local leaders or champions need to be involved to get greater buy-in and ensure sustainability.
In practice, we actually did not really understand what it means. Through experiences in working directly in projects with the city team, we’re now increasingly understand that these leaders can be everyone. Women, youth, students, religious leaders, each of them can accelerate urban resilience.
As the approach of ACCCRN in Semarang is to positioned the city stakeholders as the agent of change, there’s a greater ownerships that I hope leads to better sustainability.
Our city has develop a City Resilience Strategy in 2010 to face climate-related shocks and stresses. That was a good basis for us expanding our thinking when we receive another opportunities in 2015 as part of 100 Resilient Cities initiatives.
Understanding the importance of expanding collaboration, we now get the chance to do it even more this time through this initiatives.
We also better articulate invites to everyone to contribute in building resilient Semarang, both inputs & actions; through any means of creative approach like blog and twitter competition, radio talkshow, stand-up comedy competition, and engaged more with mass media.
We’ve just launched the City Resilience Strategy yesterday, and we plan to move fast by signing a commitment with Platform Partners this evening and are committed to keep any progress to be reported publicly.
