The Challenge
Cities of the future...
50% of the global population currently live in cities and this is expected to increase to 70% (or 6.4 billion people) by 2050. Asian cities are expected to see more than 60% of this increase and 46% of all urban population growth will occur in cities with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants. UN-Habitat estimate that over 1 billion (or one in three) urban inhabitants currently do not have adequate access to water and sanitation, live in overcrowded conditions, live in poor quality, temporary shelters or lack security of tenure and they predict that the number of “slum dwellers” could double, to 2 billion, by 2050.
...face unprecedented challenges...
The IPCC predict decades of global warming as our past emissions continue to heat up the earth’s atmosphere.
Potential climate change impacts include: rising sea levels, more frequent, stronger storms, coastal erosion, diminishing biodiversity, continuing loss of glaciers and arctic ice, salinity in freshwater aquifers and an increase in heat-related diseases like malaria and dengue fever.
...particularly for the most vulnerable.
Climate change will have the greatest impact on communities who have done the least to cause it. Poor and vulnerable populations have the least capacity to prepare and plan for the impacts of climate change and the least capacity to respond.
“C
ommunities around the world need better weapons —
new tools, techniques, and strategies — if they hope to
tame the three-headed hydra of climate risk, poverty,
and precipitous urbanization (...) Since it may be too late to stop
the global warming that’s already occurred, we must figure out
how to survive it”
Judith Rodin, President, The Rockefeller Foundation
ACCCRN aims to catalyze attention, funding and action on building climate change resilience for poor and vulnerable people by:
•Creatingrobustmodelsofclimatechangeresilienceforpoorandvulnerablepeople •Funding,promoting,anddisseminatingthosemodels
•Increasingpressureonfunders,practitionersandpolicy-makerstosupportclimatechangeresilienceforpoor and vulnerable people.
The objectives of the ACCCRN program are to:
•Testanddemonstratearangeofactionstobuildclimatechangeresilienceincities •Buildareplicablebaseoflessonslearned,successesandfailures
•Assistcitiestodevelopandimplementaclimatechangeresiliencebuildingprocess •Buildthecapacityofcitiestocontinueclimatechangeresiliencebuildingactivities.
Anticipated results of the ACCCRN program include:
1. Capacity building
Selected cities in South and South East Asia have adequate capacity to plan, finance, coordinate, and implement climate change resilience strategies.
2. Network for learning and engagement
A broad range of representatives of cities, civil society, donors, private sector, technical partners engage with ACCCRN to mutually identify and solve key climate change resilience problems.
3. Expansion, deepening of experience, scaling up
1. City Scoping and Selection
April 2008 to September 2009
Identify partner cities which are: •experiencingrapidurbanization
•vulnerabletotheimpactsofclimatechange •havethecapacitytoengagewithACCCRN
Identify key stakeholders and local partners.
2. City-level engagement and capacity
development
January 2009 to mid 2010
Shared learning dialogues with key stakeholders to: •Understandcity-levelvulnerability
•Identifypotentialclimatechangeimpacts
•Createanurbanclimatechangeresilienceactionplan.
3. Implementation of urban resilience projects
2010 to 2012
Work with local and international partners to implement replicable interventions identified in the climate change resilience action plan.
4. Replication
Mid 2008 onwards
The ACCCRN program will scale-up through: •Networkingandsharedlearningwithinand
between cities, countries and sectors
•Continuousmonitoringandevaluationtoevaluate emerging results and capture lessons learned •Promotingthedevelopmentofcapacityforreplication •Disseminationoflearningandadaptationframeworks •Leveragingadditionalfundingsourcesforresilience
building initiatives throughout the region.
ACCCRN Phase 1 is currently underway to identify up to two cities from each country in which to take forward intensive engagement. This work isbeingledbyMercyCorpsandURDIinIndonesia,andTEIandADPCin Thailand.
Activities in this phase include meetings with city-level stakeholders (local government bodies and NGOs) and advisory groups (national government bodies, academic institutions and civil society). Assessment involves desk and field surveys to gain an understanding of the physical, social, political and economic contexts of each city.
All of the ACCCRN cities in India are experiencing rapid population growth and industrial expansion, with increasing demands on water and energy resources, expansion of informal settlements and challenges for urban planners.
Water scarcity is the main threat to the city of Indore, with the level of water demand far outstripping supply, leaving a large section of the populationunserved.Demandisincreasingrapidlywithpopulation growth and extensive industrial development. Although the problem of water scarcity is not new, increasing incidence and severity of drought and floods are adding more stress on the city’s population and city managers.
Gorakhpur is located in the middle of northern India’s Gangetic Plain. Prolonged water logging together with poor waste management has caused an increase in the incidence of vector borne diseases and related health problems, as well as contamination of ground water.
Flooding,coastalstormsandcyclones,sealevelriseandinundationare major threats to the port city of Surat. The city has experienced major flooding every few years in the last two decades, with some events covering as much as 75% of the city. It is low lying settlements and settlements close to the river, often homes of the poorest and vulnerable populations, that have been worst affected by floods.
In Da Nang, storms have caused severe damage to vulnerable coastal areas,leadingtotheresettlementofmanypoorhouseholds.Flooding is a recurring problem, both in poorly drained central areas as well as in peri-urban districts undergoing rapid land conversion. Rapid tourism development on exposed beach areas may become vulnerable in future. In Quy Nhon, heavy rains generally lead to extensive flooding in low-lying peri-urban estuarine areas, while more remote coastal fishing communities are exposed to increasing erosion by storms and higher tides. The same areas often suffer from water shortages and saline intrusion in the dry season as droughts become more frequent. The threats in Can Tho are somewhat different than in the other two cities, because this region is accustomed to large-scale, long-lasting seasonal flooding of the Mekong River, even without local rainfall. Sea level rise and upstream climate and land use changes will exacerbate this threat, while saline intrusion and water shortages in the dry season have become more noticeable in peri-urban areas.
The National Target Program on Climate Change was announced in December2008.BinhDinhprovince,includingthecityofQuyNhon,has beenselectedasanNTPpilotsiteandQuyNhon’sACCCRNexperience will help provide insight for emerging adaptation planning guidelines there.
India
India
Foundedin1913,TheRockefellerFoundation supports work around the world to expand opportunities for poor or vulnerable people and to help ensure that globalization’s benefits are more widely shared.
www.rockfound.org
ISET, the Institute for Social Environmental Transition is working with country level partners to support project cities through a shared learning dialogue process that will identify resilience-building activities. www.i-s-e-t.org
Arup, a global consultancy of planners, engineers and economists, is providing program management and technical assistance to the RockefellerFoundationandlocalpartnersandcities.
www.arup.com/internationaldevelopment
ProVention provides leadership in identifying, connecting and aligning with potential funding sources at country, regional and global levels; leveraging opportunities for donor funding of ACCCRN projects; and building linkages between ACCCRN, practitioners and donors on resilience priorities to support the objectives of the initiative. www.proventionconsortium.org
ICLEI provides leadership in bringing city-level work to the national and global levels, by helping cities to build a business case for the local governments.ICLEIisalsoassistingthecountrypartnersinIndonesiain city-level engagement processes.
www.iclei.org
Country Partners coordinate with national level entities, assist in the identification of local partners and coordinate a process of deeper engagementthroughSharedLearningDialogues.
India
•TARULeadingEdgeConsulting(www.taru.org)
•GorakhpurEnvironmentalActionGroup(www.geagindia.org) Thailand
•ThailandEnvironmentInstitute(www.tei.or.th) •AsianDisasterPreparednessCenter(www.adpc.net) Indonesia
•MercyCorps(www.mercycorps.org)
•UrbanandRegionalDevelopmentInstitute(www.urdi.org) Vietnam
•ChallengetoChange(www.challengetochange.org) •NISTPASS(www.nistpass.gov.vn)
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.rockfound.org/initiatives/climate/acccrn.html
