urban community-based adaptation: opportunities and challenges

1

Author name

Date Diane Archer

Urban community-based

adaptation: opportunities

and challenges

Diane Archer

Researcher,

Human Settlements Group,

IIED

Informality and vulnerability

• Often more exposed to hazards

• Lack of hazard-reducing infrastructure

• Insecure tenure, no legal protection against eviction

• No legally registered address – no voting, access to hospitals, schools, social security…

• No access to services – electricity, water

• No insurance against fire, disaster

• Insecure livelihoods

--> greater vulnerability (social and physical) to impacts of climate change

Constraints in urban centres • Local government may lack capacity to meet

infrastructure, service, urban management needs – Not providing framework for risk reduction for lower-

income households e.g. basic services

• Local government may lack interest in addressing needs of low income populations – the poor as “problem” – If risks are concentrated among low income groups, can be

difficult to get action

• Cities may be in particularly risky locations

• Lack of downscaled data

• Delaying action = no costs today, high costs later

Household-level adaptation

From Haque et al, 2014, Individual, communal and institutional responses to climate change by low-income households in Khulna, Bangladesh, Environment and Urbanization 26(1)

Defining CBA

• Indigenous knowledge of locally appropriate solutions to climate variability and extreme events (Ayers and Forsyth, 2009)

• …engage with poor and more vulnerable people (Forsyth, 2013)

an opportunity to address the social, economic and political drivers of vulnerability as part of broader development processes

Adaptation for whom – response to climate problem shaped by who defines it

Adaptation and development

• “The most effective adaptation and disaster risk reduction actions are those that offer development benefits in the relatively near term, as well as reductions in vulnerability over the longer term”.

• “A prerequisite for sustainability in the context of climate change is addressing the underlying causes of vulnerability, including the structural inequalities(…)”

IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), Summary for policy makers 2012:15

Alternative routes to resilience

• Urban poor groups, networks, federations in Asia & Africa – addressing immediate development needs through collective actions – Savings, enumerations, mapping

– Upgrading housing and infrastructure

– Establishing collective funds for development

• Tackling development needs

– root causes of risk addressed head on

– Increasing resilience to climate change impacts

• DRR actions

Kibera, Nairobi

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Author name

Date Diane Archer

Adaptation as development

Community driven development - ACCA

Community driven mapping – Tanzania Urban

Poor Federation

Community-driven infrastructure and upgrading

• Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) program of Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR)

• Collective loans/grants to communities for

– upgrading infrastructure -15,000 USD per city

– Housing projects – 40,000 USD per city

• Citywide mapping and platforms for engagement

– including citywide revolving loan funds

Hazard-reducing infrastructure

Small ACCA projects

Strenkali, Surabaya

• Riverside communities negotiated with city, provincial and national government for long term user rights (bylaw) – on condition of upgrading

• Households moved back from the riverbank, turned houses to face river, cleared pathway – city is providing paving

• Communities keep river clean

Opportunities for engagement through new financial tools

• Community Development Funds (CDFs) – Funding initiatives that low-income groups prioritize

– encourage collaboration with other stakeholders

– Urban poor groups retain management control

• Bridge gap between household-scale investments & larger-scale infrastructure & housing development finance

• CDFs as tools for collective risk transfer

• Social insurance – funds for health, welfare, education, disasters

• International funds

Collective Risk Transfer

• Difficult for urban poor to access insurance: lack paperwork, bank accounts

• Making use of collective funds to include a form of insurance e.g. after Thailand’s floods in 2011 – grants for reconstruction

• Or contributions for births

and deaths

• Savings as backup in

case of future disaster

A CDF in practice

• 22 communities (2,600 households)

• Support lowest-income households to participate in housing projects with grants

• Loan to household affected by fire

Da Nang, Vietnam

• Hoa Hiep Bac Ward community fund: • Upgrading and consolidation of

housing structures; • Adaptation of income generating

activities • Communal measures such as

planting trees, shared diesel generator

• Seeded by GIZ, in partnership with Da Nang city government and ACVN

• Typhoon resistant-housing: • credit loans to households

reinforce houses through Women’s Union;

• technical support to build and strengthen houses for storm-resistance;

• training and awareness building • 244/245 houses undamaged by

Typhoon Nari in October • ACCCRN project

Tanzania Urban Poor Federation

• Established in 2004 in Temeke Municipality

• Active in 8 cities: Dar es salaam, Morogoro, Dodoma, Mwanza, Arusha, Mara, Tanga and Zanzibar

• 11,700 members in 275 savings groups

Source: TUPF, Feb 2014

TUPF climate change studies

• TUPF conducted vulnerability studies in Dar, in settlements affected by floods

• Identified existing coping measures: – Construction of walls in front of houses,

– Shelving storage inside roof

area

– Shifting belongings to

neighbours’ house

– Arranging sandbags

– Cleaning drains and rivers

Mkunduge settlement in Tandale ward, Dar es Salaam Source: TUPF, Feb 2014

• But coping strategies not always sufficient

– Home-based industries are affected, especially women e.g. selling chapatis

– Flooding may prevent school attendance

– Lack of strong social capital

Flood-affected house in Mtoni kijichi, in Dar es salaam

• Suggested ideas from study include information via mobile phones

• Increased awareness of climate change

• Savings, sanitation and waste management programs

Source: TUPF, Feb 2014

A map developed in an ongoing study conducted by TUPF and CCI on climate change vulnerability at Misheni settlement

Vulnerability map

Source: TUPF, Feb 2014

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Author name

Date Diane Archer

DRR actions contributing to

adaptation – the Philippines

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Community driven agenda for risk reduction and response

• Increasing number of surveys, enumerations & maps produced by community organizations within informal settlements

– Fill local government data gaps

– Integration of local knowledge with scientific and technical knowledge can improve DRR and CCA (SREX)

• Community organizations taking action and offering local government partnership (& needed data)

• Government agencies build capacity to work with those at risk

– early warning, emergency response

– regulatory framework

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Community-led DRR in the Philippines

Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines (HPFPI)

• Savings groups started 1998

• Trash slide in 2000; many people killed or injured, lost their homes

– Started mapping risks in settlements of member savings groups

– Purchased land to rehouse & resettle

• Federation leaders going to sites of disasters

– Mapping, surveys, encouraging savings groups

– Negotiate inclusion in official programmes, strengthen community organizations’ capacity to negotiate

– Loans for house repair and support for this; support for getting safer sites

– Technical support from NGOs and universities

Identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in Ilo Ilo

• Empowered communities with local government support crucial for scaled up disaster response/DRR

Core vulnerabilities Response process

High risk location Data gathering by volunteers for disaster risk assessment and DRR; enumeration; upgrading

Trust and contact building

Limited financial access Savings program, community inter-lending, financial management skills, and UPDF

Lack of organisation Organisational formation and registration; urban poor networking; collaboration with local government unit (LGU)

Lack of secure housing Intervention identification: house materials loan, transit housing, land purchase and house construction (from Carcellar, Rayos Co and Hipolito, 2011)

• Citywide survey of high-risk communities – partnership with city in mapping structures

• Transit housing – building on pre-existing partnership with IloIlo city government

• Housing materials assistance • Partnership with universities and NGOs

HPFPI, http://homelessvisayas.blogspot.co.uk/p/urban-poor-network-initiatives.html

Ilo Ilo Urban Poor Network

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Author name

Date Diane Archer

Participatory mapping processes

– in Gorakhpur

Participatory flood risk mapping in Gorakhpur

• Mapping team equipped

with printed Google satellite image, GPS and semi-structured questionnaires.

• 120 waypoints through GPS for the entire ward captured (2.5 sq km ward)

• Residents filled in semi-structured questionnaire at each point.

• Support from GEAG (local NGO)

• Residents’ reasoning for floods; effects of floods

• Socio-economic status of residents

• Benefits: understanding the magnitude of flood risk, extent of exposure of vulnerable groups, threshold value between hazard and disaster

Building resilience in Gorakhpur • Flood risk map and participatory process

informed Gorakhpur city resilience strategy and city planning department

• Three tier action: – household – community – ward committee linked to municipal planning

• Pilot community waste collection project and drain repair by community members (ACCCRN) – participatory planning tools at the ward level for

“micro-resilience” plans – Driven by participatory flood risk mapping – Hold local government to account for drain clearance

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Author name

Date Diane Archer

Alternative routes to building

urban resilience

Scaling up CBA

Financing CBA

[Source: IPCC (2012). Special Report on Extreme Events: Summary for Policy Makers. Figure 2.

Community-based approaches

Federations working with local government at scale for DRR

CDFs with disaster funds

Address underlying causes – livelihoods, tenure

Empowered collectives and platforms for collaboration

Sea walls in Davao or relocation

Savings groups Learning from experience

Community-driven approaches to resilience

Mainstreaming CBA

• CBA as a package of tools at urban level

• Intervention of other actors (NGOs, academia) may link local government and communities

– E.g. Quy Nhon grassroots voices + modelling

– Local awareness raising

• Policy framework for deliberative, participatory governance

– Role for local forums

multi-level governance reaching all scales

Financing CBA

• Finance for local actions comes from national or international sources – Inadequate, unaccountable, inaccessible

– Challenges of getting finance at city scale

– Climate adaptation finance not for development

– Prioritising mitigation actions

– What role for local funds?

• Possibilities of private sector involvement – Surat Climate Change Trust

– But how to get community involvement?

Limits to community-level approaches

• Institutional structures still required e.g. planning and zoning, building codes, legal system role for governments

• Government support necessary for action at scale

• National level framework shapes local level action

• Need for strategic champions

• Capacity gaps

• Complex communities

• But… community action can spur and facilitate governments to fulfil their roles and responsibilities

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Conclusions

• Adaptation needs are specific to each settlement

• Need to generate a good information base

• Mapping and enumeration sets stage for action

– Discussions on how to address extreme weather & other impacts from climate change

• Locally controlled funds support urban CBA action

• Adaptation is about addressing social drivers of vulnerability – not just physical impacts

• More can be achieved (in scale and scope) when urban poor groups work with local government support