Regional Training Workshop on Building Cities Resilience to Climate and Disaster Risks

Background

Unprecedented urbanization is transforming the planet and the way we live: for the first time in history, more people live in cities than in rural areas. 90 percent of this urban expansion takes place in developing countries, and much of it occurs near natural hazards, rivers and coastlines, and through informal and unplanned settlements. As urban areas expand and disaster risk rises, cities are increasingly interested in integrating resilience into their development plans. Cities and local governments are seeing prioritisation and expansion of their efforts to advance urban resilience as a critical element of sustainable development. By helping cities avoid losses, and citizens avoid sliding into poverty, improved urban resilience can safeguard development gains for future generations.

Current and future challenges of mainstreaming climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into national and local development planning demand new approaches, mechanisms, sets of skills and competencies that need to be identified and strengthened in order to form the basis of increasing public demand and political commitment to local actions and budget allocations. Lack of appropriate knowledge on the subject, lack of government commitment and the absence of mainstreaming in current organizational and government strategy and plans are key existing challenges.  This training workshop is designed with an aim to assist city governments in building greater resilience to climate and disaster risks through integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into wider city development plans and strategies.

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