Rapid urbanisation has a potential to make countries productive and prosperous. On the other hand, at present, most of the cities are totally unprepared to handle multiple challenges associated with urbanisation. 

Urban areas concentrate disaster risk owing to urban expansion, increasing population, infrastructure and assets, and inadequate management. Hence, building resilience became an essential need for all urban cities.

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.