Wrap-up of the Curriculum

Study Tour to Brazil on Climate DRR in Cities

The study tour ran from the 12th to the 20th of May, in Rio de Janeiro, with a focus on climate disaster risk reduction. The tour was a successful and rewarding experience, and we would like to share some information with you about the tour, and invite the ELLA participants to share their experiences and lessons learned. Please find attached a copy of the welcome pack giving details on each of the ELLA participants and local participants, and a summary of each of the meetings attended. Later, a report on the lessons learned from the study tour will be shared with all.

Charlotte and the ELLA Team

Related materials:

Study Tour Welcome Pack

Study Tour Daily Minutes


Wrap-up of the Curriculum

As the formal learning modules have been completed it is important for us to take stock of the Learning Alliance, to see what has been of the most value to you. We are interested in hearing about what you have liked about the Alliance and how it has impacted on your work.

We would like to take this opportunity to ask all you all to share with us, how you might put lessons learned from the ELLA Learning Alliance into practice or how you plan to collaborate with others on themes that we have discussed over the past 5 months. As you will remember we have looked at the role of different actors - from the government, through institutions, civil society, and down to community members. We have looked at steps that might be taken to improve urban climate resilience - including risk mapping, land-use planning, policy actions, DRR strategies, investments in sustainable infrastructure and resilient housing, and low-carbon development strategies. We have seen many good practices from a range of cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America, and many of you have already mentioned potential action plans and collaborations that you might embark upon. For those of you that have not, we would like to encourage you to think along these lines. We would like to have a little more detail on these onward plans.

Another very important point pertains to the continuity of this ELLA Learning Alliance and what we can do to continue to learn from one another in the coming months and years. Our formal learning programme has come to an end, but the alliance need not! The Networking Page will soon become the landing page for those that visit the site, and we will still have the opportunity to share documents and ideas with one another. If, however, you have any interest in keeping a structured learning exchange going and any ideas about about how we might do this in collaboration, we would be very glad to hear from you.

In summary, this week, we are interested to hear from you about:

1) How the ELLA Learning Alliance has inspired you

2) Any actions that you plan to take or collaborations that you plan to embark upon as a result of the Learning Alliance

3) Any suggestions as to how we might give a structure to our exchange now that the curriculum has been completed

All the best,
Charlotte and the ELLA team

 

Week 10: Summary and conclusion

Thank you all for the interesting discussion about infrastructural weaknesses in your cities. Although we heard of relatively few actions in place to improve infrastructure and make it more resilient to climate change, we did hear many suggestions that would help to improve existing weaknesses. We hope that you found the case studies and supplementary reading useful when thinking about potential solutions for your cities.

The required infrastructural improvements identified by participants were common across Africa, Asia and Latin America. These areas included:
- Water supply, treatment and distribution
- Sanitation, waste disposal and drainage systems
- Roads and transportation
- Electricity
- Housing and other buildings

When analysing the reasons for infrastructural weaknesses, an overriding message from the discussion was that infrastructure across these regions was poorly planned. Infrastructure that has been in place for decades and centuries was not designed for the reality of today; and new infrastructure that is developed often does not take environmental considerations into account – looking primarily to fulfil the present needs of the population without thinking about long-term sustainability.

Participants from Bangladesh and India explained that a major cause of the need to improve infrastructure comes from the fact that today demand for infrastructure far exceeds the capacity for which it was designed. In addition to that, in many cases, populations have rapidly settled in areas in a disorganised manner, making the installation of infrastructure challenging and also putting this infrastructure at high risk (i.e. by settling in flood prone areas). Some of you noted that the rising number of migrants in cities is something that was not planned for when infrastructure was designed.

Many of you agreed that infrastructure in your cities is outdated; a participant from Ghana explained that some infrastructure dates back to colonial times. There were many suggestions about the need to upgrade infrastructure and employ innovative technologies. Participants from Bangladesh, Ghana and Zimbabwe pointed out that the problem is not just that the infrastructure is old, but rather that it is not properly maintained. Many of you also commented on the lack of public awareness about how certain infrastructure operates, and that as times it is the local inhabitants that exacerbate existing weaknesses. One participant from South Africa commented that street cleaners sometimes sweep waste into drains thereby blocking them.

When speaking of the construction of new infrastructure two main weaknesses were identified: 1) weak planning and lack of integration, and 2) lack of finance. It was felt that a lack of coordination between stakeholders has been a major setback, as has the fact that climate change and sustainability considerations are not integrated into infrastructural design. Thus new infrastructure quickly becomes outdated or is recognised as being inefficient. Lack of finance was identified as a major barrier, which might be overcome by political will or international support. One participant from Peru spoke of how corruption often leads to the employment of lower quality materials in order to increase profit margins, thus resulting in non-resilient infrastructure.

Thinking about how to encourage ‘no-regrets’ investments in infrastructure, participants suggested the following:
- Improve awareness among leaders and the general populace
- Through advocacy show that prevention is more efficient than response, also share successful case stories from other cities
- Gain political support for development with climate change considerations in mind
- Develop an integrated strategic city development plan
- A multi-stakeholder group, that is devoid of partisanship, should work on plans and action

Additionally, some of you mentioned other means to improve the resilience of infrastructure. Suggestions included
- Sensitisation and behavioural change regarding waste management
- Employment of renewable energy sources
- Introduction, or amplification, of resilient building codes
- Improvement of natural protection through bio-engineering and the strategical plantation of shrubs and trees

Exisiting programmes to improve the resilience of infrastructure included:

Building: Ghana Green Building Council, which is working with local partners to improve the sustainability of buildings. In India, in the city of Bhuj, buildings were retrofitted following an earth quake. A participant from Zimbabwe also spoke of projects to employ eco-friendly building materials.

Energy: Ghana also has a project know as Sustainable Energy for All, which is working to encourage the employment of renewable energy sources and reduce the use of coal and charcoal.

Waste: The Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) assisted the city of Chennai with a pre-feasibility study for improving waterways and solid waste management. Chennai corporation took these projects on and some actions have been taken to improve drainage and waste management, although there is limited capacity within the corporation.

Water: In Accra, Ghana there has been the construction of a new water treatment plant. In Harare, Zimbabwe there have been actions to replace piping in water distribution systems

We would like to invite you to comment upon this summary, or use this space to add any additional information that you did not have a chance to share during the course of the discussion.

All the best,
Charlotte and the ELLA Team