Strengthening Urban Resilience/Disaster Risk Management in Asian Cities

Abstract

This chapter briefly presents OECD’s recent study which has assessed disaster risk management policies to enhance urban resilience in Southeast Asian cities. Between 2014 and 2016, the OECD analyzed disaster risk management policies of five Southeast Asian cities: Bandung (Indonesia), Bangkok (Thailand), Cebu (Philippines), Hai Phong (Viet Nam), and Iskandar (Malaysia). All the five cities face significant natural disasters risks as other Southeast Asian cities, but with substantial difference in the urban policy contexts. Based on the analysis, the study provides overall assessment and recommendations of disaster risk management policies for Southeast Asian cities, as well as individual assessment and recommendations for each case city. Among the OECD findings, this chapter highlights the need for integrating disaster risk management into urban green growth policy frameworks, as well as the need for metropolitan coordination. For example, the case of Bangkok clearly demonstrates the need for aligning “hard” investments in flood-resilient urban infrastructure with land use planning, zoning policies as well as with “soft” (i.e., nonstructural) instruments at the metropolitan scale. The chapter also underlines that successful disaster risk management outcomes will require locally tailored policies, taking different urban policy contexts into account.