Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Research Articles

Network governance in addressing climate change: a case study of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) in Indonesia

The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) is an international institution assisting the Indonesian government to address climate change by incorporating many institutions. Nevertheless, we still lack an understanding of how the network is established in the process of handling climate change between ACCCRN and related agencies in Indonesia. This paper examines network governance during the involvement of ACCCRN in Indonesia. The purpose of the paper is to explore the network established by the ACCCRN in helping the Indonesian government to reduce the impact of climate change. We used a desk study by employing secondary sources to identify the actors, the relationship among the actors, and the outcome of the networks. We suggest that ACCCRN has played a crucial role in reducing the impact of climate change by cooperating with various organisations in Indonesia. In doing so, there are a number of public and non-profit agencies encompassed in the process of collaboration. This study recommends the government to maintain and increase numerous partnerships between international and local institutions in arranging climate change.

Building climate change resilience by using a versatile toolkit for local governments and communities in rural Himalaya

With the impacts of climate disruption becoming more evident there has been an increase in the uptake of climate change adaptation “toolkits” to assist local governments build community resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change. There is increasing attention and call for practitioners to adopt proactive and participatory approaches to help in the adaptive response planning process. One such toolkit is the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCRN) Process (IAP). This is a simple but rigorous toolkit developed to help local governments in Asian cities build resilience to the impacts of climate change. This paper outlines the application of the toolkit to determine its versatility in the rural context and was trialled in the Himalayan rural enclave of Ramgad in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Given the differences between urban and rural environments, the outcomes highlighted the need for further investigation and analysis into the process to ensure that the methodology truly reflects the nature of rural systems and their level of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Overall, the toolkit proved to be a simple but versatile toolkit to assess the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of communities in rural Himalaya. Over 40 resilience intervention strategies were developed for the Ramgad enclave and these were prioritized according to their technical, political, social and economic feasibility.

Politik Adaptasi Perubahan Iklim dalam Pendekatan Multilevel Governance di Kota Semarang

Semarang City, one of the biggest cities in Indonesia, experienced tidal floods due to climate change, which require systemic responses. The absence of a legal foundation to overcome the effects of climate change has prompted Semarang City Government to formulate a climate change adaptation policy. Mercy Corps – Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) opens climate change adaptation cooperation by assigning Semarang City as one of the core cities of ACCCRN. This study aims to analyze the climate change adaptation policy-making process in cooperation between Semarang City Government and ACCCRN using vertical and horizontal interactions of multilevel governance approach. This study also uses the indicators of urban climate change adaptation process to identify the elements of climate change adaptation policy in Semarang City. The vertical interactions show that the climate change adaptation negotiations at the international and national levels urge an adaptation policy-making in Semarang City. Meanwhile, in horizontal interactions, Semarang City Government in cooperation with Mercy Corps – ACCCRN tries to formulate an inclusive climate change adaptation policy through Shared Learning Dialogues (SLDs) mechanism. As a result, Semarang City Government produces climate change adaptation policy, namely Semarang Resilience Strategy.

Key success factors of disaster management policy: A case study of the Asian cities climate change resilience network in Hat Yai city, Thailand

The objective of this research was to study the key success factors of public policy in disaster management in Songkhla province, based on a case study of the Hat Yai Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) in order to propose guidelines for sustainable disaster management in the area. The methodologies applied in this research were both quantitative and qualitative. In the quantitative approach, the researcher used a questionnaire with 400 samples from three representative communities in Hat Yai city. The qualitative approach used the focus group technique with the stakeholders of policy implementation. The results of the survey regarding the problems within some communities affected by flooding indicated that most of the respondents had faced flooding in their community. Moreover, these respondents had participated in the policy and were aware of information about ACCCRN from different media, as well as having participated disaster management activities and had meetings with the organizations or personnel involved with disaster management. Moreover, the results showed a relationship between the individual factors and the information awareness of ACCCRN at the 95% confidence level. Additionally, the results using the qualitative method showed that the model of disaster management in Hat Yai, Songkhla province, involved three key success factors of disaster management policy: (1) there is a balance between self-interest and the public interest; (2) private participation is required; (3) addressing obstacles to policy implementation and its effective implementation. The benefits from this research are enormous in terms of successfully implementing disaster management policy and this policy can be applied to other contexts in Thailand as well.

Towards endogenous disasters and climate adaptation policy making in Indonesia

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the role of exogenous drivers that seeks to foster endogenous resilience and climate adaptation policy and practice in developing countries. It particularly examines the role of Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network as an exogenous driver that sought to sustain urban climate adaptation and resilience agenda in a secondary city in Indonesia.Design/methodology/approachThe research combines fieldworks and desktop research. Primary data collection includes participant observation, unstructured interviews with city stakeholders and project managers, semi-structured interviews with local communities and literature reviews. This research also used an ethnographic field research approach.FindingsExogenous drivers have temporarily fostered climate change adaptation at city level, but the question remains is how can international actors effectively create a meaningful transformation toward urban resilience in developing countries like Indonesia. Exogenous drivers can play significant roles as a catalyst for urban adaptation planning, including undertaking vulnerability assessment and city resilience strategy and implementing adaptation actions, and facilitates risk management. Further processes for mainstreaming climate adaptation and disaster reduction depend on how receptive and responsive local actors to co-facilitate and co-lead urban resilience buildings and development.Originality/valueThere is still lack of documented knowledge on local institutional change and policy making processes. This research shows challenges and opportunities in institutionalising urban climate adaptation and risk management agenda. It further shows that genesis of endogenous adaptation cannot be separated from the exogenous climate adaptation processes as well as internal dynamic of urban governance in developing world.

Indicators of urban climate resilience: A contextual approach

As urban populations grow and climate exposure increases, more cities are introducing formal planning processes to adapt to climate change. This paper explains the process applied to eight cities in the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) for developing indicators for planning and monitoring local climate resilience. This process relied on transferring a common conceptual framework for climate resilience, together with a locally led iterative and collaborative process that engaged technical and planning authorities and vulnerable groups. The process varied slightly between cities and generated indicators that were chosen for their contextual fit and availability of data. The main benefit of developing resilience indicators in this way was the local capacity that the process built, in terms of understanding resilience, shared understanding of concepts and measurement and establishment of a common platform for future planning and monitoring of climate adaptation interventions at the city level.

The political economy of urban climate adaptation and development planning in Surat, India

This paper argues for a political economic approach to understanding climate change adaptation and development planning in an urban context. Based on field research conducted in Surat, India, across a period of two years, I illustrate how climate adaptation is rooted in preexisting and contextually specific urban political relationships that can be traced through the city's developmental history. Through assessing Surat's experience with recent industrialization, episodes of natural disasters, to more recent engagement with the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, I highlight how adaptation planning, as well as how adaptation is integrated into urban development planning, occurs through processes of prioritizing adaptation against development needs and implementing options that are cocreated among public and civic actors. This case empirically shows how adaptation is mainstreamed into urban development planning, illustrates the trade-offs associated with how different urban actors plan and implement adaptation in the context of rapid industrialization, and assesses how internationally funded adaptation programs are operationalized in the context of local social and political realities.

Making capacity building critical: Power and justice in building urban climate resilience in Indonesia and Thailand

A growing number of programmes and initiatives around the world are attempting to strengthen the capacities of civil society and local governments to build urban climate resilience. However, these often treat issues of power and justice in relatively unproblematic ways, without considering whether their activities will entrench existing relationships or whether they have the potential to achieve more transformative change. This paper examines the capacity strengthening initiatives undertaken in two cities within the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) – Bandar Lampung (Indonesia) and Hat Yai (Thailand) – to assess how ideas of power and justice have been incorporated. It examines the ways in which these activities are perceived to generate particular benefits, but also explores how the process and content were defined, and the ways in which different stakeholders participated in them. By doing so, it assesses both the procedural elements of capacity building (who is involved, how they are selected) and the distributional elements (how the outcomes of capacity building programmes affect different groups). These elements of justice can be both implicit and explicit, but need to be engaged with more critically if the processes and outcomes are to contribute to more transformative patterns of urban resilience.

Resilience projects as experiments: implementing climate change resilience in Asian cities

The capacity of actors and institutions to learn and reorganize is central to the resilience of complex systems, particularly in the context of rapidly urbanizing cities. A process of qualitative, reflective research among practitioners within the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) showed that development projects and programmes can contribute meaningfully to this capacity when they introduce projects as “experiments”. While projects did provide desired tangible benefits to certain groups of actors, many of the most significant contributions to resilience were related to knowledge, networks, information, and greater engagement of citizens with the state. This emphasis on the capacity to learn and reorganize provides a counterpoint to ideas around “implementation” and “mainstreaming” normally promoted within climate change adaptation practice – and, importantly, can help enrich these practices to maximize their effectiveness. This paper focuses on international development projects in particular, although findings have implications for other types of adaptation and resilience initiatives supported by governments, private sector, or community-based organizations.

From shared learning to shared action in building resilience in the city of Bandar Lampung, Indonesia

This paper describes how the city of Bandar Lampung began to incorporate climate change adaptation goals into its budget and some of its plans. A series of Shared Learning Dialogues supported by the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) involved staff from city government, NGOs and universities. This led to the formation of a multi-stakeholder City Team that was charged by the mayor with assessing climate risks and vulnerability, prioritizing problems and programmes, supporting small-scale adaptation projects and functioning as climate change adaptation advocates within the city. The paper describes some of these projects and how a range of factors underpinned better solid waste management and flood risk reduction, including fiscal reform that brought a large increase in the city’s budget, strong leadership and better planning. Challenges and barriers are also discussed, including what is needed to ensure that local government continues to incorporate climate change adaptation into its work and investments.

Urban vulnerability assessment in South Asia: challenges and lessons learnt

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a solid understanding, policy and action recommendations to motivate and capacitate more cities to start such urban vulnerability processes and to guide them in their first steps in a direction which will more easily allow the direct use of vulnerability assessments for subsequent adaptation and resilience planning. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology adopted for this assessment builds on several years of ICLEI's international experience in climate change adaptation work. It specifically draws on the urban vulnerability component of the ICLEI ACCCRN process, a toolkit developed with support from Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network program, by ICLEI South Asia in partnership with ICLEI Oceania. A participatory approach that includes all key stakeholders and builds on past or ongoing relevant work in the city, as well as draws on existing data sources were adopted in view of the limited timeframe of this study (five months). A stakeholder consultation methodology referred to as Shared Learning Dialogues (SLDs) was adopted to engage not only various departments within the city government but also other local stakeholders. SLDs facilitate multi dimensional information sharing with everyone contributing information and experiences, and everyone learning from the exchanges as well. Findings – The critical impacts have been identified through a series of participatory learning processes which were corroborated with existing secondary data and baseline studies, where available. During SLD process, a timeline exercise was carried out and the consequences of those climatic hazards were also chalked out. Subsequently, these identified impacts were justified broadly with the available data and studies. These are saline water intrusion, loss of assets and infrastructure, health impacts – increased morbidity, water supply contaminated, sanitation and drainage systems disrupted, heightened threat situation (fear of embankment breach), in-migration, increasing siltation in the canals, river bank encroachment, livelihood change, biodiversity loss. Practical implications – The resilience interventions identified by the stakeholders can be assessed for potential linkages with existing or planned schemes, followed by supporting sectoral and pre-feasibility studies, resulting finally in the identification of financing options. These actions can be focussed on the vulnerable areas within the cities, especially hotspots, and social groups identified and their adaptive capacities were assessed. Originality/value – The resilience interventions identified by the stakeholders provides a focussed starting point for further discussion in terms of refinement of these actions as well their prioritization according to resilience and feasibility (economic, social, environmental) criteria.

Transformational resilience thinking: putting people, power and politics at the heart of urban climate resilience

Resilience is receiving substantial traction as a concept to inform climate change and development policies and programmes. At the same time, a number of critiques have emerged that question its use as a framing concept for tackling urban climate change. This paper reflects on climate resilience and its critiques through an examination of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) initiative in two cities in India. We illustrate aspects of the resilience critique and, using evidence of transformational aspects of the initiative, we argue that resilience thinking must be coupled with the concept of transformation in order to bring issues of people, politics and power to the fore. In the process, the conceptual strength of resilience can be combined with a more radical agenda that engages with underlying political structures and trade-offs that determine risk and vulnerability.

Initiating and sustaining action: Experiences building resilience to climate change in Asian cities

Across Asia, and more widely, significant investment is being made by donor organisations to catalyse awareness about climate change impacts in dynamic urban environments. This investment has initiated processes that enable cities to adapt and become more resilient, thereby reducing risk to rapidly growing urban populations – notably those that are most vulnerable or marginalised. The key question is to what extent such donor funded programs are able to create the foundations for sustained action that ultimately results in the integration of urban climate change resilience (UCCR) in future policy, development plans and everyday decision making. At present there is limited evidence to inform either what those foundations might look like, or the pathways to putting them in place.This paper draws on the experiences of 10 Asian cities participating in the Rockefeller Foundation funded Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) identifying key areas for action – stakeholder engagement, generating credible knowledge and integration in policy and planning at a local, regional and national level – whilst recognising the importance of influencing city budgets and attracting private sector funding.

“Shared learning” for building urban climate resilience – experiences from Asian cities

This paper considers how resilience thinking and, in particular, its emphasis on learning has been applied in 10 cities in Vietnam, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Applying a “shared learning” approach in the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) has helped to create or strengthen networks, build appreciation for complexity and uncertainty among stakeholders, provide a space for deliberating concepts such as vulnerability and resilience, and build knowledge and capacities for stakeholders to engage and represent their own interests. Shared learning approaches face considerable challenges navigating politicized urban environments, in which the nature and value of existing systems − and therefore the value of building resilience − are contested. This article suggests that deliberate, strategic intervention by facilitators may contribute to more transformative change on behalf of equitable, socially just outcomes – and thus cautions against seeing urban climate vulnerability as a technical challenge, or shared learning as a “toolkit” for building resilience.

A framework for urban climate resilience

Climate change will have unavoidable impacts on urban systems and populations, especially in Asia where many large cities are exposed. Climate adaptation will be essential, and planning for adaptation can be simplified through operationalizing concepts of climate resilience and vulnerability. This article reviews concepts and theories in a range of diverse fields to illustrate how the general notion of urban climate resilience can be developed into an operational framework for planning practitioners. The framework integrates theoretical and empirical knowledge of the factors contributing to resilience with processes for translating those concepts into practice. The framework includes characteristics of urban systems, the agents (people and organizations) that depend on and manage those systems, institutions that link systems and agents, and patterns of exposure to climate change. It operationalizes these concepts through structured and iterative shared learning approaches that allow local planners to define these factors in their own context, in order to develop practical strategies for local action. The viability of the framework is demonstrated through examples from resilience planning activities undertaken in 10 cities across Asia through the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

From practice to theory: emerging lessons from Asia for building urban climate change resilience

This paper aims to capture and analyze emerging experiences, lessons and tensions evident from several years of work underway through the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, a network of secondary cities in South and Southeast Asia that have engaged in a process to analyze vulnerabilities and plan and implement measures to address them. With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and numerous partners, these cities have identified more than 59 specific resilience-building measures, of which 23 are being implemented. Through this work we see 10 critical urban climate change resilience action areas that cities must consider in order to strengthen their ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to the types of sudden and slow onset impacts. These are: climate sensitive land use and urban planning; institutional coordination mechanisms and capacity support; drainage, flood and solid waste management; water demand and conservation systems; emergency management and early warning systems; responsive health systems; resilient housing and transport systems; strengthening of ecosystem services; diversification and protection of climate-affected livelihoods; and education and capacity building of citizens. We present case studies of how these measures are implemented in specific cities and highlight the tensions and challenges that have emerged. Primary tensions arise around the powerful political economy forces that influence decisions in cities; ensuring that the risks and benefits of resilience-building measures are distributed equitably; aligning incentives of various stakeholders in cities; and developing the mandates, coordination and capacities needed to manage a multi-scale and multi-sector issue as complex as urban climate change resilience. This empirical base of practice provides important learning to help guide further the refinement of both theory and practice in the nascent field of urban climate change resilience.

A systems approach to meeting the challenges of urban climate change

This article identifies the future challenges that cities face in their ability to create well-being, particularly for urban poor communities, as a result of the compound effect generated by climate change – distinguishing between direct impacts, indirect effects and pre-existing vulnerability. This suggests that action to reduce exposure and improve the adaptive capacity of urban populations must therefore simultaneously address disaster risk reduction, urban poverty reduction and urban resilience (i.e. the ability of the city to maintain the functions that support the well-being of its citizens). Based on evidence and experience from 10 cities which form part of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (www.acccrn.org), this article proposes that a simplified conceptual model and resilience characteristics be used to analyse urban systems, in parallel with spatial analysis, to target action at multiple levels to reduce exposure and improve the adaptive capacity of urban populations simultaneously.