100 Resilient Cities, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) and ICLEI South Asia organized a session on Transformative Actions to Enhance Urban Resilience at the 4th Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Congress 2019 held at Hotel Eros, New Delhi. The session delved into the integration of urban resilience actions within municipal development projects and plans.

“The initiatives of 100 Resilient Cities and NIUA are focusing on institutionalising resilience actions in urban development processes in India," said Raina Singh, Senior Fellow, Urban Resilience Unit, NIUA, India.

The speakers discussed how urban resilience need to be an integral part of urban planning and infrastructure development. The participants agreed that there should be a sense of accountability and ownerships of resilience strategy among local governments to foster long-term success. Consequently, local governments shall also be assisted to access long-term finance mechanisms for resilience strategies.

Sharing their innovative strategies to forward resilience planning, Kamlesh Yagnik, Chief Resilience Officer, Surat said, “Our city has a resilience strategy with goals and initiatives identified like mobility, housing, water and economy. We are also working on social resilience to bring a strong social fabric. We are now thinking about how to protect and enhance this social fabric.”

Some of the challenges discussed at the session were lack of continuous engagement with relevant stakeholders, limited involvement of private sector, lack of infrastructure is increasing the vulnerability and suchlike.

“Funding is very important for resilience. Cites can mobilise funding though their own budget, even if it is minimal instead of relying solely on state or national level funding,” said Mahesh Harhare, Chief Resilience Officer, Pune, India.

The session was moderated by Raina Singh, Senior Fellow, Urban Resilience Unit, NIUA and the panel inlcuded Kamlesh Yagnik, Chief Resilience Officer, Surat; Mahesh Harhare, Chief Resilience Officer, Pune; Arjun Bhargava, Resilience Manager, Chennai; Rohzaina Binti Zainal, Engineer (Green Technology), Melaka; Tushar Thakkar, Senior Project Manager, Dalberg Global Development Advisors.

(Written by Subuhi Parvez from ICLEI South Asia Secretariat)