A presentation given by Diane Archer, a researcher with IIED's Human Settlements Group, to the Institute for Housing & Urban Development Studies in mid-March 2014. Community-based adaptation is an opportunity to address the social, economic and political drivers of vulnerability to climate variability and extreme events as part of broader development processes. A video version of her presentation can be viewed via http://www.streamingvalley.com/ihsalumni/unlocking-community-potentials/, while more information on the Human Settlements Group can be found via http://www.iied.org/group/human-settlements.

1. 1
Author name
DateDiane Archer
Urban community-based
adaptation: opportunities
and challenges
Diane Archer
Researcher,
Human Settlements Group,
IIED

3. Informality and vulnerability
• Often more exposed to hazards
• Lack of hazard-reducing infrastructure
• Insecure tenure, no legal protection against eviction
• No legally registered address – no voting, access to
hospitals, schools, social security…
• No access to services – electricity, water
• No insurance against fire, disaster
• Insecure livelihoods
--> greater vulnerability (social and physical) to impacts
of climate change

4. Constraints in urban centres
• Local government may lack capacity to meet
infrastructure, service, urban management needs
– Not providing framework for risk reduction for lower-
income households e.g. basic services
• Local government may lack interest in addressing
needs of low income populations
– the poor as “problem”
– If risks are concentrated among low income groups, can be
difficult to get action
• Cities may be in particularly risky locations
• Lack of downscaled data
• Delaying action = no costs today, high costs later

5. Household-level adaptation
From Haque et al, 2014, Individual, communal and institutional responses to climate change by low-income households in Khulna,
Bangladesh, Environment and Urbanization 26(1)

6. Defining CBA
• Indigenous knowledge of locally appropriate solutions to
climate variability and extreme events (Ayers and
Forsyth, 2009)
• …engage with poor and more vulnerable people (Forsyth,
2013)
an opportunity to address the social, economic and
political drivers of vulnerability as part of broader
development processes
Adaptation for whom – response to climate problem
shaped by who defines it

7. Adaptation and development
• “The most effective adaptation and disaster risk
reduction actions are those that offer
development benefits in the relatively near term,
as well as reductions in vulnerability over the
longer term”.
• “A prerequisite for sustainability in the context of
climate change is addressing the underlying
causes of vulnerability, including the structural
inequalities(…)”
IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and
Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), Summary for
policy makers 2012:15

8. Alternative routes to resilience
• Urban poor groups, networks, federations in
Asia & Africa – addressing immediate
development needs through collective actions
– Savings, enumerations, mapping
– Upgrading housing and infrastructure
– Establishing collective funds for development
• Tackling development needs
– root causes of risk addressed head on
– Increasing resilience to climate change impacts
• DRR actions

9. Kibera, Nairobi

10. 10
Author name
DateDiane Archer
Adaptation as development
Community driven development - ACCA
Community driven mapping – Tanzania Urban
Poor Federation

11. Community-driven infrastructure and upgrading
• Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA)
program of Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR)
• Collective loans/grants to communities for
– upgrading infrastructure -15,000 USD per city
– Housing projects – 40,000 USD per city
• Citywide mapping and platforms for engagement
– including citywide revolving loan funds

12. Hazard-reducing infrastructure
Small ACCA projects

13. Strenkali, Surabaya
• Riverside communities
negotiated with city,
provincial and national
government for long term
user rights (bylaw)
– on condition of upgrading
• Households moved back
from the riverbank,
turned houses to face
river, cleared pathway
– city is providing paving
• Communities keep river
clean

14. Opportunities for engagement
through new financial tools
• Community Development Funds (CDFs)
– Funding initiatives that low-income groups prioritize
– encourage collaboration with other stakeholders
– Urban poor groups retain management control
• Bridge gap between household-scale investments
& larger-scale infrastructure & housing
development finance
• CDFs as tools for collective risk transfer
• Social insurance – funds for health, welfare,
education, disasters
• International funds

15. Collective Risk Transfer
• Difficult for urban poor to access insurance:
lack paperwork, bank accounts
• Making use of collective funds to include a
form of insurance e.g. after Thailand’s floods
in 2011 – grants for reconstruction
• Or contributions for births
and deaths
• Savings as backup in
case of future disaster

16. A CDF in practice
• 22 communities
(2,600
households)
• Support lowest-
income
households to
participate in
housing projects
with grants
• Loan to
household
affected by fire

17. Da Nang, Vietnam
• Hoa Hiep Bac Ward community fund:
• Upgrading and consolidation of
housing structures;
• Adaptation of income generating
activities
• Communal measures such as
planting trees, shared diesel
generator
• Seeded by GIZ, in partnership with Da
Nang city government and ACVN
• Typhoon resistant-housing:
• credit loans to households
reinforce houses through
Women’s Union;
• technical support to build and
strengthen houses for storm-
resistance;
• training and awareness building
• 244/245 houses undamaged by
Typhoon Nari in October
• ACCCRN project

18. Tanzania Urban Poor Federation
• Established in 2004 in Temeke Municipality
• Active in 8 cities: Dar es salaam, Morogoro,
Dodoma, Mwanza, Arusha, Mara, Tanga and
Zanzibar
• 11,700 members in 275 savings groups
Source:
TUPF, Feb
2014

19. TUPF climate change studies
• TUPF conducted vulnerability studies in Dar, in
settlements affected by floods
• Identified existing coping measures:
– Construction of walls in front of houses,
– Shelving storage inside roof
area
– Shifting belongings to
neighbours’ house
– Arranging sandbags
– Cleaning drains and rivers
Mkunduge settlement in Tandale
ward, Dar es Salaam Source: TUPF, Feb 2014

20. • But coping strategies not
always sufficient
– Home-based industries are
affected, especially women
e.g. selling chapatis
– Flooding may prevent
school attendance
– Lack of strong social capital
Flood-affected house in Mtoni
kijichi, in Dar es salaam
• Suggested ideas from
study include information
via mobile phones
• Increased awareness of
climate change
• Savings, sanitation and
waste management
programs
Source:
TUPF, Feb
2014

21. A map developed in an ongoing study conducted by TUPF and CCI on climate change vulnerability at
Misheni settlement
Vulnerability map
Source: TUPF,
Feb 2014

22. 22
Author name
DateDiane Archer
DRR actions contributing to
adaptation – the Philippines

23. 23
Community driven agenda for risk
reduction and response
• Increasing number of surveys, enumerations & maps produced
by community organizations within informal settlements
– Fill local government data gaps
– Integration of local knowledge with scientific and technical
knowledge can improve DRR and CCA (SREX)
• Community organizations taking action and offering local
government partnership (& needed data)
• Government agencies build capacity to work with those at risk
– early warning, emergency response
– regulatory framework

24. 24
Community-led DRR in the Philippines
Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines (HPFPI)
• Savings groups started 1998
• Trash slide in 2000; many people killed or injured, lost their
homes
– Started mapping risks in settlements of member savings
groups
– Purchased land to rehouse & resettle
• Federation leaders going to sites of disasters
– Mapping, surveys, encouraging savings groups
– Negotiate inclusion in official programmes, strengthen
community organizations’ capacity to negotiate
– Loans for house repair and support for this; support for
getting safer sites
– Technical support from NGOs and universities

25. Identifying and addressing
vulnerabilities in Ilo Ilo
• Empowered communities with local
government support crucial for scaled up
disaster response/DRR
Core vulnerabilities Response process
High risk location Data gathering by volunteers for disaster risk assessment
and DRR; enumeration; upgrading
Trust and contact building
Limited financial access Savings program, community inter-lending, financial
management skills, and UPDF
Lack of organisation Organisational formation and registration; urban poor
networking; collaboration with local government unit
(LGU)
Lack of secure housing Intervention identification: house materials loan, transit
housing, land purchase and house construction
(from Carcellar, Rayos Co and Hipolito, 2011)

26. • Citywide survey of high-risk
communities – partnership with city in
mapping structures
• Transit housing – building on pre-existing
partnership with IloIlo city government
• Housing materials assistance
• Partnership with universities and NGOs
HPFPI, http://homelessvisayas.blogspot.co.uk/p/urban-poor-network-initiatives.html
Ilo Ilo Urban Poor Network

27. 27
Author name
DateDiane Archer
Participatory mapping processes
– in Gorakhpur

28. Participatory flood risk mapping in
Gorakhpur
• Mapping team equipped
with printed Google satellite
image, GPS and semi-
structured questionnaires.
• 120 waypoints through GPS
for the entire ward captured
(2.5 sq km ward)
• Residents filled in semi-
structured questionnaire at
each point.
• Support from GEAG (local
NGO)

29. • Residents’ reasoning for floods; effects of floods
• Socio-economic status of residents

30. • Benefits: understanding the magnitude of flood risk, extent of
exposure of vulnerable groups, threshold value between hazard and
disaster

31. Building resilience in Gorakhpur
• Flood risk map and participatory process
informed Gorakhpur city resilience strategy and
city planning department
• Three tier action:
– household
– community
– ward committee linked to municipal planning
• Pilot community waste collection project and
drain repair by community members (ACCCRN)
– participatory planning tools at the ward level for
“micro-resilience” plans
– Driven by participatory flood risk mapping
– Hold local government to account for drain clearance

32. 32
Author name
DateDiane Archer
Alternative routes to building
urban resilience
Scaling up CBA
Financing CBA

33. [Source: IPCC (2012). Special Report on Extreme Events: Summary for Policy Makers. Figure 2.
Community-based
approaches
Federations
working with local
government at
scale for DRR
CDFs with disaster
funds
Address underlying
causes –
livelihoods, tenure
Empowered
collectives and
platforms for
collaboration
Sea walls in Davao
or
relocation
Savings groups
Learning from
experience
Community-driven approaches to resilience

34. Mainstreaming CBA
• CBA as a package of tools at urban level
• Intervention of other actors (NGOs, academia)
may link local government and communities
– E.g. Quy Nhon grassroots voices + modelling
– Local awareness raising
• Policy framework for deliberative, participatory
governance
– Role for local forums
 multi-level governance reaching all scales

35. Financing CBA
• Finance for local actions comes from national
or international sources
– Inadequate, unaccountable, inaccessible
– Challenges of getting finance at city scale
– Climate adaptation finance not for development
– Prioritising mitigation actions
– What role for local funds?
• Possibilities of private sector involvement
– Surat Climate Change Trust
– But how to get community involvement?

36. Limits to community-level approaches
• Institutional structures still required e.g. planning
and zoning, building codes, legal system  role for
governments
• Government support necessary for action at scale
• National level framework shapes local level action
• Need for strategic champions
• Capacity gaps
• Complex communities
• But… community action can spur and facilitate
governments to fulfil their roles and responsibilities

37. 37
Conclusions
• Adaptation needs are specific to each settlement
• Need to generate a good information base
• Mapping and enumeration sets stage for action
– Discussions on how to address extreme weather &
other impacts from climate change
• Locally controlled funds support urban CBA action
• Adaptation is about addressing social drivers of
vulnerability – not just physical impacts
• More can be achieved (in scale and scope) when
urban poor groups work with local government
support