Presentation on Resilient Cities made at the ICLEI conference on Resilient Cities 2015 held in Bonn, Germany, by Tadashi Matsumoto, Regional Development Policy Division, OECD. www.oecd.org/gov/regional-policy/

1. URBAN GREEN GROWTH IN
DYNAMIC ASIA PROJECT
Tadashi Matsumoto, Ph.D.
OECD
8 June 2015, Presentation at ICLEI Resilient Cities
Conference, Bonn, Germany

2.  Location matters!
• OECD’s Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia project
 Managing critical risks requires investment not
only on hard but also soft and social infrastructure
• OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical
Risks
• The OECD High Level Risk Forum
 Cross-cutting policy approach, based on dialogue
between national and subnational governments
• OECD national urban policy reviews
• OECD Urban Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers
OECD’s approach to enhance resilience

3. • One third of GDP growth during
1995-2007 was produced by just 2%
of OECD regions.
• Cities account for 67% of global
energy use and 71% of global energy-
related CO2 emissions.
• Average global flood losses, estimated
at about USD 6 billion per year in
2005, could reach USD 1 trillion by
2050 in 136 of the world’s largest
coastal cities.
3
Cities are focal points for growth but also for
environmental externalities and vulnerabilities:
Green Growth and Resilience:
Cities Matter!

4. Urgency in Asia: vulnerability to floods
Top 20 cities most exposed to floods in terms of population in the 2070s
4
China: 143.9m (11%)
India 63.2m (6%)
Bangladesh: 62.5m (46%)
Vietnam: 43.0m (55%)
Indonesia: 41.6m (20%)
Source: Hanson, S. et al. (2011), “A Global Ranking of Port Cities with High Exposure to Climate Extremes”, Climatic Change, Vol. 104, Issue 1,
pp. 89-111.
Altogether, the ten countries with the
largest populations in low-lying coastal
zones have some 400m inhabitants
living in such places.

5. JPN '70
JPN '05
BRZ '70
BRZ '05
KOR '70
KOR '05
Malaysia ‘70
Malaysia ‘05
CHN '70
CHN '05
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Income gap relative to US=1 vs Urbanization rate
Income growth comes with urbanisation;
however urbanisation doesn’t guarantee it
5
Source: Own creation based on World Bank World Development Indicators.
Urbanisation rate (%)
Income
gap
(US=1)
GDP per capita gap vs urbanisation rate

6. Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia:
Objectives and key outputs
• Promote green growth in fast-growing cities
in Asia by examining policies and governance
practices that encourage greening and
competitiveness in a rapidly expanding economy.
• Key outputs:
– Conceptual framework: working paper (2014)
– 5 city-based case studies (2014-15)
– Knowledge sharing workshops (2014-15)
– Policy assessment report for strengthening urban
resilience / disaster risk management (2016)
– Synthesis report (2016)
6

7. CASE STUDY: BANGKOK

8. • Strong long-term growth potential, but
also challenges
– Catch-up held back by skill shortages
– Income disparities undermine social cohesion
• Obstacles to greener growth need to be
overcome
– Increasing motorisation/urban sprawl
– Rising energy consumption/reliance on fossil fuels
– High flood risk
– Relatively high levels of untreated wastewater
– Landfilled solid waste
8
Green Growth in BMR: Potential and
challenges

9. 9
Street layout undermines potential to
develop green and resilient cities

10. 10
BMR’s resilience to floods
Source: UN ESCAP (2012), “The Thailand
floods of 2011: While businesses lost
millions, the urban poor lost out most the
floods”, Sustainable Urban Development
Section’s internal working papers
Impact of the 2011 floods on low
income communities in the City of
Bangkok
Key recommendations:
• Encourage more adaptive
management of infrastructure
(e.g. natural habitats, semi-
permeable surfaces)
• Assess and map flood risk
• Introduce business continuity
plans
• Enhance awareness and response
capacities in districts through
schools, religious centres, and
the media

11. • Metropolitan commissions informed by
BMR-wide performance indicators and
supported by metropolitan funds
• Community-based actions to leverage
local knowledge and expertise
• Attracting private investors (e.g. green
municipal bonds) and diversifying
sources of revenue (e.g. wastewater
tariffs)
11
Strategic and implementation levers

12. • Integrated approach – green growth and
urban disaster risk management
• Location specific solutions, e.g., urban
planning
• Metropolitan governance - functional
urban areas
Key implications from the study

13. • 4 more case studies
13
Next Steps
• 4th knowledge sharing WS (25-27 June, Hai Phong)
• Side-event at COP21 (Nov-Dec 2015)
• Synthesis report (early 2016)
Cebu
Iskandar
Malaysia
Bandung
Haiphong

14. THANK YOU
For further information:
Tadashi.MATSUMOTO@oecd.org