Achieving Resilient, Sustainable and Healthy Communities in the Face ff Rapid Urbanisation: Learning From Asia Pacific, South America and Africa

How do we plan, manage and live in cities; and who is engaged in driving development to achieve the sorts of cities we need for the future?

What insights and understanding of the complexity of the Asia Pacific, South America and Africa urban environments can be gained from this group of experienced people who have worked on projects broadly linked to the Sustainable Development Goals from Honiara to Durban; from Port Moresby to Sao Paolo and Bangkok?

Urbanisation and global environmental change are two of the most significant challenges facing cities and societies across the world. For developing countries these challenges are particularly acute. Rapid urban growth is leading to increased informal settlements and the urban poor in these settlements are also extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change and extreme weather events. The projects presented at this session promote a rethink of how we plan, manage and live in cities; and who needs to be engaged in driving development to achieve the sorts of cities we need.

This event draws on work carried out across the globe including: the use of geo-spatial data that has been developed Australia to to conceptually map a range of social determinants of health – such as transport, affordable housing and other indicators – and is now being applied to Bangkok; a collaborative project in the Solomon Island’s capital of Honiara that involves working with local communities, NGOs, and local and national levels of government to implement the Honiara Urban Resilience and Climate Adaptation Action Plan (HURCAP); the work of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), which is an alliance of more than 70 partners aimed at improving security of tenure (the network includes multi-lateral agencies, CSOs, NGOs, and academic and training instructions); resilience work in Durban that is being implemented as part of Durban’s membership of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient cities; and innovative programs for sustainability in Sao Paulo.