Regional : Promoting Urban Climate Change Resilience in Selected Asian Cities

Water and other urban infrastructure and services /

The TA will assist the prioritized countries to foster urban climate change resilience in medium-sized cities and to build capacity to work together to prevent climate change indicated shocks and stresses.

The Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF) under the Urban Financing Partnership Facility seeks to achieve ambitious targets, including directly making over 2 million people in 25 cities less vulnerable to climate and disaster risk, and reducing by at least 14% the economic loss from climate related hazards.

This Cluster RETA has been designed to make available UCCRTF resources to ODs to provide planning and capacity building support as well as pilot activities for project development either before or during PPTA. The TA will support a range of activities to help lay the groundwork for UCCR planning processes, project pipeline, and knowledge and capacity development. As set out in the UCCRTF Implementation Guidelines (IG) prioritized activities have to demonstrate additionality and innovativeness for structuring and financing pro-poor UCCR projects in terms of (i) urban system and climate risk analysis, (ii) integrated urban infrastructure planning and management, (iii) pro-poor urban development, and (iv) urban climate change resilience improvement. By providing upstream support, the TA expects to create a robust pipeline of viable, innovative and integrated UCCR projects.

The proposed cluster TA (i) has incorporated lessons for effectiveness learnt from the existing Financing Partnership Facilities ; (ii) addresses a sub national target group, in particular, cities and entities that are providing public services; (iii) brings synergies with other initiatives under the Urban Operational Plan 2012-2020.

The cluster approach is proposed because (i) the subprojects are closely related, with common objectives and significant potential synergies, (ii) they will operate collectively as a pilot for strengthening resilient urban development and (iii) a cluster modality will maximize TA coherence and coordination better than an individual TA approach. The interlinked subprojects address the crosscutting issues surrounding UCCR. The subprojects are as follows:

"Subproject 1 (Planning) focusses on strengthening UCCR planning and project pipeline in selected cities/DMCs

"Subproject 2 (Knowledge) includes support for city capacity building through knowledge management, networking and monitoring.

"Subproject 3 (Pilots and project development support) will provide resources for pilot interventions and project development that will help integrate urban climate change resilience into projects.

The cluster TA aims to promote UCCR among the selected DMCs. It will contribute to an advanced understanding of opportunities for resilient urban development in the region, actions required to accelerate institutional take up, capacity building and planning for UCCR. Specific actions will be worked out during the course of TA implementation. Coordination with other development partners will be undertaken to avoid duplication of efforts.

Cities are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to high concentrations of people and economic assets in hazard-prone locations, such as in coastal areas or along rivers. Natural hazard events associated with rising sea levels, and changes in temperature and rainfall, are already having enormous impacts in urban areas and are likely to intensify over time. Low-income communities are made even more vulnerable by overcrowded living conditions, the lack of adequate infrastructure and services, unsafe housing, low asset base for recovery, inadequate nutrition and poor health. The 238 million Asian urban poor are expected to be hit first and hardest by the effects of climate change. In countries like Bangladesh and Viet Nam, about 50% of their entire population lives in low elevation coastal zones. Natural disasters routinely erase between 1% and 5% of GDP each year.

Urban areas that are most susceptible to climate related shocks and stresses are those that have fragile systems as well as large socially or economically marginalized populations. However the complexity of today's cities, rapidly growing and evolving in response to community and business demand, makes system failure difficult to predict. While the exposure of riverine infrastructure to flooding can be readily mapped, the impact of that flood on energy systems, transport networks, and drinking water supply is more difficult to model. Possible failures could have occurred across solid waste management, flood management, drainage, health monitoring and medical services. In addition to the physical and spatial challenges, there are important institutional challenges of agencies working across sectors and multi-sector decision making. These are more daunting due to the weaknesses in local government capacities on the technical understanding and awareness of climate induced impacts and interface with urban environment planning; project management capabilities; and availability of decision making tools for informed decision making. The contribution of governance and institutional capability is critical to addressing these challenges.

The TA is consistent with ADB's Strategy 2020, with its focus on support for infrastructure and achieving environmentally sustainable growth, the ADB Urban Operation Plan 2012-2020, with its focus on reducing poverty and climate risk in medium sized cities in Asia, and the ADB Midterm Review Action Plan , with its focus on 'One ADB , support of knowledge management and innovation, and ensuring availability of trust fund resources for project preparation activities.

The TA will support capacity development in preparing and responding to climate change related shocks and stresses in medium-sized cities. It will support policy dialogues, capacity building and institutional strengthening to improve mechanisms to strengthen urban resilience, and support partnership building through local, national and regional forums. Each of these activities is expected to influence the subsequent Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) in each country to adopt UCCR principles and approaches.

Urban populations, especially the urban poor, are less vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change in selected DMCs.

Application of UCCR principles in selected DMC cities is increased

1. Thirteen cities - Bangladesh (7), Pakistan (3), and Viet Nam (3) - have been supported in the preparation of UCCR inputs to integrated urban plans.

2. The Spatial Data Analysis Explorer (SPADE), as web-based geographic information system platform, has been developed. To date, GIS data for 31 cities in 10 countries are available online through the SPADE platform and may be used by ADB project officers and relevant DMCs to support project design and urban planning.

3. A methodology for baseline resilience measurement has been developed and piloted in 17 cities in 4 countries. The same approach will be utilized in the endline measurement planned for 2022.

4. At least 50 knowledge products comprising of newsletters, briefing notes, event snapshots, and practitioner guide, among others.

5. Community-led pilot projects for 9 cities in 4 countries - Bangladesh (2) Pakistan (2), the Philippines (4), and Myanmar (1) - have been identified using a participatory approach that engages government, civil society and local stakeholders that was developed under this output.

Urban climate change resilience action plans are developed in selected DMCs

. Targeted cities network to share knowledge and build capacity through peer learning and joint training activities

Pilot activities and project development support improve integration of UCCR into projects