A guide to community selection with insights from the resilience for communities program

The impact of climate hazards is felt most acutely in urban areas, where dense populations and complex infrastructures are particularly vulnerable. Within these urban settings, marginalized communities often bear the heaviest burden, as existing social inequities limit their ability to effectively prepare for, respond to and recover from such devastating events. This dynamic not only threatens lives and livelihoods but also risks reversing hard-won development gains achieved over recent decades. Local governments are on the front line of guiding their communities to have greater resilience to climate change challenges. This involves adapting to and mitigating the effects of extreme weather events in an equitable and just way, so that the most vulnerable are not left behind. Yet many communities lack the necessary capacity and resources to resume normal life after a disaster, which underscores the urgent need for greater support, collaboration and knowledge exchange. The need for resilience is ever increasing, especially in cities, where people experience the growing and dynamic effects of climate change, rapid urbanization and globalization. These and other global demographic, technological and political trends together expose cities to a complex set of shocks and stresses. Building urban resilience begins with a comprehensive assessment of the evolving risks facing a city that considers past or potential future shock events and existing chronic stresses. These risks cannot be fully understood in isolation because cities are a complex aggregation of interconnected social, built and natural systems. Therefore, the interaction between acute shocks and chronic stresses must be considered to understand a city’s risks and the vulnerabilities of different groups and systems. To increase the ability of local communities, businesses, infrastructures and institutions to adapt and thrive in the face of change and unexpected events, cities need to manage the risks of future shocks while reducing today’s chronic stresses. Therefore, resilience initiatives or investments need to be designed both to address the risks of a shock and to reduce chronic stresses in the city. By managing both chronic stresses and acute shocks, cities can ensure that their residents, especially the poor and vulnerable, are safer, healthier and have increased livelihood options.

source :

https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/downloadable_resources/Programs/R4C_CommunitySelectionGuide.pdf