Climate change and city development: engaging local government in resilience

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1 Climate change and city development: engaging local government in resilience building 2 ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIAL ISSUES; TH NOVEMBER 2012, KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA RATRI SUTARTO 1 & JIM JARVIE 2 Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge funding support from the Rockefeller Foundation for the program whose lessons are described in this article. Also to communities and field teams implementing the projects from which the described lessons were drawn. Key words Government, adaptation action, climate resilience strategy 1 Program Manager: Mercy Corps Indonesia. Graha STK, F Floor Suite F01 Jl. Taman Margasatwa No. 3, Ragunan, Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta 12550; rsutarto@id.mercycorps.org 2 Senior Climate and Environment Advisor, Mercy Corps, 47 SW Ankeny St., Portland, OR 97204; jjarvie@int.mercycorps.org Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

2 Introduction Local governments play a leading role in building city resilience. City resilience is considered here as a framework for approaching the challenge of integrating development with sustainable outcomes in complex systems. As the basis of a Theory of Change, resilience building can be thought of as a platform for reconfiguring urban policy and planning as a shared value proposition incorporating representative governance and commercial drivers. The bridges to start this dialogue need to be built. There is a need to also recognize that resilience building need not address poverty; trade and the private sector drive urban expansion in Asia, where this discussion focuses. Therefore, left unattended by a development agenda, resilience building may focus on issues of land use change, use and value of interest to elite interests alone and ignore vulnerability of poor communities, their voices and other aspects of social justice. Local government holds the key in shaping developing cities plans, policies, and programs in ways that affect the integration of any city development and social justice. The need for improved city resilience is urgent. Since 2007, more than 50% of the global population has lived in cities and this will rise to 70%, 6.4 billion people, by Asian cities are expected to absorb more than 60% of the global population increase, especially within secondary cities with less than 500,000 inhabitants. Informal settlements or slums are expanding, providing home to almost 1 billion people, or one out of three urban dwellers. They live 3 United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects. New York. Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

3 in poverty, with inadequate housing, restricted access to basic services and highly exposed to social and environmental risks and hazards. Mercy Corps is the Indonesian implementing partner of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) program, which complements sister programs in each of India, Thailand and Vietnam. Its purpose is to mainstream Urban Climate Change Resilience (UCCR) into city planning outcomes. Its ultimate objective is to equip poor and vulnerable communities with the right resources, tools and methods to respond to existing and future climate risks. 4 Mercy Corps Indonesia coordinates activity in two cities: Bandar Lampung and Semarang (820,000 and 1.5 million inhabitants respectively). Governance capacity has been developed in each city to develop and plan strategies to cope with predicted climate change impacts and their impact on urban poor communities. We discuss the processes used to engage cities in such a program, and the challenges and opportunities that are key success factors. We hope this will help guide others in developing similar programs. City engagement Engagement processes are a critical aspect of program inception because government commitment is the primary filter for city selection. Successful engagement is later indicated by integration of UCCR into city planning resulting in budget allocation for climate change sensitive programs and activities. Incorporation of community involvement, particularly those 4 acccrn/objectives Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

4 vulnerable to poverty and climate- related impacts indicate inclusion of social justice. Sustainability depends on an expanding awareness of climate change among actors external to local government institutions, newly contributing to their role in shaping the city s future. In ACCCRN programming these have included the private sector, academia, local and international data providers and a broad spectrum of community representatives. Working together in a network, they have been more effective at attracting external funding for climate adaptation, resilience building measures from both central government and international donors. Ensuing policies and funds have then supported UCCR concept implementation and provided opportunity to conduct diverse, yet related projects such as building rainwater harvesting systems, developing flood early warning systems, and strengthening community adaptive capacity. Without government support, the implementation of adaptation actions and its sustainability will be harder, if not impossible, to achieve. Context INDONESIA CLIMATE INITIATIVES During the Pittsburgh G20 meeting in 2009, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono committed Indonesia to reduce its Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) for about 26% by Whereas this focused on climate mitigation rather than adaptation, this statement significantly changed the overall climate focus of many Indonesia s central government departments including the Ministry of Environment (MOE) and National Development Planning Board (BAPPENAS). Following the president s statement, a National Council of Climate Change (DNPI) was established in 2008, Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

5 responsible for coordinating climate change programs implemented in Indonesia, as well as developing regulations related to carbon trading mechanisms. In the following years, these three institutions became the core players in Indonesia climate policy and funding. Since then, many initiatives had been established at the national level including the Indonesia Climate Change Sectoral Roadmap (ICCSR), National Action Plan on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation (RAN MAPI), and the Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF). All these initiatives were made to address the Indonesian 2020 national commitment. Yet they rarely addressed climate- related challenges faced by the local governments no matter whether at district, city, or village levels. This was demonstrated during the RAN MAPI program when districts were obliged to create local action plans on climate change mitigation and adaptation without proper preparation or capacity. As a result, most action plans were largely irrelevant as they were made without appropriate assessment of local vulnerabilities to climate change. GAPS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN CITY GOVERNMENT Between the national and local government in Indonesia there are gaps in communication of information, perspective, vision, and mission that results in poor coordination between them. This causes delays or stalls local implementation of national policies and regulations, and particularly over issues that are not local priorities, including climate change issues. The problem is exacerbated by the implementation of local autonomy in 1998 after decentralization. Indonesian local governments were given a high degree of independence without being allocated time or resources to develop Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

6 human and financial capacity to use their new powers effectively. This has led to poor leadership and opportunities missed in planning, especially in cities, which have not been made aware of national or international agendas. For example, in the West Sumatera city of Dumai, known for its oil resources and ports, is highly vulnerable to coastal subsidence, extreme coastal weather and sea level rise. Mercy Corps attempted to engage the city, as areas were sinking/subsiding, including where the most important seaport is locate. Yet during interviews with city government officials in 2012, it became apparent the city government did not recognize the threat. No assessment had been made, or was planned to analyze threat severity. Furthermore, city plans had yet to consider factors beyond economic development and increasing the production of oil and palm oil, even though the Indonesia national government had obliged cities to do this as part of RAD MAPI. This demonstrates how regulation, information, and policy made by the national government can fail to be transmitted to local governments, especially national policy does not match local short- term priorities, and no tools or mechanisms are available locally for implementation even if local government wanted to implement them. Engagement methodology Since 2009 the Indonesian ACCCRN program has focused on two secondary cities 5 (with population < 2 million people) as its pilot, Bandar Lampung and Semarang, since Long- term engagement followed a city selection process that included 21 cities, filtered to five, and finally two. Criteria for selection included a willingness to work toward UCCR, and trust between the 5 Generally with a population < 2 million people Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

7 ACCCRN team and city government, as well as identification of city champions able to advocate for UCCR development on the long- term. Many challenges were encountered in introducing the UCCR concept and identifying how to mainstream it into the city systems, particularly planning budgeting cycles. One of the largest was gaining commitment and trust from the city governments, as an alien concept was being introduced that cities were rarely familiar with. In the selected cities building knowledge and understanding of UCCR proved a core success factor. Once they became more aware of the importance of UCCR, and how it meshed with current priorities, it became easier to attract their attention and long- term commitment. The first step to successful city engagement in building UCCR is recognizing that the city government is the one institution that with the potential or actual capacity, knowledge, and resources to identify and respond to climate related challenges. The challenge, however, is that few city governments consider climate change a priority. As they struggle to raise and prioritize limited expenditure for operations and development programs, perceived additional activities requiring resources are often neglected. Other actors are needed to advocate and support reprioritization of expenditure, within networks linked to government champions among institutions and individuals. Identifying these actors, and gathering them in city- government led city teams in the second step in the engagement process. This needs to be done in the earliest period of the program, and then a strong engagement process involving close cooperation among partners needs to be built and maintained. Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

8 The next step is facilitating production of Vulnerability Assessment identifying how and where climate change impact and climate related disaster such as landslide, floods, and drought will arise in the future, well beyond the normal consideration of election and budgeting cycles. This has involved international and national partners assisting with provision of climate information and modeling. Input to vulnerability assessments have shown threat scenarios projected as far as These demonstrate the likely sustainability of current city plans, and has led to reprioritization of plans and budgets as a result. Maintaining momentum, discussion and follow up between city teams and government decision makers is a key next step in the engagement process. It has proved important to involve the city governments within the program by creating a city work plan; conducting Shared Learning Dialogues (SLD) to exchange information freely; and to encourage development of concepts and proposals for national international funds for city climate- related projects. Demonstration projects involving city government contribution are essential to show that UCCR is important, achievable, and compatible with shorter- term priorities. Budgets are always central to local government functions, their priorities usually driven by where the money is. Therefore, for a concept like UCCR to be successfully mainstreamed into city governance, there needs to be a smart process of engagement building trust through seamless integration with current priorities within planning, budgeting and electioneering timetables. Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

9 Other lessons Success in the ACCCRN engagement has created a domino effect of attracting other city stakeholders wanting to contribute to building city resiliency among local NGO, universities, and private sector actors. This has, in part, been due to trust built, and that UCCR is now part of standard city budget and planning processes. The importance of local champions has been realized in the interest of other cities to replicate the ongoing experience of Bandar Lampung and Semarang. For example Blitar, a smaller city in East Java was among the five cities identified in the initial ACCCRN selection process. It did not make the final cut as Mercy Corps initial, quick assessment, showed the city to have low climate change impact and disaster vulnerability. Yet government staffers have advanced concerns about their perceived risk and committed to making Blitar a climate- resilient city. The local government welcomes any opportunity to engage in climate- related programming, already excels in city action planning, and wants inputs to integrate the two. Blitar has since become an early adopter of the ACCCRN process and acted upon this through climate projects funded nationally from the Ministry of Environment and internationally from GIZ. Blitar s city government has proven exceptional in its discipline, willingness to learn new avenues for planning, being open to suggestion, and bold enough to state its needs and their rationale. This has resulted from the leadership of its previous Mayor, who encouraged his staff to study abroad, share responsibilities with younger members, and creating a culture of work- Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

10 related discipline. This is similar to the Mayoral culture developed by the previous mayor of Solo, Joko Widodo. He made great effort to develop his city into one of the best in Indonesia to live and work. He demonstrated leadership in Solo s development programming and attracted input from many external stakeholders. His success led him to win his recent bid to become the governor of Jakarta and he recently commenced his first term. Good governance has proven key to mainstreaming of UCCR. When absent, cities have been found to reject or neglect, in general, any additional programs or support from external stakeholders if it is not directly relevant to short- term interests. They are closed to opportunity and prove hard to engage, unless there is guaranteed funding. Engagement with city with governance focused on short- term expediency needs more effort, preparation for slow progress, the likelihood of an unsustainable program. Yet, if the right actors are engaged early on, it is not impossible for change to be made. Moving forward - national government and resilient cities Important questions remain. Mercy Corps now focused on the role of national government can be in replicating and scaling up development of UCCR; what can be done to create a mechanism to bridge the missed communication between levels of governance; how to synchronize perspectives between the national and city levels in building UCCR. Current efforts intend to build an alliance between national and city actors to incentivise replication and scaling of UCCR interventions across Indonesia. This will likely be dependent on identification of national level partners able to convene and hold to account commitments from network members. Identification of these partners is underway. This alliance will require three Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov

11 integrated functions comprising knowledge management, developing a funding and finance strategy, and having effective advocacy and media outreach. Alongside development of tools, funds and shared learning, a review of national policy and regulatory frameworks will be needed to streamline current regulatory frameworks to more effectively guide advocacy and mainstreaming as needed. Yet alongside national level engagement, dedicated effort toward engaging further cities will need to be applied at local levels. And success or failure of these efforts will always be reliant on the quality of governance within the cities themselves. End Sutarto and Jarvie Local government/resilience Kuala Lumpur 2012; Draft Nov