Collective Actions for Resilient Urban Areas

Urbanization is believed to be both – a cause and effect of economic growth, employment
generation and overall development of any country. It is here to stay. The present paper
does not get into the merits or demerits of the phenomenon but, assuming it is here to
stay, looks at the various aspects of how do we build a disaster preparedness into it for an
overall risk reduction in urban areas. In 1981, Amartya Sen described cities as places of
refuge from famine where food stores, economic opportunity and political accountability
provided a buffer from environmental change. Expansion of urban population and urban
construction have been so alarming that urban safety has become a crucial issue now-adays, especially in developing countries like Bangladesh where rate of population growth (particularly in urban areas) is high, huge amount of money is being invested in planning and development of infrastructure, however the route taken for greater urbanization has been contentious and arguments can be proffered for and against it. The urban areas of
developing countries have 80 per cent of world?s urban population and in the Asian
context, around 40 per cent of the total population lives in the urban areas. For better
income opportunity, after-effects of disasters in the rural area, better education and health
facilities and so many other factors attract people to the cities. With this pace of
increasing population, urban vulnerabilities are also increasing rapidly.
Reducing the urban risk which is never a one sided approach, has come centre stage of
development in many developing countries including Bangladesh. The Hyogo
Framework for Action 2005-2015 considers that both communities and local authorities
should be empowered to manage and reduce disaster risk by having access to the
necessary information, resources and authority to implement action. The challenge of
involving local authority in Bangladesh is different regarding urban risk though it is
considered as one of the global leaders in disaster management and risk reduction. Local
authorities have been administering cyclone, flood, and river erosion for years but have
little experience to handle earthquake, fire, water logging since these are comparatively
new hazard. Reducing and managing urban risk is rarified further due to other factors like
very few capacity building initiatives, disintegrated policies, long-drawn-out decisionmaking
process and financial constraint. Most of the community people of urban areas
are also not familiar with urban risk. Especially the newly migrated people do not realize
their own vulnerability. A holistic approach involving both the local authority and the
community people is needed to make linkage and carry on outgrowth. Considering that
urban risk reduction has to take a comprehensive and collaborative approach, Islamic
Relief Worldwide (IRW-B) has come up with an approach where the communities have
been empowered with a very good knowledge level on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR),
skill of response in case of emergency, and coordination with different relevant bodies to
assess and minimize their risks.