Launch of the Forum for Urban Disaster Resiliency

IWA is starting up a Forum for Urban Disaster Resiliency together with W-SMART, which aims to put the spotlight on the challenges in local urban governments and water supply utilities by the growing frequency of extreme natural disasters in vulnerable regions and less developed and emerging countries. The ultimate goal of the Forum is to reinforce the capacity in disaster response capability and building environmentally sustainable water supply and sanitation systems for disaster resilient societies. The Forum will be held at key IWA events and be informing the upcoming engagement in pilot cities through decentralised cooperation and facilitating other international support. In IWA the forum is organized under the disaster risk management programme.

The first forum to be held in Mexico City 15th Nov 2009

During the forum representatives from local governments and municipalities will share their experiences and challenges facing their cities. In the following discussion with international organisations and supportive utiliites there will be formulated a plan forward for an international platform to support vulnerable cities. Some of the present cities may express their interest in joining a future initiative on decentralized cooperation that the Forum for Urban Disaster Resiliency would facilitate.

The plan forward would involve the mobilization of resources to support a selected few pilot cities to twin with other cities and utilities to support capacity building in disaster risk management. Pilot cities will be sought in Africa, South East Asia, Asia, the Pacific and Central America. IWA and W-SMART are at the same time mobilizing resources from the utilities and municipalities that already have some capacity on this topic and are willing to give their support.

After Mexico IWA, W-SMART and its partners will prepare a plan with the cities who are interested in this initiative and to follow the appropriate process needed with them to discuss the way forward.

A proposal will be formulated to fund future activities. Until then, cities need to be identified and onboard and with some more concrete plans for activities. This proposal should aim to fund activities identified by the cities themselves. In kind contributions will also be important for example by expert utilities.

The Forum will be held at

• 1st IWA Development Congress in Mexico City, 15th November 2009
• African Water Association 15th Congress in Kampala, 15-18th March 2010
• Resilient Cities 2010, Bonn, Germany, 28-30 May 2010
• IWA World Water Congress in Montréal, 19-24 September 2010
• In a location in South East Asia during 2010-2011

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 For more information please contact Ase Johannessen Email:  ase.johannessen@iwahq.org

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