Resilient cities - From knowledge to local action

In terms of water-related hazards, cities lack e.g. adequate planning, awareness, communication and coordination, as part of their governance structures, which form a great part of the underlying cause of increasing disaster risk. The issue is not that we lack the knowledge or high level commitment to build resilience to disasters, but the approach to how we create active progress needed on the ground may not be the right one.

In light of this, how can the Swedish water community better support this complex issue? How can it be enabled to build and share knowledge on DRR for cities that need it? The issue needs to be addressed and the problem mitigated with more resources, otherwise it is surely increasing, where new disaster prone urban areas will in the future be in need of expensive crisis response. Is Sweden willing to step up to support knowledge building in resilient cities? In that case, what Swedish best practice is in demand? How do we enable and engage the right expertise? Is a better approach to giving resources to Swedish Authorities and municipalities for knowledge building through twinning, with focus on sustainability and DRR to build resilient cities?

This seminar would like to explore the added benefits and opportunities in the collaboration between the Swedish capacities in sustainable development and DRR. This acknowledges that having basic systems in place as part of sustainable development is the foundation for DRR, for example a city without an adequate drainage system gets flooded. The capacity to support knowledge building through for example twinning is arguably already there in the Swedish municipalities, governance being one of Sweden's strong points, but the resources to reach out may not be there unless there is an active initiative to do so.