International Recovery Forum 2018: Build Back Better in Urban Resilience

Event Description

Urban Resilience refers to the ability of any urban system to withstand and quickly recover from all plausible shocks and stresses, and maintain continuities of its functions. Achieving and sustaining urban resilience is essential for cities to continue its role for socioeconomic transformation, wealth generation, prosperity, and development.

However, by the middle of this century, 66% of the world’s population will be living in cities. Hence, numerous pressures are expected, especially in terms of wellbeing of urban residents, prosperity, and development. Build back better in recovery is a unique opportunity to strengthen resilience by building on the available recovery funds to integrate resilience into the restoration of physical infrastructure, societal systems, and into the revitalization of livelihoods, economies, and the environment. Against this backdrop, the International Recovery Forum 2018 is organized to offer knowledge, guidance, and examples of specifi­c recovery actions that can help cities/municipalities/governments to develop their resilience and capacity to absorb the impact of hazards, protect and preserve human life, and limit future damage.

The main objective of the Forum 2018 is to demonstrate how build back better contributes to urban resilience. It will speci­fically showcase the following:

1. Experiences/initiatives on how build back better (e.g., in housing, business, and social protection) help achieve longer-term resilience

2. Innovative tools/guidance on build back better and resilience that many governments and practitioners are still unaware of (e.g., risk-sensitive land use planning and probabilistic risk assessment tools).

3. Trailblazing programs/projects that introduced build back better measures to: (i) strengthen SME resilience, (ii) ensure resilient recovery fi­nancing for cities, and (iii) sustain effective partnerships among stakeholders

Date and Time: 

24 January 2018   11:00-16:30

Location:

Hotel Crown Palais Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

Report on the Forum:

IRP Herald Volume 22

Program

Keynote Presentations

(1) Considering the Meaning of Build Back Better from the Experience of Catastrophe"

Prof. Takashi Onishi, President, Toyohashi University of Technology, Emeritus Professor of University of Tokyo  (Slides)


Panel Discussion 1: What Does It Mean by "Build Back Better" for Urban Resilience?

(1) Ms. Setsuko Saya, Co-Chair, IRP Steering Committee (Director, International Cooperation Division, Disaster Management Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan)  (Slides)

(2) Mr. Raj Kumar Srivastava, Deputy Chief,Embassy of India, Tokyo

(3) Mr. Hans Guttman, Executive Director, Asia Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)  (Slides)

(4) Mr. Josef Leitmann, Lead Disaster Risk Management Specialist The World Bank  (Slides)

(5) Mr. Atsushi Koresawa, Director, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, UN-HABITAT  (Slides)


Panel Discussion 2: Innovative approaches by learning from past experience and initiatives and How to measure success of "Build Back Better" in cities

(1) Mr. Chiri Babu Maharjan, Mayor, Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Nepal  (Slides)

(2) Mr. Huang Sanping, Vice Mayor, the People's Government of Tangshan Municipality, China

(3) Mr. Noboru Shimizu, Manager, Planning, Crisis Management Office, Kobe City Government  (Slides)

(4) Mr. Shahbaz Khan, Director of Jakarta Office & UNESCO Representative  (Slides)