ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank on Wednesday approved a regional project to promote urban climate change resilience in three cities from Pakistan.
The project will be negotiated by the Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF) which aims to scale up urban climate change resilience (UCCR) for the urban poor across 25 secondary cities from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam.
The three cities in Pakistan will be selected on the basis of vulnerability of the residents to direct and indirect impacts of climate change. The trust fund will prepare climate risks and vulnerabilities assessment at regional and city level, identify vulnerable areas and communities and conduct climate screening of infrastructure towards the investment in climate-resilient infrastructure.
An ADB report said that major cities in Pakistan experienced rapid urbanisation, with an average urban population growth of four per cent per year since 1951. By 2030, about 60 per cent of the country’s population will be living in urban areas, of which 12 large cities will have a population of more than one million inhabitants.
Meanwhile, the ADB also approved technical assistance for preparing a strategy for inclusive and sustainable urban growth by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. The technical assistance, which will be supported by $2 million funds from Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, will address selected challenges by identifying cities’ potential to contribute to the national economy. It will develop a roadmap for urban development in KP and plan for regional and capacity development by mainstreaming lessons in the urban sector.
The ADB, in the report, insisted that a lack of strategic planning combined with inappropriate regulation, weak planning standards and inefficient resource allocation led to major urban problems across Pakistan. People in urban KP were facing many challenges such as limited access to land and housing and basic social services and a lack of employment opportunities, it added.
Published in Dawn November 17th, 2016
