Unique, Climate Resilient and Liveable Mountain Cities in Eastern South Asia

Wednesday | 11 October 2023

4:00 pm to 6:00 pm IST

Concept Note

The region of Eastern South Asia comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal as well as East and North-East parts of India. It forms a mountain-to-sea ecosystem, interlaced by rivers and water bodies, and prone to tectonic activity. The region constitutes a geographical, cultural, and land bridge connecting South Asia and South-East Asia. This recently accelerated the region’s economic growth, which majorly happens in its rapidly growing cities.

These cities, marked by a mountainous topography with delicate ecosystems, struggle with finding a balance between a fast economic growth, a strong tourism pressure, ecologically and climatically sensitive changes, and aspirations of its diverse communities. This highlights the need for a deep dive into guiding urbanisation principles for the region, which need to strike the balance between supporting the region’s economic growth opportunities and preserving, enhancing and building upon its unique cultural and natural identities. The region wants to pave the way to its own unique path to urbanization, which enhances its unique assets, unlocks new socio-economic opportunities, and develops its own path of localising the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda.

During the G20 event on Nature Solves: A New Framework for Our Sustainable Future, hosted in July 2023 by the State of Meghalaya, highlighted the unfilled need for mountain city specific climate adaptation strategies. Indeed, climate change disproportionately affects the region, which already receives one of the highest amounts of annual rainfall in the world, and exposes its cities to high risks of flood and landslides. Rapid depletion of built heritage in the absence of a protection status coupled with an absence of form-based building approaches not only rapidly deprives the mountain cities from an attractive visual identity, but also exacerbates its exposure to an increasing number of heat waves, and to the urban heat island effect in most densely built up areas. Finally, as built up intensifies, local residents increasingly lack public green and recreational spaces. 

In this context, Asian Confluence – a think and do tank, headquartered in Shillong, Meghalaya, focusing on ground and policy level work through research, advocacy and capacity building which is informed and reinforced by on-ground outreach with– and UNICITI – an international consultancy and think tank which helps Asian cities adapt to climate change through building and capitalizing on activated unique natural and cultural assets of each city – joined hands with the objective of creating an expert community to assist mountain cities of Eastern South Asia with forging their unique, climate resilient and liveable development path.

The first step towards this objective is the upcoming webinar on Unique, Climate Resilient and Liveable Mountain Cities in Eastern South Asia, which will take place on Wednesday 11 October, at 4pm IST. The second step is to conduct a session at the UN ESCAP led Asia Pacific Urban Forum 8 (APUF 8) in Suwon, South Korea, on 23 October 2023. The key points emerging from the webinar will be discussed in Suwon at the global UN stage with aim to bring focus on the mountain cities of Eastern South Asia. The third step will be to feel the the findings from the above two events into the discussion at the COP 28, which will take place in Dubai on 30 November to 12 December 2023.

In particular, the webinar will:

·      Bring focus on impact of climate change on mountain cities, and discuss their avenues for adapting to climate change harnessing the strengths of their unique natural and cultural assets;

·       Identify key urbanization challenges in mountain cities, and learn from best practices and solutions to addressing them;

·       Identifying policies, financial mechanisms, and social dynamics which can best mitigate the impact of climate change on mountain cities; 

·       Creating an opportunity for peer learning and cooperation.

Agenda

Watch the Webinar LINK 

Press Release and Summary LINK