19/01/2018 - Planetary Security Conference
Over the past ten years, understanding and awareness of these risks have increased tremendously. The Hague Declaration urges action on six issues, climate security, climate change impacts on migration, urban resilience, Lake Chad Basin, Mali and Iraq. The full text can be found here.
For the Planetary Security Conference Cordaid, together with its partner PBL (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) had organised two sessions. One session discussed the issue of drylands: From Drylands to Cities: strategies for coping with dryland migration.
Zeituna Roba, PfR country lead for Kenya, discussed how environmental and man-made hazards increasingly stretch people’s capacities beyond coping levels, and development gains are made undone by more frequent disaster situations.
Without action, these developments and prospects keep people trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and vulnerability. Improving living conditions in drylands, reducing the environmental risks and improving the social perspectives and security is complex. It requires an integrated approach encompassing improving the physical conditions with better land and water management, diversified production schemes, involving the local communities for building thrust and collaborative networks, embedding solutions in the cultural environment, providing adequate services and schooling for development and innovation.
Zeituna underlined that long term strategies, dedication and investments in innovative ecosystem based developments and sustainable intensification of the agricultural sector will be needed for structural improvements. In the subsequent roundtable discussions, participants to the session agreed that community participation and multi-stakeholder engagements are crucial for the sustainable development of dryland areas. For more information on the session click here
The second session discussed bridging the gap between the formal and informal city world against the background of the nexus between Climate Change, Cities and Conflict.
In presentations by Heleen van der Beek, PfR SG member for Cordaid, and Retchel Sasing, Cordaid liaison officer in the Philippines, we explored the importance of livelihood improvement and inclusive and sustainable development in cities in the face of rapid and often uncontrolled urbanisation, climate change and conflict. Worldwide, urbanisation takes place while resources are depleting and the quality of ecosystems deteriorates. As a result cities are becoming more and more vulnerable to stress and conflicts over resources like food, water and energy. Increased stresses over safe habitation space due to climate-related risks like flooding only exacerbate the potential for conflict. The poor are particularly vulnerable to these risks.
The session strongly focused on the practitioners’ approach of increasing the resilience of cities, and in particular the informal parts of the city, by focusing on inclusivity, sustainability, and security of livelihoods. Click here for more information on this session
Two videos which were developed by the organizers, your can watch them here: film 1, film 2
