Building urban resilience to climate change

Ensuring the resilience of infrastructure and services is critical for cities. Infrastructure systems are the front lines of defense against the physical impacts of climate variability and change, such as increased flooding, storm surges, coastal erosion, tropical storm winds, and other disasters. Climate-resilient infrastructure—planned, designed, built, and operated in a way that anticipates, prepares for, and adapts to changing climate conditions—protects urban populations, assets, and livelihoods from those impacts. To further reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to climate change, populations, especially vulnerable ones, need adequate access to basic services, such as WSS, storm and wastewater drains, and solid waste management. Improving sanitation and solid waste management will also have public health benefits. Some initiatives are already addressing these challenges through measures to strengthen short-, medium-, and long-term resilience capacities (box 7.2). World Bank activities such as the West Africa Coastal Areas Sustainable Ports Partnership, a partnership of ports associations in 19 countries, have embraced the opportunity to proactively adapt to the impacts of climate change and improve coastal infrastructure resilience through technical assistance and mutual learning. Similar projects, such as the São Tomé and Príncipe Transport Sector Development and Coastal Protection Project, will help ensure coastal communities’

resilience by rehabilitating critical stretches of coastal roads and strengthening the roads’

technical and management capacity. Investments in resilient mobility are a double gain: helping manage risk to the infrastructure and reinforcing the overall resilience to shocks (because mobility is a foundational component of societal resilience). Mobility also meets urgent security needs, particularly in FCV countries or subnational regions.

Investment in resilient infrastructure is cost-effective and leads to higher returns. The cost of resilient infrastructure depends on the type of assets and the exposure to climate hazards (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019). A World Bank study (2019) in LICs and middle-income countries (MICs) shows that the implementation of resilient assets in the power, WSS, and transportation sectors would cost between US$11 billion and US$65 billion a year by 2030, an incremental cost of 3 percent compared with the overall investment needed. It would result in an estimated net benefit of US$4.2 trillion over the lifetime of the infrastructure: a US$4 benefit for each dollar invested (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019). Upfront costs could be offset by reduced operations and maintenance costs (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019). The additional costs of making new infrastructure resilient in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) are small compared to the total investments (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019). An analysis in Bangladesh revealed that US$560 million in additional flood protection for energy infrastructure could save up to US$1.6 billion (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019). Some materials and technologies that are more climate resilient could also cost less, such as modular bridge solutions compared to traditional in situ reinforced concrete. Further, decreased disruptions as a result of resilient infrastructure investments would decrease losses to firms and improve economic growth. A survey piloted by the Bank in Tanzania has found that Tanzanian firms are incurring utilization losses of US$668 million a year from power and water outages and transport disruptions (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019).

Securing sound road maintenance practices is critical to minimize and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Analysis conducted by the World Bank (Hallegatte, Rentschler, and Rozenberg 2019) shows that road maintenance is the first and most economical line of defense against climate change. Precipitation caused by climate change is expected to lead to rehabilitation costs 10 times above historical conditions, and stresses imposed by flooding will lead to a 17-fold increase. Based on data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, every additional US$1 spent on road maintenance saves on average US$1.50 in new investments (World Bank 2019c). A corollary of this finding is

that current fiscal and governance models for road maintenance are insufficient to sustain the road network under current climatic conditions. Under forecast conditions, they will be overwhelmed, given that maintenance costs are expected to rise by 270 percent from climate-related increases in precipitation, flooding, and temperature (Cervigni and others 2015). In Tanzania, an estimated 70 percent of natural disasters are related to climate change, and the effects cost Tanzania more than 1 percent of GDP (World Bank 2017b). It is therefore worthwhile to consider revolutionizing road maintenance in Africa (and beyond) to strengthen resilience of transport and mobility services. The World Bank has supported the creation of second-generation road funds and road agencies to increase the financial and technical capacity and ensure the sustainability of road investments. A recent World Bank analysis covering most road funds in Africa points out that in some countries, road funds could generate resources based on user charges. These could be dedicated more efficiently to cover maintenance needs combined with rehabilitation investments under performance-based contracts (World Bank/IFC 2019). An additional approach is demonstrated in the First Fiscal Consolidation and Inclusive Growth Development Policy Financing project for Cameroon. It ensures sufficient funding allocated for road maintenance in the annual budget exercise, to be made available in a dedicated account. By strengthening mobility services, overall national resilience improves because mobility of people and goods is a fundamental component of resilience to shocks.

With the growing urbanization of poverty, socioeconomic resilience is an imperative for increasing climate resilience and turning African cities into engines of growth. Beyond natural growth rates, urban growth is attributed to rural to urban migration and massive migration due to extreme events (Elmqvist, Alfsen, and Colding 2008). Without concrete climate and development action, more than 85 million climate migrants could move within countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050 as a consequence of water stress, drops in crop productivity, and sea level stress (Rigaud and others 2018). Failure to invest in socioeconomic resilience can reverse development and push millions back into poverty. Populations of urban people in Sub-Saharan Africa would triple within 30 years, with most characterized as urban poor. The focus on social resilience must transcend an extreme event or disaster to build Box 7.2

Northeastern Transport Improvement Project — Creating a climate-aware corridor connecting Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia

Northeastern Transport Improvement Project (NETIP) will focus on improving the movement of people, goods, and digital services in part by upgrading the main transport artery traversing the counties of northeastern Kenya. The design of project roads was reviewed from a climate-resilience viewpoint, examining how additional extreme events and raising temperatures may affect the project. Priority interventions include:

ɖ Building climate resilience and adaptive capacity ɖ Minimizing cost increases and time for redesign or

enhancement of design

ɖ Increasing Bank protection for wide floodplains ɖ Providing Bank protection at bridges

ɖ Road overtopping protection

ɖ Reducing sedimentation rates from sand ɖ Decreasing roadside erosion

ɖ Strengthening Lorian Swamp embankments ɖ Supporting maintenance depots and emergency

response plans and data collection

By incorporating these location-specific climate aware design components, this project will contribute to improving road management and maintenance and reduce risks associated with potential climate and geophysical hazards. The road designs for this critical corridor project will be “climate-informed,” ensuring adaptability of the road corridor to any potential natural disasters and enhancing mitigation measures. 

Source: Sasia 2016.

THE NEXT GENERATION AFRICA CLIMATE BUSINESS PLAN 89

sustained and long-term social resilience. This involves increasing employment opportunities, especially for youth. This in turn requires workforce development through human capital investments, training a new generation of talent and reskilling existing workers to align with skills needed for the future. Affordable housing and mobility are essential for social resilience and for firms’ productivity by improving accessibility for workers. Social resilience can further be strengthened through social safety nets.

The protection of ecosystems and nature-based solutions to increase resilience of cities to climate shocks and stresses needs to be integrated into climate-smart city plans. Ensuring a stable and cheap water supply for the growing urban population and managing for the increasing frequency of floods may require cooperation with catchments beyond city jurisdictions—in addition to proximate catchments (Rigaud and others 2018). City governments must partner with subnational and national authorities to ensure that upstream watersheds are well managed to secure water security and flood regulation downstream. The role of nature-based solutions, such as restoration and management of mangrove ecosystems, can reduce the impact of storm surges, decrease climate vulnerability, and increase resilience, as was the case in Beira, Mozambique (see also box 7.3). This is discussed further under the Ecosystem Stability and Water Security Strategic Direction.

Box 7.3

Strengthening resilience in coastal cities—Saint-Louis Emergency Recovery and Resilience Project

Senegal’s historical city of Saint-Louis is on the northwest coast at the mouth of the Senegal River. With a population of 232,000, the city has experienced rapid growth over the last 50 years. Langue de Barbarie, a thin, sandy peninsula adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, helps to protect the city. The shoreline’s geophysical characteristics make it susceptible to natural erosion processes, and human activities such as unplanned settlement and climate change impacts exacerbates erosion.

Devastating storm surges took place in August 2017 and February 2018, rendering more than 250 families homeless. Many had been living in very precarious conditions in the flood-prone Khar Yalla relief camp, which lacked access to basic services. In addition to these, all households (approximately 10,000 people) within a band of approximately 20 meters along the sea were within the extremely high-risk zone, leaving them susceptible to losing their homes within the next few years with future storm surges.

In response to the Senegalese government’s request for support, the World Bank is financing the US$30 million Saint-Louis

Emergency Recovery and Resilience Project (SERRP), which aims to reduce the vulnerability of populations to coastal hazards along the Langue de Barbarie and strengthen urban and coastal resilience planning.

SERRP will support the Government of Senegal to provide temporary accommodation and essential services for affected households, and urgently improve their living conditions in line with global standard practices. The temporary shelter solution will accommodate disaster victims during the transitory phase until a permanent housing solution is available, for an estimated period of two to three years. In the medium-term, the project will support the planned relocation of vulnerable households affected by coastal erosion and living within the extremely high-risk zone. For longer-term resilience building, SERRP will support activities such as reclamation and restoration of the vacated land along the Langue de Barbarie, the design of a coastal risk management solution to protect the Langue de Barbarie shoreline, and development of an urban resilience plan.

Source: World Bank 2018b.

7.4 Green mobility’s role in sustainable, productive,