UCR-CoP Newsletter No. 7, July 2016

UCR-CoP newsletter, July 2016
View this email in your browser

Visit the urbanclimatevn.com blog
Visit the UCR-CoP calendar

Welcome to our July 2016 Newsletter!

Welcome to the July 2016 Newsletter, which is issued in both English and Vietnamese. In this edition, UCR-CoP members share the study tour of Can Tho city’s delegation to Da Nang city on the occasion of Can Tho city recently joining the 100 Resilient Cities network (100RC), the results from the Vietnam City Resilient Index (VN-CRI) workshop, and the recent workshop on flood early warning and community-based risk reduction in Quy Nhon city.

We will also get to know Ms. Le Thi Huong from Urban-Rural Solutions, follow up on interesting article series of the 7^th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaption, learn about climate trends for 2016 and much more...

Upcoming activities

The UCR-CoP shared calendar is the information center for our community of practice. Visit the calendar to learn about fellow members' activities and add your own activities, projects and events.

October 17-20, 2016
Habitat 3, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Quito, Ecuador (Learn more)

July 19,2016
"Progressive Cities as Resilient Cities: Why Governance Matters” workshop, Hanoi (Learn more)

Recent activity

On the occasion of Can Tho becoming a new member of the 100RC, Can Tho city’s delegation paid a study tour to Da Nang city for learning experience regarding implementation of the 100RC program. Members of the UCR-CoP met to discuss and provide inputs for the VN-CRI after a pilot period in five provinces. The sharing event on "Community Oriented Approaches to Flood Early Warning and Risk Reduction - Experiences from Quy Nhon, Binh Dinh Province" workshop.

Meet Ms. Huong

In each newsletter, we get to know a little more about one of our fellow members. Read on to meet Ms. Le Thi Huong, Director of Urban - Rural Solutions Company (URS).

News and discussion

Read on to check out some interesting articles and discussions that are currently circulating online on the topic of urban climate resilience. In this edition, we feature recent posts on the 7^th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaption, the climate trends for 2016, the Regional Asia- Pacific Conference on Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction, and the concept of vulnerability to climate-change most at risk people in the city of Jaipur, India.

Member profile

Ms. Le Thi Huong, Director of Urban - Rural Solutions Company (URS).

When did you join your current company and what does your role involve?
Urban - Rural Solutions Company (URS) was established in September 2004 and I am one of its founding members. At the beginning, I was a consultant in urban environment management and public administrative reform, and training local personnel on these areas. Over time, my consultancy work has expanded into other areas such as local economic development, urban planning, climate change and disaster risk management. In late 2006, I was appointed to be the Director of the company and in charge of project management/coordination and implementation of several consultancy projects.

How did you become interested in the topic of urban climate resilience?
URS have been interested in the topic of urban climate resilience since our establishment (in 2004) but just started to work in the area since 2009. At that time, I was introduced to the project “World Wide Views on Global Warming” (WWViews) initiated by the Danish Board of Technology aiming for opinion polls of citizens all around the globe on global climate policy to submit to nation’s leaders who participated in the forthcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen in 2009. The project provided us with an opportunity to communicate climate change to Vietnamese people via mailing, direct dialogues with 1,000 citizens in Vietnam, and via other channels such as the internet and television to get as much people interested in the question of climate change as possible. We then organized a meeting with 100 ordinary citizens coming from different regions of Vietnam to collect their opinions. On the same day, another 38 nations in the globe also organized opinion poll meetings of their citizens with the same method. Results from the meetings were congregated and sent to participating negotiators of the hosting country and the international leaders who participated in the COP 15. That was the first time global citizens, particularly Vietnamese citizens, were ever asked for their views on what the world should do in response to climate change.

We find this method exceptional because a policy is more likely to be enforced well if citizens are involved in planning and decision making. In Vietnam, many provinces and cities have their own climate change response plans or green growth action plans, but none of these plans have been developed with citizen consultations for their opinions as the WWviews project did. I hope that the method of the WWviews project will widely be used in programs/projects in Vietnam because our fellow citizens are very creative and citizen involvement in climate change response is significantly important.

What are some of the main activities or projects your organization is currently working on that relate to urban climate resilience?
These activities and project include (1) Institutional and technical capacity assessment and capacity development plan on water resource management and climate change in Binh Thuan Province (2016); (2) WWViews No.3, similar to the project 2009 as mentioned above but focused on theme: Climate and Energy Policies” to conduct public consultation and submit to COP21. There were 79 countries with about 10,000 people participating in the face-to-face meetings all around the world on 6/6/2015; (3) The baseline survey for M&E of the project on “Integration of people with disability in disaster risk reduction and income diversification in Kon Tum city, Kon Tum project which completed in 2015. This project was selected for demonstration by the WWViews’s network; (4) Scoping study and comprehensive baseline assessment of climate resilience in four cities (Tam Ky, Quang Ngai, Ha Tinh and Hanoi) and proposal of strategy on Vietnam Red Cross’s possible intervention for urban resilience, funded by American Red Cross’s project on “Community-based Disaster Risk Reduction” (completed in November 2014).

Tell us a fact that we might be surprised to learn about you?
I am an open person and always willing to learn and share experiences with my colleagues and staff. I am hard-working and love my work a lot. I think I am just your average person.

Urban climate resilience news from around the world

The 7th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation
For the seventh time, an annual Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation took place. It was held from 6 to 8 July 2016 in Bonn, Germany. The forum is a milestone event connecting local government leaders and climate adaptation experts to discuss adaptation challenges facing urban environments around the globe. Read more or click here. To learn about Vietnam’s participation, click here.

2016 climate trends continue to break records
Two key climate change indicators — global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent — have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analysis of ground-based observations and satellite data. R ead more.

Regional Asia-Pacific Conference on Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction
The conference was held in Hanoi on May 16, 2016, aiming at highlighting women’s role in disaster risk reduction (DRR), and identifying priorities for gender equality and necessary actions that Governments and its partners need to focus on during the implementation of the Sendai Framework. Read more.

Introducing "vulnerability" to vulnerable people
While climate change and its associated problems are gaining wider attention globally, the concept of vulnerability remains alien to those most at risk, the communities themselves. Read more. To learn more interesting news related to Urban Climate Change Resilience (UCCR), join ACCCRN.net.