ACCCRN members sharing experiences at the ICRD 2016, Semarang Indonesia

Author: Nyoman Prayoga

The 3rd International Conference on Regional Development (ICRD) “Enhancing Resilience: Bridging Knowledge and Policy for Cities and Regions” was successfully held on 9 – 11th November 2016 in Semarang, Indonesia. The conference was hosted by Initiatives for Regional Development and Environmental Management (IRDEM) in cooperation with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Diponegoro University.

Despite the transformation of the capacity of stakeholders to engage in collective actions for enhancing urban and regional levels of resilience, the gaps between knowledge and actions have been escalating for years. Bridging relationships between resilience knowledge and policy making therefore plays a key role in actualizing the concept into the real-time adaptive behavior of stakeholders, particularly in response to the need to cope with growing threats of climate change and extreme weather as well as the other global environmental changes.

Nimisha Jha, Rohit Virmani, and Sarah Allen, ACCCRN members who won the ACCCRN – ICRD paper competition, visited Semarang, Indonesia, to present their papers at the conference.

Nimisha and Rohit from National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, India, presented their paper on institutionalization of local solutions to build resilience of livelihoods. They shared their case studies of different adaptive measures taken from different areas in India and emphasized the importance of focusing on strengthening opportunities and making them sustainable.

Nimisha explained that, “The major learning that has come out from this paper is how the process would institutionalize the micro resilience initiatives into policy structure or mechanism that would help in up-scaling and support the replication elsewhere also.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Allen, a PhD candidate from York University, Toronto, Canada, presented her paper on urbanization and alarmism within water security in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. She employed an urban political ecology framework to examine how the use of resiliency theory can influence water security and scarcity within the urban landscape using Can Tho city, Vietnam, as hercase study.

On the last day of the event, ICRD participants went together to visit two projects engaged in resilience practices in Semarang, with one of them being a project supported by ACCCRN Program in Indonesia. They visited Desa Kandri to see ‘aquaponic’ practice implemented by the local community.

The simplest definition of ‘aquaponic’ is the marriage of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (the soil-less growing of plants) that grows fish and plants together in one integrated system. ICRD participants had the chance to learn directly from the community and see the installations in many houses there. This initiative is adopted by the community because it is suited to their neighborhood with its very limited space for gardening and at it can at least can support them in self-supplying vegetable and fish consumption.

Nimisha, Sarah, and Rohit visited mangrove ecosystem in Tapak, Tugurejo, Semarang as part of the conference event.

The ICRD participants also visited a mangrove ecosystem in Tapak, Tugurejo, Semarang. The ACCCRN Program in Indonesia supports the implementation of a mangrove rehabilitation project together with the city government, Bintari Foundation, Semarang University, and Diponegoro University. The reestablishment of the mangrove ecosystem is done through mangrove planting and nurseries with development of wave breakers as coastal protection. The community’s adaptive capacity is also strengthened through provision of climate information and development of livelihood strategies. One of the alternative livelihoods developed in Tapak, Tugurejo is mangrove ecotourism activity. The ICRD participants had the chance to experience this activity by exploring the mangrove site by boat while listening to an explanation from the tour guide accompanying them.

“I had an enriching experience at the 3rd ICRD conference at Semarang. Apart from gaining knowledge from the different presenters at the conference, the field visits on the third and last days of the programme were equally fascinating. The visit to Semarang made me realise the real danger from the rising sea level and its impact on communities and associated problems of relocation.” said Rohit.

Sarah Allen also mentioned that the conference and field visit was an exciting learning experience. “This was a very great opportunity for me to learn more on resilience discussions in Asia. I had a good time during the presentation and discussion session and it was also such a great experience to see and learn the resilience practices and initiatives directly from the community.”

At the conference, Prihadi Nugroho, the convener of ICRD 2016, learned that during the plenary and parallel sessions, actually, numerous resilience capacity building initiatives are being  developed by multiple stakeholders.

However, such original initiatives have emerged in sporadic, sometimes not well-prepared and not continuous manner, so resilience mainstreaming continues to be remote from the contemporary policy making process as well as common human lifestyle. Collaborative networks which connect stakeholders from various backgrounds are necessary to establish a strong foundation and enable the discovery of the best solutions for tackling urban and regional problems.

“Support from governments and various agencies are certainly required at moderate levels in order to guarantee the increasing capacity from inside without destroying too much of the existing social structure. Therefore, flexibility and inclusiveness are the key to making resilience work.” said Prihadi as he concluded the 3rd ICRD 2016.