The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), and its Bangladesh partner International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), jointly organized The First Annual National Conference on Urban Resilience in association with diverse partners, which were: ACCNLDP Project, GIZ, ActionAid Bangladesh, Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), BRAC, CARE Bangladesh, Concern Worldwide, Habitat for Humanity Bangladesh, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, Practical Action Bangladesh, Save the Children, United Nations Development Programme. Each of the partners contributed a share towards the costs of the event. The conference was held from 17 to 19 December 2016 at Spectra Convention Centre, Gulshan-1, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

 

These government and non-government organizations, policy makers, academics and communities have valuable, relevant knowledge and experience but there has been little sharing within or amongst them. This conference initiated a knowledge sharing platform for a diverse range of leading stakeholders to voice their expert opinions, proposals, analysis and aspirations on urban resilience issues. 

 

During the conference, there were over 200 participants who attended each day and more than 500 over in three days. The conference had 4 plenary sessions and 11 parallel sessions covering various urban related issues along with the inaugural and concluding session. 

 

The sessions were successful due to the presence of chief guests, special guests and the active participation of around 10 keynote speakers, 15 session chairs and moderators and 45 panelists. The international participants included Professor John Carruthers from Georgetown University in USA and Terry Cannon from IDS in U.K., both of whom gave keynote speeches.

 

The inaugural session was addressed by the Chief Guest A.A.M.S. Arefin Siddique, Vice Chancellor, University of Dhaka. Professor M. Omar Rahman, Vice Chancellor, IUB and Dr. Atiq Rahman, Executive Director, BCAS were the Special Guests, while the inaugural session was chaired by Dr. Saleemul Huq, Director of ICCCAD at IUB. 

 

The four plenary sessions were entitled: (1) Policy Makers Round Table “Implementing the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda” – The Role of Local Governments; (2) Urban Resilience Knowledge Platform; (3) Participatory Vulnerability Assessment and (4) Financing the Sustainable Urban Development Agenda. 

 

The parallel sessions  covered various themes in the build up to the plenary sessions: (1) Ensuring Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments Influence Policy and Practice; (2) Inclusive Approach Key to Urban Resilience in Bangladesh; (3) Building Resilience in Urban Slum Settlements; (4) Valuing Waste, Transforming Cities: Promoting Waste-to-Resource Initiatives; (5) Development Planning Needs Better Integration; (6) Concepts of Building Resilience in a City; (7) Creative Thinking for an Uncertain Urban Future; (8) Universal Health Coverage: Resilient to Health Shock of Urban Low Income Population; (9) Safer Cities and Public Spaces for Women’s Empowerment; (10) Realities of the Urban Poor: Tackling Challenges and Leveraging Opportunities and (11) Building Community Engagement to Enhance Urban Resilience.

 

In the concluding session, Dr. Saleemul Huq presented the summary findings of the three days during which he mentioned that this had been only the first annual event with partners, and he encouraged everyone to come up with solutions of various problems regarding urban issues. In the upcoming conference, there would be more discussions about stories of solving problems rather than identifying problems. He also announced that the urban resilience network had just started its journey in Bangladesh with the hope of gathering the urban practitioners and experts on one platform and disseminating their knowledge to the policy makers and those interested in the private sector. After his speech, Jamie Terzi, Country Director, CARE Bangladesh, John Armstrong, National Director, HFHI-B and Hossain Zillur Rahman, Executive Chairman, PPRC made some concluding remarks as the Special Guests.

 

The concluding session was chaired by Dr. Atiq Rahman and he thanked the organizers, partners and participants for making this important event a successful one. 

 

Full details of the proceedings of the conference will be published for dissemination.

 

The daily updates, articles, interviews regarding the conference can be found in the following links: