Program

Lead Organizations

The World Bank, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC).

Partners

World Bank Institute; Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) (FY14); European Space Agency; Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transportation; Egis Group ; Institut d’Urbanisme d’Ile de France; BRGM.

Challenges

• Information and data regarding disaster risk and cities in North Africa was scattered and lacked a prospective angle, despite the fact that trends confirmed that Mediterranean cities will be increasingly vulnerable to flooding and other natural disasters over the next two decades.
• Climate change adaptation and disaster risk management was not mainstreamed into city management and urban planning documents. Furthermore, there was a lack of awareness of climate change adaptation issues among city leaders and decision makers.

Program Objective

To contribute to public policy relating to climate change adaptation and disaster risk management in coastal cities; to enhance the resilience of coastal cities through the mitigation of urban vulnerabilities and the production and dissemination of studies which recommendations can be implemented by city leaders.

Selected Results

• Deepened knowledge through dissemination of best practices. A general brochure for the program describes the methodology of each study produced and the main results (urban vulnerability for each city and each type of disaster risk analyzed).
  Two local workshops disseminated the results of the study  in Tunis and in Algiers to local stakeholders and civil society ; and the methodology and main results of the four studies were disseminated through a regional workshop.
• Informed project preparation (upstream support): The workshop on City Resilience (May 2014) made it possible to reinitiate a dialogue with the Algerian counterpart on the implementation of the resilience plans developed through the program.