This handbook introduces the reader to concepts, approaches, tools, exercises and innovative cases to Strengthen Resilience in Cities and Local Communities through Innovation and Digital Government. The handbook guides the reader towards roadmaps, policy toolkits, manuals and peer support to help cities and local communities better invest in practical action to strengthen resilience. This handbook builds on global good practices on effective governance. It also builds on the Training Toolkit on “Risk-informed Governance and Innovative Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience” as part of the Curriculum on Governance for the SDGs, which was developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government (DPIDG), through the UN Project Office on Governance (UNPOG). This handbook is part of a series of six succinct publications within UN DESA’s Curriculum on Governance for the SDGs designed to promote effective, accountable and inclusive public institutions.
COVID-19, climate change and our increasingly interconnected world are changing the existing, emerging and future risk landscapes for cities and local communities. Global innovations, technologies and digitalization are driving social and economic growth and becoming a foundation for prosperity. Technology-driven systems and infrastructures are increasingly interdependent. Failures in one system, such as electricity supply, cascade to others, such as communication and business, with amplified social and economic costs. To protect progress, cities and local communities must address physical, digital, geographic, logistical and resource-dependent risks to systems and infrastructures, including information, communications, transport, food, water and other fundamental systems. While much of the power to regulate this systemic risk is outside a local community’s authority and administrative control, local action on global standards and innovations is needed to strengthen resilience
Technology, digitalization and innovation transform the social and economic foundations of cities and local communities. Technology can drive progress and reduce certain risks. However, new technology, digitalization and innovation also can create new risks. A greater understanding of these emerging risks can mitigate potential social and economic damage. Investing in strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure reduces these risks. It also can help address the digital divide. The digital divide is the result of systemic inequalities in access to technology and limited resources available to invest in digital infrastructure that would increase access and support meaningful, inclusive and equitable transformation.
Global frameworks guide local action. Global frameworks guide cities and local authorities to strengthen resilience coherently into development strategies, plans and investments to protect investments and accelerate progress. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 guides stakeholders in understanding, governing and investing in risk reduction and resilience and enhancing preparedness for response and resilient recovery. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls on cities and human settlements to adopt and implement integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and develop and implement holistic disaster risk management at all levels in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015- 2030. The New Urban Agenda as part of its key commitments, calls for strengthening resilience in cities to reduce the risk and the impact of disasters. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change adopted in 2015 guides countries to mitigate climate change, strengthen resilience and enhance their abilities to adapt to climate impacts. The UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation adopted in 2020 provides a direction forward to strengthen resilience, recognizing that all stakeholders play a role in advancing a safer, more equitable digital world.
Global, regional, national, inter-governmental organizations and city-to-city networks support cities in navigating emerging and future landscapes by providing roadmaps, policy toolkits, good practices, exchanges and peer support. Global frameworks and guidance prioritize whole-of-society approaches, strengthening resilience in collaboration with all stakeholders and resources within cities. Investments in resilience provide a good return, protect development gains and assets and ensure future social and economic continuity. Effective people-centered governance, including digital governance, strengthens resilience and sustainability. Cities and local communities support resilience by promoting technologies, innovation and people-centered approaches.
This handbook provides guidance for cities and local communities on how to strengthen resilience through various approaches, summarized in six thematic chapters.
Chapter 1 guides the reader towards supported routes to resilience from a city-wide perspective. It explores how to strengthen resilient, smart and inclusive cities and local communities. It provides information on existing, emerging and future risk profiles within existing development paradigms and connects the reader to roadmaps, standards, governance approaches and smart-policy-toolkits to strengthen resilience. City-to-city networks for resilience are introduced and systemic, interdependent, cascading risk and whole-of-society approaches are considered.
Chapter 2 discusses how to maximize the benefits of technologies and innovations while minimizing new risks and strengthening resilience. It introduces the reader to the benefits and risks posed by new emerging technology, namely, the ability to strengthen resilience and the risk of amplifying inequalities or creating new risks if the technology is poorly governed or not peoplecentred.
Chapter 3 introduces how new technology can revolutionize cities and local communities in new and exciting ways. It provides examples of innovative cases changing the way we live, connect and function and focuses on innovation for strengthening resilience and managing disasters.
Chapter 4 explores the importance of infrastructure asset management for building resilient and sustainable cities. It emphasizes the importance of understating and governing interdependent systemic risk to future-proof the infrastructure of cities and local communities, including the social and economic foundations.
Chapter 5 examines the role of resilient and smart cities in building back better in the postCOVID-19 era. It focuses on preparing and accelerating sustainability and resilience-building initiatives to ensure that cities and local authorities build back better and become more socially and economically resilient to all risks. It explores the importance of keeping people central to digital transformation and of connecting global health agendas to local actions.
Chapter 6 provides policy recommendations and consolidates conclusions from each chapter into common building blocks: Processes (finance, planning and products); Mechanisms (exploring institutional arrangement, digital technologies, legal and policy frameworks and partnerships); and People (including leadership, human capacity and knowledge). The importance of people-centred approaches is emphasized throughout the handbook.
