ARC in Action: Uncovering Key Insights from Community Engagement in Three Cities

Community Listening Session with older persons at an informal settlement in Khulna City Corporation. Photo: Smrity Rani Mondal, Community Mobilizer, ARC, Khulna

By Syrga Kanatbek kyzy

As cities across Asia experience rapid urbanization, rising temperatures, and water scarcity, the need for climate resilience is more important than ever. The USAID-funded Asia Resilient Cities (ARC) Project is at the forefront of ensuring that communities most affected by these problems are a key part of designing solutions and building urban resilience.

ARC believes that people are a city’s biggest driver of positive and lasting change. That is why we partner with city governments and residents to mitigate climate resilience challenges. Our community listening sessions offer residents—particularly low-income communities and frontline workers—a platform to discuss experiences, concerns, and ideas for making their cities more livable. This helps us create inclusive and relevant solutions, strengthens residents’ relationships with the government, and attunes the government to the priorities and needs of all city residents.

Key Findings from Three Cities

ARC has conducted community listening sessions in three of our partner cities: Khulna in Bangladesh, Rajkot in India, and Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic. These sessions included groups that are most affected by climate change including frontline workers, low-income communities, climate migrants and migrant workers, and persons with disabilities. We also invited people from different parts of each city to understand how experiences varied by neighborhood.

Examining the challenges faced by people across three cities reveals several common themes: water management, job skills and opportunities, health care access, discrimination, safety, and recycling. Key challenges within these themes include poor water and air quality, insufficient water availability, and ineffective waste management. These problems are often interconnected, and it is essential to recognize these links to address their root causes and develop holistic solutions.

In Rajkot, discussions with frontline workers from the Departments of Health, Integrated Child Development Services, and Sanitation revealed that they view waterlogging—the standing water that remains after flooding—as a bigger problem than flooding. Waterlogging arises when stormwater drainage areas are obstructed by construction debris. Women’s groups expressed concerns about climate change affecting their children. They highlighted the damage from waterlogging, which not only destroys household items but also facilitates the spread of water-borne and vector-borne diseases. They also said that the city’s response to waterlogging seems focused only on certain neighborhoods, leaving their communities vulnerable. Rajkot’s fluctuating climate, with three distinct weather conditions in a single day, has disrupted daily routines and made adapting to weather difficult, especially for children. These insights from the community listening sessions provide a nuanced understanding of the challenges, showing that they go beyond changing weather patterns.

In Khulna, people living in informal communities often encounter major challenges accessing safe drinking water sources. As a result, they often use shallow wells which are susceptible to bacterial contamination. Additionally, the water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure (e.g. public latrines) is overstressed and does not meet community needs. Another challenge is the lack of skills development and employment opportunities for low-income youth, persons with disabilities, hijra/transgender individuals, and older people, which limits their ability to generate income. These groups often face obstacles when seeking essential services, such as healthcare, as a result of financial constraints, discrimination, and inadequate service delivery.

In Bishkek, the lack of effective recycling and waste management systems has led residents and businesses to burn waste. Some individuals in new settlements burn solid waste when local heating options are inadequate or when they cannot afford coal. Another significant problem is the mismanagement of water resources, resulting in water scarcity. Residents said that the misuse of potable water for purposes such as car washing and irrigation forced some to drink lower-quality water. As a result, residents experience a range of adverse health outcomes: increased air pollution has led to a rise in respiratory diseases like asthma, while poor water quality has led to a spike in hepatitis cases among children, particularly in new settlements.

Next Steps

Insights from these community listening sessions provide a deeper understanding of the context of each city and help us form a holistic perspective of urban challenges. ARC returns to these communities and groups throughout the project to report on progress and solicit feedback. We will continue to incorporate their insights and feedback into the design and prioritization of solutions.

ARC aims to build lasting relationships between residents, governments, and other city stakeholders by integrating diverse community experiences of climate change into the solution design and implementation. By using community feedback and collaborating with the city government, we not only address immediate challenges but also set a new standard for urban adaptation. This approach strengthens community networks, enhances the capacity of municipal governments to build solutions, and fosters ongoing communication. This lays the foundation for a thriving future and ensures progress towards resilience beyond the ARC project. This is the essence of ARC’s systems approach.

Asia Resilient Cities (ARC) is a five-year cooperative agreement funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under Agreement No. 7200AA22CA00011, beginning September 23, 2022. ARC is implemented by JSI with partners BRAC, DevTech Systems, Inc., ICF, International Organization for Migration, John Snow India Private Limited, and The Asia Foundation. This product is made possible by the generous support of the American people through USAID. Its contents are the responsibility of ARC and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the U.S. Government.