(from left): At the Making Cities Resilient event, Sundui Batbold, the Mayor and Governor of Ulaanbaatar, Beate Trankmann, UN Resident Coordinator, and Sanjaya Bhatia, UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign

By Patrick Fuller

ULAANBATAAR, 2 July, 2018 - Over 1,000 cities in Asia Pacific have now signed up to UNISDR’s Making Cities Resilient campaign following a historic commitment made by all 329 municipalities of Bangladesh to join the campaign.

“Mongolia including all its cities and provinces, was the first Asian country to fully join the campaign and this is a major step by the Government of Bangladesh, who clearly recognise the importance of reducing disaster risk in its cities”, said Loretta Hieber Girardet, Chief of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) in Asia Pacific, speaking from the 2018 Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR 2018) taking place in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar.

Asia Pacific is home to half the world’s urban population with eleven of the world’s 20 largest cities located in the region. Since 2008, the urban population has exceeded that of rural areas.

“Cities are on the frontline of resilience building and achieving growth and development will be challenging if they are constantly pushed back by disasters and a range of other social and environmental problems,” said Ms. Hieber Giradet.

Municipal representatives from six Asian countries, attended a workshop today at the AMCDRR 2018 convened by UNISDR, as part of a three-year pilot programme on urban resilience funded by the European Commission that aims to equip city officials with the tools to help them assess their own progress in identifying risks their municipalities face in order to build effective disaster risk reduction plans for their cities.

The six participating cities are Ciliacap Regency, Indonesia; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Honiara, Solomon Islands; Kathmandu, Nepal; Mawlamyine, Myanmar;  and Ulaanbataar, Mongolia. 

“Urbanisation is the engine for growth in Bangladesh. Currently more than 30% of the country is urbanised and 65% of the country’s economy is dependent on urban sources,” said Mostafa Quaium Khan, Adviser to the Bangladesh Urban Forum. “Bangladesh is a highly disaster-prone country and building disaster resilience at the local level lies with devolving responsibility from central government. Local administrations must be empowered and given responsibility for managing disaster risk reduction.”  

Speaking at the opening, the Governor and Mayor of  Ulaanbaatar, Sundui Batbold, said his city was among the first to engage with the Making Cities Resilient Campaign and in April 2018 come up with the first baseline evaluation of the city’s resilience with the Campaign’s support.

UN Resident Coordinator, Beate Trankmann, commended Ulaanbaatar on its work with UNDP  in aligning its development plan with the Sustainable Development Goals which include a specific SDG for resilient cities and communities.