LEARNING FROM THE CITY British Red Cross Urban Learning Project Scoping Study Acknowledgements This report was written by Amelia B. Kyazze, Paula Baizan and Samuel Carpenter, international division, British Red Cross. We are particularly grateful for the research support provided by Ellie Lewis. We also wish to thank our interviewees from the British Red Cross and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, as well as members of the British Red Cross international division urban working group, for offering their time and insights. Thanks are also owed to Sara Pavanello, independent consultant, and Sonia Molina, Sorcha O’Callaghan and Ted Tuthill, British Red Cross, for reviewing earlier drafts of this study. Cover photo: Urban resident, Port-au-Prince, Haiti © British Red Cross Society 2 3 Contents Acknowledgements 2 Acronyms and abbreviations 6 Executive summary 7 1. Introduction 11 The British Red Cross Urban Learning Project 11 Study purpose and methodology 11 British Red Cross ways of working 12 2. The drive for better urban learning 13 The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and humanitarian action in urban areas 14 The British Red Cross and humanitarian action in urban areas 15 3. Urbanisation: trends and challenges 16 Understanding ‘urban’ and ’urbanisation’ 16 Responding to urban risk and vulnerability 18 Natural hazards 18 Urban violence and conflict 19 Markets and livelihoods 23 Health and water, sanitation and hygiene 23 Shelter, land and the built environment 25 4. New challenges, new approaches 26 Challenges and opportunities for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement 26 Five ways forward for the British Red Cross 26 Sharpening context analysis and assessments 26 Understanding cash and markets better 28 Engaging and communicating with complex communities 32 Adapting to the challenges of land and the built environment 35 Engaging with urban systems and partnering with local groups and institutions 39 5. Conclusion 44 2 3 Appendix 1: Selected British Red Cross programmes in urban areas: successes and challenges 46 Haiti: recovering from a large-scale urban disaster 46 Uganda: preparing for election-related violence in urban areas 47 Djibouti: supporting peri-urban livelihoods and markets 48 Appendix 2: Tools for humanitarian action in urban areas 50 Appendix 3: British Red Cross recommendations 56 Movement and humanitarian system-wide learning 56 British Red Cross learning 57 Pursuing best practice in priority sectors 57 References 58 Boxes and tables Box 1: Key facts about urbanisation today 17 Box 2: International Committee of the Red Cross activities in urban areas 19 Box 3: Riots and fires in Mathare, Nairobi 20 Box 4: Responding to election-related violence in Nairobi 22 Box 5: Response to 2012 cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone 24 Box 6: Cash in the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran 28 Box 7: The household economic security roster 30 Box 8: Dakar: floods in the slums 35 Box 9: Sustainable reconstruction in urban areas 36 Box 10: The political economy of urban areas 42 Box 11: Summary reflections from interviewees 44 Table 1: The role of city/municipal governments in disaster management 40 Table 2: Tools for humanitarian action in urban areas 50 Figure 1: British Red Cross learning at three levels 56 4 5 Acronyms and abbreviations ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance ACF Action Contre le Faim CaLP Cash Learning Partnership DFID UK Department for International Development EMI Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations HEA Household economy approach HERR Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (UK Government) HES Household economic security HPG Humanitarian Policy Group IASC Inter-Agency Steering Committee ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross MSF Médecins Sans Frontières NDMA National disaster management authority NGO Non-governmental organisation OCHA United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs PASSA Participatory approach for safe shelter awareness (IFRC) RG MHCUA IASC Reference Group for Meeting Humanitarian Challenges in Urban Areas UN United Nations ULP Urban Learning Project (British Red Cross) UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency VCA Vulnerability and capacity assessment (IFRC) 4 5 Executive summary Every day, more than 100,000 urban areas, and how it might people move to slums in the approach them more strategically. developing world – that’s one It is primarily intended for the person every second. Nearly British Red Cross’ international 1.5 billion people currently live division and its partners, although in informal settlements and some of the general findings are slums without adequate access also of relevance to other parts of to healthcare, clean water and the International Red Cross and sanitation. Many are at risk of Red Crescent Movement (the hurricanes, cyclones, flooding, Movement), as well as to other earthquakes and epidemics, as humanitarian agencies, from well as crime, fires and industrial those of the United Nations (UN) accidents. Some cities have a to international non-governmental growing potential for violence, organisations (NGOs). The study relating to criminality, elections or sets out what works in urban areas, political conflict. However, many what is relevant to British Red Cross increasingly offer sanctuary to those ways of working and, importantly, fleeing conflict, persecution and what is practical for staff. While insecurity in rural areas. drawing lessons from humanitarian programmes across the globe, It is, therefore, clear that urban the study focuses principally on areas should be a significant and evidence from five British Red Cross growing centre of humanitarian operational contexts: Haiti (Port- concern. Humanitarian action, au-Prince), Uganda (Kampala and however, has traditionally had a other cities), Djibouti ( Djibouti-ville), rural focus, helping people in the Mongolia (Ulaanbataar) and Nepal countryside displaced by conflict (Kathmandu). or disasters. With over 50 per cent of the world’s seven billion people The study looks at the evolving living in urban areas, the face of nature of risk and vulnerability in human vulnerability is changing urban areas relating to natural globally. While much work has been hazards, urban violence and done on urban risk and vulnerability, conflict, markets and livelihoods, the humanitarian sector has been health and water, sanitation and slower to understand what this hygiene, and shelter, land and the means operationally for agencies. built environment. This scoping study is the first Not only is the nature and scale step for the British Red Cross of risk changing in urban areas, but and its partners in better exposure to natural hazards such Destruction of urban settlements, understanding the challenges as earthquakes, landslides and Port-au-Prince, Haiti (© British Red Cross posed by humanitarian action in floods may be compounded Society) 6 7 6 7 by other, man-made hazards Vulnerability in urban areas is 3) engaging and communicating in urban areas, such as fire in heightened by inadequate and/ with complex communities overcrowded settlements or or unstable income (often with technological disasters and problems of indebtedness), high 4) adapting to the challenges of land chemical spills. In many places unemployment, the need for cash to and the built environment where the British Red Cross meet basic needs in urban markets, currently works, and is likely to and inadequate, unstable or risky 5) engaging with urban systems and work in the future, disasters most asset bases. Moreover, health partnering with local groups and often occur when other risks and risks such as epidemics, including institutions. compounding factors are also influenza, typhoid, gastro-intestinal present, such as violence and diseases and cholera can become Red Cross staff interviewed for the inequality. Indeed, urban violence concentrated in densely-packed study emphasised the importance is now a major issue in many cities where populations expand of taking time to understand the contexts, particularly in Latin beyond the capacity of the public urban context. They often reiterated American countries such as health system. In addition, the built that resources deployed up front Honduras and El Salvador, which environment can be a major on context analysis and high both have higher homicide rates source of vulnerability, with poor quality assessments can prove than the Democratic Republic of choice of construction systems vital in ensuring programmes the Congo. The International and building materials as well as are effective, particularly given Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) poor design and workmanship the relative novelty of urban has undertaken groundbreaking leading to significant risk of disaster. operations to many staff and the work on the issue of urban violence Further, people’s land and tenure dynamic nature of urban areas. On in Latin America, while the British rights, or lack thereof, can make assessments, interviewees noted Red Cross has been working them even more vulnerable. Cities that the use of the International on the issue in East Africa through also have a higher percentage of Federation of Red Cross and Red its support to the Uganda Red people renting, squatting or living Crescent Societies’ (the Federation) Cross Society in preparing for in slums, and this can make it participatory approach for safe election-related violence in more complicated to determine the shelter awareness (PASSA)