Paving the Way for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure - UN CC:Learn

Chapter 6: Internalization of Climate Risks in the Context of Planning and Urban Development6. Integration with national policies, departmental and municipal development; strategy ofrelief, rehabilitation and reconstruction. El Salvador’s Five-Year Development Plan incorporatesemergency rehabilitation and reconstruction through the Technical Committees of Civil ProtectionSector and the Departmental Commission for Civil Protection. Responding to natural disasters andimproving response capabilities, through early warning systems, for example, are fundamental.However, reactive actions are not sufficient. Anticipatory action and networks are also necessary forbuilding local and national capacity and addressing long-term development issues associated withclimate change.7. Environmental policy, risk reduction and vulnerability assessment. Policies need to includereactive solutions to solve short-term problems, as well as proactive strategies to reducevulnerability to future events. It is important to distinguish between assessments of risk to extremeevents and vulnerability assessments.Vulnerability is defined by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report (2007) as “the degree to whicha system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, includingvariability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climatechange and variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity.”Vulnerability, more so than risk assessment, provides a broader analytical framework that helps tobetter identify the linkages with adaptation and other development goals and policies.8. Link between vulnerability and adaptation with efforts to reduce poverty. The focus onvulnerability suggests that responsiveness is related to society’s access to tangible and intangibleassets that increase accessibility of resources to resist extreme climatic events. Examples of tangibleassets are income, housing/infrastructure availability and quality, and material goods. Intangibleassets include social relations, which allow formation of partnerships and improved responsiveness.In the case of El Salvador, its Five-Year National Development Plan sets forth important guidelinesthat can be linked to building adaptation capacities to climate change. It emphasizes threecomplementary objectives: reduction of poverty and economic inequality, the reductionof environmental risks with long-term prospects, and the promotion of social developmentorganizations in the process of formulating public policies. These objectives, together with thosestrengthening rural and urban communities (i.e. human capital, expanding access to infrastructure,income generation, productive development and land management), represent potential linkageswith efforts seeking to reduce the vulnerability of individuals and communities climate change andstrengthen their capacity to adapt progressively to new climatic conditions.As projects focusing on social development and poverty reduction have shown, poverty is adynamic multidimensional phenomenon that depends on not only income and employment, butalso access to basic infrastructure. Analysis of poverty reduction should provide attention to thefactors that lead individuals and households into poverty, as well as those that help move peopleout of poverty. Causes of poverty indicated by project experience include health problems andexceptional events (e.g. climate related disasters) that drain income. This level of analysis is a valuableinput to the design of strategies seeking to reduce vulnerability to climate variability and climatechange, as well as the social consequences of extreme climatic events.70Paving the Way for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Conference Proceedings