Recovery from natural disasters in conflict and displacement-affected urban contexts in the Middle East and North Africa

At WUF11, UN Habitat presented the experience of applying the Urban recovery framework | UN-Habitat (unhabitat.org) in the Syrian context, with consideration to other country contexts, including wider responses to recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine. Considered as an enabling institutional and policy framework to support resilient urban recovery at scale and the renewal of the social contract in urban crisis contexts, URF-inspired approaches have been taken forward in other country contexts during 2023. This included responses to natural disasters in conflict and displacement-affected urban locations, for example, the February 2023 earthquakes in Syria (UN-Habitat) and Turkiye (SALAR International), as well as the September 2023 floods in Libya (UN-Habitat).
One major lesson is that, for locations that have suffered from conflict and any additional risks, Covid-19 and recently the earthquake, external or internal investments need to put inclusive and comprehensive area-based approaches and integrated damage analysis at the centre of any recovery efforts, and communities and local technicians need to be engaged in integrated recovery processes, in order to ensure protection of affected people, sustainability and effective urban recovery.
Work continues to broaden URF topics and the range of priority responses, iteratively applying lessons learned with a view to scaling-up operations over time. To reach this goal, nimble and innovative approaches have been applied, as the application of digital forms in damage assessment process, towards effectively applying the mandate of the agency to a crisis and disaster context. UN-Habitat’s Syria Programme has been at the forefront of both theoretical and practical approaches to achieving resilience and recovery results that advance upon the humanitarian response in Syria’s urban centres, by:
1. Conduct integrated damage database that supports a return to safe buildings and informs the prioritisation of recovery interventions
2. Prepare the area-based recovery interventions guided by recovery plans
3. Restore sustainable access to basic services and safe housing and protect tenure security of displaced residents.
The event aims to take forward discussions from WUF9, 10 and 11 and to consider specifically how URF can be adjusted to natural disasters in conflict and displacement-affected urban contexts. In addition, the event will shed light on the central role that local governments can play in evidence-based, participatory and inclusive planning in response to natural disasters, in challenging contexts of conflict and/or displacement, thereby broadening the debate on the Triple (Humanitarian-Development-Peace) Nexus.