Climate adaptation in the housing sector - Achieving flood adaptation through multi-stakeholder collaboration

As climate-change-driven flooding intensifies, the adaptation of the living environments often remains fragmented, siloed, and reactive. Despite ambitious climate goals, few operational tools exist to take concrete action at the scale of buildings, neighbourhoods, and urban systems, particularly in vulnerable contexts.

This session argues that accelerating adaptation is not only a technical challenge, but also a question of how we design processes, partnerships, and governance systems. It brings together experiences where public authorities, community organizations, academic institutions, built environment professionals, and people with lived experience have co-produced pathways for action across the full value chain.

The session then brings together the following contributions:

- A national perspective from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (Ottawa, Canada) and its efforts accross the country to promote access to sustainable, safe, and affordable housing for all while strengthening climate resilience. As the agency responsible for the implementation of Canada's National Housing Strategy, CMHC promotes and funds the adoption of sustainable practices in the residential sector.

- Architecture without Borders Quebec (Montreal, Canada), through its “Cohabiter avec l’eau” (“Living with Water”) initiative, has mobilized nearly 150 contributors - including universities, ministries, municipalities, building professionals, insurers, and professional associations - to co-develop the first national framework for adapting buildings to flooding, published in March 2026. This actionable guide supports municipalities, professionals, and homeowners in implementing concrete and transferable measures.

- Dreamtown (Copenhagen, Denmark) brings experience in community-led planning, long-term advocacy, and collaborative urban development processes that integrate local actors into mainstream planning systems.

- Public Space Network (Nairobi, Kenya) shares insights from post-flood transformations along the Nairobi River, where repeated flooding has triggered a shift toward working with natural systems. This transformation is driven by a multi-actor process involving community groups, government agencies, civil society, researchers, and engineering partners - including in informal settlements.

Through these complementary narratives, the session will highlight:
- Key levers for effective multi-stakeholder and cross-sector collaboration
- The critical role of community knowledge in shaping adaptation strategies
- Persistent barriers - and how different actors are working to overcome them

The discussion will invite participants to move beyond isolated solutions and explore how adaptation can become a coordinated, inclusive, and systemic transformation process. Participants will leave with concrete international examples and practical insights to strengthen partnerships, inform policy, accelerate implementation, and support long-term housing resilience.

This session ultimately reframes adaptation not as a technical response to risk, but as an opportunity to reshape how cities and communities plan, collaborate, and build resilience together.