Protecting Homes, Building Resilience - Nature and Urban Services in Informal Neighbourhoods

This event explores how the provision and financing of essential urban services in informal neighbourhoods can strengthen housing safety, reduce flood risks, and create local economic opportunities. Focusing on the intersection of nature-based solutions, waste management, and inclusive governance, the session highlights how restored waterways, green infrastructure, and waste reduction in streams can protect homes, improve environmental and public health outcomes, and generate local jobs, particularly for residents and informal waste workers. The session underscores the role of city governments as service enablers, system builders, and financiers, as well as facilitators of community engagement. It examines inclusive financing mechanisms, participatory planning processes, and regulatory frameworks that enable communities to co-design and sustain resilient systems, with particular attention to the meaningful inclusion of marginalised groups to ensure equitable, locally grounded solutions. The session will showcase interventions supported through funding of the German Government Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in partnership with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO): • Homa Bay, Kenya is advancing inclusive resilience strategies tailored to local needs and vulnerabilities by embedding community participation and equity into county planning and legislation. By integrating indigenous knowledge into early warning systems and strengthening collaboration with international partners, the county is improving climate risk preparedness, empowering marginalised groups, and building locally led, resilient communities. • Accra, Ghana is working with informal waste workers to implement source separation and a new composting facility to treat organic waste. The facility will account for 54% of the city’s waste stream and create up to 4,600 jobs while improving public health and service delivery. The intervention demonstrates how cities can work together with local communities and informal workers to strengthen resilience against flooding, while reducing ocean plastics. • Kochi, India is undertaking the restoration of canals, once making up 70% of the city area, to reduce urban flooding and enhance the water quality of the Vembanad Lake ecosystem, with mobile wetlands and native mangroves, to defy flooding and encroachment challenges and restore the economic and historical heritage of the city’s blue arteries.