Voices from Cities - Institutionalizing Urban Resilience through Subnational Local Programs

Housing is where climate risk, inequality and urban development intersect most visibly. Floods, landslides, heatwaves and storms disproportionately affect people living in inadequate and hazard-prone settlements, while poorly designed resilience investments can deepen exclusion and displacement. In this context, housing is both a frontline of climate impacts and a key entry point for building safe and resilient cities.
Linked to Dialogue 4 (The climate–housing nexus), this Voices from Cities session supports the objectives of WUF13 by placing adequate housing at the centre of climate resilience, disaster risk reduction and inclusive urban development. It brings together subnational and local governments with global partners to share practical experiences on moving from isolated, project-based actions to institutionalized, risk-informed and scalable public programmes for climate-resilient housing.
The discussion highlights the need to integrate housing policies with climate adaptation, nature-based solutions, land-use planning and governance systems. It underscores that resilient housing outcomes depend not only on technical solutions, but also on policy coherence, multilevel governance and sustained public action to address social vulnerability and avoid maladaptation. The panel explores how subnational–municipal collaboration can enable efforts on local implementation under real fiscal, institutional and social constraints.
From a subnational perspective, the Rio de Janeiro State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) presents lessons from the Programa Ambiente Resiliente, a multi-municipal initiative engaging 83 of the 92 municipalities in the state (≈90% coverage). The programme supports risk-informed urban planning, strengthens municipal capacity and helps reduce the exposure of vulnerable settlements to climate and disaster risks.
Global perspectives are provided by UNDRR’s Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative and a global network of cities (ICLEI South America), while The World Bank (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery - GFDRR) contributes a financing and scalability lens, linking local action to investment readiness.
Moderated by UN-Habitat, the session delivers practical and transferable lessons aligned with WUF13, demonstrating how inclusive, city-centred and risk-informed approaches can promote safer living conditions and accelerate progress towards SDG 11 and SDG 13.