Climate change is becoming a threat to the urban environment and development and livelihood as well the uncertainty that arises due to climate change needs to be considered in the overall urban risk management framework.
All the vulnerability issues need to be brought under comprehensive risk based master plan to accommodate at least 30 per cent more people from vulnerable rural areas around these cities only due to climate change.
The observations came at a view-sharing meeting on overall implementation issues of ‘Improvement of Living Conditions for Climate Migrants in Rajshahi City through demand-oriented measures Project’ held at the conference room of Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) on Monday.
Dhaka Ahsania Mission is implementing the project with financial support of GIZ.
RCC Mayor Mosaddeque Hossain, Panel Mayor Anwarul Amin, Ward Councilors Monsur Rahman, Mahbub Sayeed, Sohrab Hossain and Arman Ali, Chief Engineer Ashraful Haque and Executive Engineer Nur Islam addressed the meeting.
During their concept paper presentations, Akteruzzaman Rana and Enamul Haque from GIZ and Foisal Ahmed from Dhaka Ahsania Mission gave an overview of the project and its implementation strategies.
The project is aimed at improving the social-economic status of those who are forced to migrate in the city area due to climate change. It will play a vital role in developing socio-economic status for the migrant community.
Mayor Mosaddeque Hossain mentioned that the rural poor people with their recurrent disaster exposures are migrating into urban areas. These new comers face a high employment crisis in city and with very poor-quality housing and other well-being further tapping them into a deeper urban poverty cycle.
The urban poverty is highly linked with rural disaster risks. The urbanisation situation, particularly the housing situation in the city is getting more acute with every passing year.
Government efforts to mitigate the problem in the past have been far from adequate and have been confined to areas in and around metropolitan cities.
Natural disasters are occurring more frequently as the adverse effects of climate change effects are getting more pronounced worldwide and in Bangladesh.
Disaster and climate-change impacts have deeper relationship with urban poverty in Bangladesh. So, this is the high time for proper documentation on climate change resilience initiative and strategy development, he added.
Mayor Hossain says the city corporation is working hard to improve the socio-economic conditions of people and has taken a number of steps to face the adverse effects of natural calamities with a view to reducing the sufferings of the affected people, reports BSS, Rajshahi.
