IIHS announces joint programme with UNDP on Building Resilience through Integrated Development Practice

IIHS announces joint programme with UNDP on Building Resilience through Integrated Development Practice

Patna: The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) in association with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is conducting a short course on Building Resilience through Integrated Development Practice. This is the first time in the country that such a course has been conducted. The course focuses on an integrated understanding of planning interventions that reduce the vulnerability of people, built assets and natural assets, to climate and disaster risks. The first cycle was on 18–23 November 2013, which was attended by planners, policymakers and practitioners from the state government and other agencies from Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The second iteration of the course will be held from 9 to 14 December 2013 at the IIHS City Campus, Bangalore.

The course will be taught by leading international and national experts in this field. The faculty includes Aromar Revi, Director, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Seeta Prabhu, Former Head of UNDP’s Human Development Resource Centre, G. Padmanabhan, Officer in Charge DM Unit, UNDP,  Sumetee Pahwa Gajjar, Gautam Bhan and Neha Sami, Faculty at IIHS , Amir Bazaz, Faculty at Symbiosis School of Economics (Pune).

When disasters occur, their impact is deeper on communities and households with low human development, impacting their ability or rate of recovery, or exacerbating their susceptibility to risk. Current planning approaches to development, climate change and disaster management often overlook the magnitude of damage certain populations face because of their continuing vulnerability. Development plans often focus on large, infrastructure-led projects, and tend to exclude vulnerable groups from decision-making processes. Climate change concerns are a recent addition to the planning portfolio of state governments in India, and are yet to be mainstreamed.  The emphasis of disaster risk reduction has been on large, relatively low frequency catastrophic events. Furthermore, small, everyday risks are often as significant as larger, more intense events, since they play a key role in the persistence of vulnerability.

This course aims to equip practitioners to build resilience through the integration of Climate Change Adaption (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) practice with a human development focus. The objective is to design and implement CCA, DRR and development plans, policies and programmes across different sectors and scales such that they reduce the vulnerability of people, assets (natural and built) and businesses to climate and disaster risks.

Application to this course is open to all interested individuals and will be most relevant for professionals from State Governments and Urban Local Bodies; public and private sector practitioners, NGOs and research institutes.

About IIHS

The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is a national education institution committed to the equitable, sustainable and efficient transformation of Indian settlements. IIHS is India’s first prospective independently funded and managed inter-disciplinary National University for Research and Innovation that focuses on its ongoing urban and development transformation. It is a first-of-its-kind, practice and innovation-oriented knowledge institution that seeks to bridge the conventional excellence, scale and inclusion divide. For more information, see www.iihs.co.in.