Using the SECURe framework to scale urban living labs

Rapid urban development in low- and middle-income countries drives the accumulation of climate risk globally and will continue to do so over the coming decades.

'Expert'-led, risk-informed planning have proven to be ineffectual. Urban living labs (ULLs) offer a promising alternative, but to effectively build resilience and scale up impact, they must be informed by a context-specific understanding of what drives decision making, planning and development investments.

This briefing presents the Strengthening and Enhancing Contextual Urban Resilience (SECURe) approach — a structured framework that underscores the importance of accounting for institutional, cultural and physical drivers of urban development.

It outlines how researchers and practitioners can use SECURe to inform the design of ULLs for urban resilience and calls on researchers, practitioners and funders to integrate the SECURe philosophy in all their urban resilience interventions and investments.