Ten projects receive funding for research into climate change resilience

Ten organisations have been selected to receive funding for research into helping Asian cities adapt to climate change, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has announced.

News, 03 October 2014
Prolonged flooding in Vietnam in 2011 left thousands homeless and exposed to health risks. The research projects will focus on building resilience to climate change (Photo: EU/ECHO)

Prolonged flooding in Vietnam in 2011 left thousands homeless and exposed to health risks. The research projects will focus on building resilience to climate change (Photo: EU/ECHO) 

The funding into how to adapt to climate change is part of IIED's work with the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Funding applications were open to individuals and research institutions based in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. IIED was looking for projects with a particular focus on either health and climate change in cities, or sanitation and urban services in the context of climate change. A total of US$200,000 was available. 

These are the ten projects that have received funding:

Bangladesh

  • Improving multi-stakeholder collaboration for water and sanitation sector to contribute to positive impact on urban climate resilience in Bangladesh – Habitat for Humanity, Bangladesh
  • Impacts of climate change on urban utility services: bringing resilience to a coastal urban centre of Bangladesh – ICCCAD, Dhaka

India

Indonesia

The Philippines

Vietnam

  • Addressing institutional challenges in the water supply sector in response to urban growth and climate change adaptation – ISET Vietnam, Hanoi

Thailand

IIED will work with researchers to ensure that the knowledge and evidence is produced and disseminated in various forms including working papers, policy briefs and peer-reviewed journal articles. The aim is to inform key stakeholders at the local, national and international level.

108 proposals submitted

Diane Archer, of IIED's Human Settlements Group, said the organisation had received a total of 108 proposals covering a wide variety of topics and cities in the specified countries.

She said: "Given the very large response, we were invariably unable to fund all of the proposals which we would have liked to."

In assessing the proposals, IIED applied the following criteria:

  • Relevance of the topic in helping to build resilience to climate change
  • Quality of the research questions proposed
  • Appropriateness of the outputs proposed
  • Ensuring a spread of topics, cities and organisations funded.

Archer added: "We look forward to working with the research teams over the next six months and seeing the results of their research."

ACCCRN is an eight-year, multi-country initiative, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which seeks to build the capacity of cities to plan for and implement actions to increase their resilience to climate change. As a regional partner within ACCCRN, IIED's role is to contribute to and strengthen the body of knowledge that informs urban climate change resilience.