Page 17 - Asia Speaks

or their opportunities for participation limited. This includes gender mainstreaming to incorporate women’s narrative is equal to that of men’s in decision- making, as was included in the design of the City Resilience Profiling Tool by UN-Habitat. For example, the earthquake and tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia showed that the female death rate was 30% - 40% higher than the males’ due to factors such as lower-income capacity and literacy.5 Women welfare associations are thus thought to be essential entry points for the implementation of the Community Action Policy tool.6
On the other hand, capacity building for children and youths and empowering them with opportunities to be part of resilience governance or decision-making must be considered in urban resilience planning and implementation. After all, youths are the beneficiaries that will inherit all of the existing systems and their flaws. It is only fair that they are included and empowered in the discourse for solutions.
5 Prashar, S., Shaw, R., & Takeuchi, Y. (2012). Community action planning in East Delhi: a participatory approach to build urban disaster resilience. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 18(4), 429-448. doi:10.1007/s11027-012-9368-4
fact, the human-nature interactions over time, including governance failure and socioeconomic issues that exacerbated the flood. As such, it is the opinion of the author that urban resilience must be viewed from an interdisciplinary and holistic approach with a check and balance system to ensure governance accountability to be effective.
Urban resilience is reliant on human capital; consequently, it is crucial to include marginalised communities and groups as stakeholders in the assessment and analysis of city resilience. This is because a high concentration of marginalised people tends to stay in more vulnerable parts of the cities without the societal safety nets that are otherwise available to privileged groups.
Further, the capacities and abilities of all citizens must be enabled to work together in the disaster risk management and reduction, which cities would not be able to capitalise on if these groups are disempowered
6 Ibid
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