Speaker
Description
Enhancing urban water resilience is a key challenge for climate change adaptation. Cities worldwide are implementing strategies to address increasing threats such as flooding, drought, and water scarcity. These efforts depend on local community engagement, alignment with national policies, and financial support from international donors. At the same time, national governments and donors rely on cities for the implementation of these strategies. These interdependencies, fundamental to polycentric governance, require effective coordination among governmental and non-governmental actors. Coordination in multilevel governance balances top-down, state-centric approaches with bottom-up, governance-focused models. While top-down approaches emphasize hierarchy, bottom-up approaches highlight local, networked solutions. Striking a balance between input legitimacy (participation) and output legitimacy (effectiveness) is essential. Bottom-up models promote innovation and scalability, which are key for addressing complex environmental issues like urban water resilience. Furthermore, the institutional settings and structures within which multilevel governance processes operate are crucial, as they shape the interactions and decision-making processes across different levels of government and stakeholders, influencing the overall effectiveness of resilience strategies.
Building on Dieperink et al. (2018), who identified six key mechanisms for multilevel governance coordination—(1) policy entrepreneurship, (2) bridging concepts, (3) clarity about rules, (4) financial resources/funding, (5) governmental hierarchy, and (6) coordinating bodies—this paper first develops a typology of actionable strategies that stakeholders in urban water resilience initiatives can apply to improve coordination across government levels. Secondly, the use of such strategies in the Water as Leverage (WaL) programme is discussed. Launched in 2017 by Henk Ovink, then the Special Envoy for Water Affairs of the Netherlands – and drawing inspiration from the Rebuild by Design competition developed in response to Hurricane Sandy’s devastating impact on the U.S. Eastern coast, Water as Leverage (WaL) tackles water and climate challenges with innovative and inclusive solutions. The first WaL programme for Resilient Cities Asia has expanded globally with initiatives in Cartagena (Colombia), the Wadden Sea (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands), Nakuru (Kenya), and ongoing projects in India, Indonesia, and Thailand. This paper zooms in on the WaL projects in Cartagena and Chennai. It is shown that WaL developed strategies to bridge the gap between local users and donor agencies, and secure funding throughout the project cycle. WaL advocates early procurement strategies, pilot projects, and workshops to manage financial risks. As an example, in Cartagena, the WaL team engaged funding agencies from the outset. Representatives from Invest International were included in the Advisory Board to ensure that projects met investment criteria. By aligning local projects with funding agency requirements from the start, the WaL team secured funding and support. This early collaboration facilitated the design of projects that met financial and policy criteria, fostering collaboration through local design and policy-finance workshops. In Chennai, water challenges were addressed through pilot projects using Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), moving beyond traditional siloed approaches. Collaboration between local actors and international experts fostered shared understanding, cross-scale connections, and innovation. These pilots provided proof of concept and insights, catalysing upscaling efforts, sustaining the WaL movement’s momentum, and inspiring further achievements.
While the WaL programme has contributed to advancing multilevel governance for urban water resilience, findings indicate that the process is ongoing and complex. Enhancing multilevel governance is a challenging and iterative process. However, the coordination mechanisms and strategies outlined in this paper can serve as a resource for stakeholders involved in urban water resilience initiatives, offering inspiration and practical guidance for improving multilevel coordination.
References
Dieperink, C., Mees, H., Priest, S. J., Ek, K., Bruzzone, S., Larrue, C., & Matczak, P. (2018). Managing urban flood resilience as a multilevel governance challenge. Ecology and Society, 23(1).
| Keywords | Multilevel governance; institutions; water resilience; Water as Leverage; coordination strategies. |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
