Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the Urban Poor: Cities Building Resilience for a Changing World

This summary provides an overview of the report on Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the  Urban Poor: Cities Building Resilience for a Changing World. It is part of a broader effort under the Mayors’ Task Force on Climate Change, Disaster Risk and the Urban Poor that was launched at the Mayors’ Summit in Copenhagen in 2009. The Task Force is comprised of the Mayors of Dar es Salaam, Jakarta, Mexico City and São Paulo who have recognized the importance of these issues in their cities and demonstrated strong support. The three key objectives of the Task Force include: i) better understanding the links among climate change, disaster risk and the urban poor; ii) identifying good practice examples where resilience of the urban poor has been improved; and iii) proposing policy and investment programs for scaling up efforts to reduce risk for the urban poor. This World Bank global report, as well as case studies in the four member cities, has been carried out to better understand climate change and disaster risks for the urban poor, and form the basis for developing strategies to address those risks.