Humanitarian crises increasingly play out in urban settings: some 85 percent of the 21 countries that have received the most humanitarian aid in the last three years have some of the highest global urbanization rates. While urban conflict can cause high levels of morbidity and can decimate basic services, urban settings can also offer hope and opportunity in crisis situations. The majority of internally displaced people and refugees seek sanctuary in towns and cities whose populations, institutions and infrastructure provide opportunities in the form of work, schooling and basic services.
Humanitarian response in urban settings will look very different to traditional rural operations, but the humanitarian system not yet fully come to terms with this new reality. We need to 'Think Urban' if we want to prevent, prepare and respond better to humanitarian crises now and in the future. In his report "One Humanity: Shared Responsibility" the Secretary-General called for leaders across the spectrum to work differently to end need'. This is what the Global Alliance for Urban Crises, to be launched at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, intends to do. Bringing together over 30 organizations including local governments, humanitarian, development, and urban professionals its global ambition to better serve victims and survivors in towns and cities undergoing humanitarian crises.
Urbanization, and its intersection with climate change, conflict and displacement, challenges our usual ways of working. Urban areas are characterized by high-density, heterogeneous communities. In contrast to rural areas, urban inhabitants are more mobile and their social, political, economic and institutional environment is more complex, as is their built environment. Urban inhabitants are also reliant on a range of interconnected systems and infrastructure to support their daily lives and livelihoods, such as road networks, public transport, water, sanitation, and markets, and most important; local governance institutions.
Humanitarian agencies have traditionally responded to floods, famines and refugee movements in remote rural areas and are still at the nascent stage of realizing that the traditional focus on counting the needs of affected families and translating those into aid packages to be delivered, does not work well in urban areas. Humanitarians must work as much as possible with local governments and ensure that these and other local actors - civil society, the judiciary, the private sector - have central roles in crisis response. Humanitarian agencies should concentrate on restoring or bolstering existing city systems, rather than creating parallel services or providing short-term, unsustainable solutions such as water trucking to meet the needs of affected populations. Maintaining electricity supply, collecting garbage, increasing and diversifying housing solutions are often critical interventions that prevent further worsening of crisis conditions and can help to reduce needs and build stability. The focus on shifting to delivering cash rather than goods across the humanitarian sector is a step in the right direction in urban response, but needs to be accompanied with measures to get local business back up and running where they have been severely disrupted.
Getting the humanitarian response right is one key task, while strengthening urban resilience is another. Urban areas across the globe are becoming more prone to risk as a result of a number of factors, including poor planning, rapid population growth and climate change. Many of the world's fastest growing cities are in fragile settings, where their growth is fuelled by displacement due to climate change conflict, or opportunistic development patterns. These towns and cities are often characterized by poor governance and planning, weak rule of law and a low economic base. Juba, the capital of South-Sudan, doubled in size in the five years following the end of the civil war in 2005. In such a setting, a holistic response approach which brings together humanitarian and development solutions is needed.
One of the key opportunities that urban response brings is the ability to provide immediate humanitarian relief while also strengthening urban resilience. Crisis response offers concrete opportunities to put towns and cities on a more resilient and sustainable urban growth trajectory by for instance, incorporating urban planning approaches or 'build back better' solutions into decision-making from the get-go.
The need for better urban solutions is critical, particularly as the world faces the largest displaced population since following the Second World War, most of these people seeking haven in towns and cities. Given displacement will inevitably be protracted and can even last several generations, communities hosting displaced people can experience the fallout from the increased pressure on, and competition for, scarce basic services, housing and jobs. This can create social tensions. Addressing this must be fully integrated into any urban response, including humanitarian and development operations as well as urban growth strategies. Serving the urban displaced and their host communities is as much a development issue as it is a humanitarian challenge.
At the World Humanitarian Summit, we will launch the Global Alliance for Urban Crises, which represents the start of larger, global movement, mobilizing the necessary forces to make a difference at scale. The Alliance will call for support to a number of core commitments. Among these include an Urban Crisis Charter, which aims to mobilise all groups committed to work together to enable urban societies to prepare for, cope with and recover more quickly from the effects of humanitarian crises; and an Action Agenda, that aims to develop medium-term innovative approaches that better address the complexity of urban crisis management.
Following the Summit, the New Urban Agenda, being negotiated by Member States and adopted at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development in Quito (Ecuador, 17 - 20 October 2016), offers a great opportunity to ensure we "Leave No City Behind". A collective effort is needed so that even the most at-risk cities or cities in crises can be put back on track to become 'inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable'.
