A Workbook on Planning for Urban Resilience in the Face of Disasters : Adapting Experiences from Vietnam’s Cities to Other Cities

This workbook is intended to help policy
makers in developing countries plan for a safer future in
urban areas in the face of natural disasters and the
consequences of climate change. It is based on the
experiences of three cities in Vietnam, Can Tho, Dong Hoi,
and Hanoi, that worked with international and local experts
under World Bank supervision to develop local resilience
action plans (LRAPs) in 2009-10. An LRAP is a detailed
planning document that reflects local concerns and
priorities based on the experiences of the past and
projections for the future. It is not a wish list of
projects that may never be completed because they are too
costly or lack political support. Rather, it should be a
realistic document that describes and establishes priorities
for specific steps that can be undertaken in the near term
to adapt to both climate related and other hazards.
Regardless of their size, location, political orientation,
or technical capacity, other cities can learn from the
experiences of these pilot cities to develop their own
LRAPs. The purpose of this workbook is to adapt the initial
experiences of Can Tho, Dong Hoi, and Hanoi to benefit the
national government and other communities in Vietnam and
beyond. Indeed, the process described in this workbook was
later adopted in the cities of Iloilo, the Philippines;
Ningbo, China; and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and the concluding
chapter of this workbook draws on some of the lessons
learned in these cities. However, the workbook, while
generalizable to other contexts, largely reflects the
Vietnamese experience.