Urban Environment

Today, half of the world’s population lives in cities which is projected rise up to 60 percent by 2030. At the same time, a growing number of conflicts and disasters affect urban settings, with cities becoming increasingly vulnerable towards effects of extreme weather events, earthquakes and epidemics.

When taking a closer look at the current process of urbanization, it becomes apparent that over the past forty years, the urban population in lower income and fragile countries has increased by 326 percent¹.

In such a context, it is not surprising that coming crises have a high probability of taking place in urban settings. This means that humanitarian actors will be increasingly working in urban contexts which could be prone to violence and disasters. In such contexts, public authorities often have difficulty delivering basic services, security and welfare.

When operating in an urban setting, humanitarian programming must take the environmental dimension into account:

• In densely populated areas, environmental disasters such as heavy rains and floods will tend to affect a far higher number of people
• Poor infrastructure will tend to reenforce effects of natural disasters, such as floods after heavy rains in case of non-existing or poor drainage systems
• Epidemics will spread much faster
• Urban population depend to a very higher degree of functioning supply and demand schemes for food and non-food items (NFIs)
  • If these are disrupted the lack of access to alternative means of food production might lead quickly to food insecurity
• Urban settings do not always have a large amount of natural resources that could be exploited by affected populations

This page is under development, more guidance will be added soon. In the meanwhile, please refer to the guidance under the preparedness and crisis response and recovery sections.