Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 sets out the ambition to make cities and communities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable by 2030. However, with increasing rates of urbanisation, the challenges are mounting: from urban air pollution to waste management and increased disaster risks due to climate change. Engineering is uniquely positioned to tackle these cross-cutting and dynamic challenges – and the Frontiers network is operating across sectors worldwide to achieve SDG 11.
Case study
Climate-resilient infrastructure
Flooding is a growing risk, especially for vulnerable and low-resource areas. In Ghana, for instance, flooding destroyed over 6,000 houses across the northern region of the country in 2019. The homes were mostly constructed with earth-based materials, which disintegrate in the presence of water.
With funding from the Frontiers programme, Ana Bras worked with her project team to increase local resilience. The project aimed to better understand local flooding incidence, available materials and community needs to develop adaptive solutions. It developed a new alternative, bio-based construction material that used locally available supplies and could withstand contact with water. Furthermore, Ana’s project advanced local capacity by including community members in consultations and sharing innovative techniques to create and use the new material. Although this project is ongoing, it has bolstered the resilience of homes in Northern Ghana, created job opportunities, and helped mitigate the impacts of climate change in the long term.
Insights
Building resilience
Participants of the Frontiers ‘Resilient resource use’ symposium came together to discuss solutions that build a more sustainable world. As it stands now, resource use exceeds the planet’s capacity; it would take more than eight planet Earths to sustain current patterns of use. To re-imagine and re-engineer a world where life survives and thrives, there needs to be a balance between consumption to support human life and the restraints of the Earth’s resources. Together, the Frontiers community surfaced key insights:
“We are merely custodians. We have a fiduciary responsibility. We have to ensure the way we use [resources] should make this planet better than when we inherited it.” – Professor Rajendra Gupta, Frontiers Resilient Resource Use Symposium chair
- Inclusivity is critical to building sustainable communities. To better address the problems of a community, while also developing diverse and effective solutions, all community members must be included. Gender norms, for example, can play a significant part in how people use resources, so viewing interventions through a gender-aware lens can help to create more sustainable solutions.
- Multidisciplinary collaboration can help bring together policymakers and people to build resilience ethically. Social sciences and creative fields, for instance, can open dialogue between different groups.
- Natural resources are interlinked. To use them in a resilient way means adopting holistic approaches to their preservation and protection.
- Finance can be leveraged to increase environmental sustainability and encourage climate action. Reducing investments in non-renewable energy sources and carbon credits are some of the most prevalent examples.
- To build inclusivity in economic resources, local and regional cultures must be understood by external actors.The economy is a product of social interactions and regulations. Therefore, it manifests in different ways between different cultures.
Smart and inclusive communities
Coming together for the ‘Smart Communities’ symposium, participants discussed ideas about what makes a smart and sustainable community and how to deliver innovations to remote and low-resource contexts. Achieving sustainable development is a complex task – one that requires innovative, multidisciplinary solutions. It must reach those most vulnerable while also building resilience for the future. Smart communities bridge these challenges, delivering innovative, sustainable solutions that can adapt to different local settings. However, they must be developed with local populations to build long-term resilience. The Frontiers community surfaced several key insights:
- A critical part of building sustainable communities is making infrastructure resilient and sustainable. This can be an expensive task that is deprioritised when resources are limited. However, technology has the potential to create more affordable infrastructure systems. New designs must also consider long-term needs and be flexible to changing contexts.
- Technology can enable participation and inclusion, but it can be a barrier if not designed with a people-centric approach. Solutions must be affordable and culturally acceptable for the people they have been designed for. Including them in from the planning process to execution can help ensure success.
- Ethics are essential as the use of technology grows worldwide. Researchers, engineers, and others working with data must consider ethical issues like privacy, commodification and the impacts on local communities before beginning new projects.
“Smart communities should still revolve around enhancing livelihoods. If people are hungry or poor, no development happens.” – Dr Ashok Das, Frontiers Smart Communities symposium chair
SDG 11 in action
Disaster risk reduction, a key part of SDG 11, means not only understanding the hazards a community may face, but also requires local community inclusion. Local knowledge is critical to ensuring that disaster mitigation and prevention plans are sustainable, feasible and appropriate. Dr Zakir Hossain demonstrated the value of collaboration between engineers and communities at the ‘Disaster resilience’ Symposium.
In Bangladesh, he worked with local communities to build resilience to cyclones. Specifically, houses in low-income regions were previously made from tin sheets that could not withstand heavy rain and winds. These sheets were also dangerous in cyclone conditions as they can act like shrapnel when broken. Dr Zakir and his team collaborated with community members to develop green infrastructure that used indigenous techniques such as fortifying walls with locally available plants. As a result, local resilience to disasters was improved.
Resources
Sustainability cuts across many SDGs, including SDG 11. Although it can have different meanings to different groups, it is often central to research projects that tackle global challenges. To achieve goals and help improve the inclusivity, resilience and safety of communities, researchers must also be able to maintain their projects long term. The Frontiers community has surfaced the following tools and tips during their work to improve sustainability:
- Include the community as collaborators from the beginning and ensure their informed agreement with the solutions proposed.
- Creating jobs and opportunities for local communities is important for the sustainability of a project.
- Encourage a variety of skills and backgrounds among collaborators. Employ a multidisciplinary approach to make the most of a wide array of capabilities.
- Understand methods to improve environmental sustainability. The principles of biomimicry – using models or systems from nature to solve complex problems – for instance, can help minimise impacts.