This paper considers who within the urban population of Latin America is most at risk from the likely impacts of climate change over the next few decades. It also considers how this risk is linked to poverty and to the inadequacies in city and municipal governments. It discusses those who live or work in locations most at risk (including those lacking the needed infrastructure); those who lack knowledge and capacity to adapt; those whose homes and neighbourhoods face the greatest risks when impacts occur; and those who are least able to cope with the impacts (for instance, from injury, death and loss of property and income). Adaptation to climate change cannot eliminate many of the extreme weather risks, so it needs to limit their impacts through good disaster preparedness and postdisaster response. This paper also discusses the measures currently underway that address the vulnerability of urban populations to extreme weather, and how these measures can contribute to building resilience to the impacts of climate change.

It is widely acknowledged that disaster risk reduction is a development issue best addressed locally with community involvement, as an integral part of local development. Yet there are many constraints and realities that complicate the attainment of this ideal. This paper reviews the experience in disaster risk reduction in a range of cities, including Manizales, Colombia, which has integrated risk reduction into its development plan and its urban environmental management. The city government has also established an insurance programme for buildings that provides coverage for low-income households. The paper further describes and discusses the experiences of other city governments, including those of Santa Fe in Argentina and Medellín in Colombia. It emphasizes how, in order to be effective, disaster risk reduction has to be driven locally and must include the involvement of communities at risk as well as local governments. It also has to be integrated into development and land use management. But the paper emphasizes how these key local processes need support from higher levels of government and, very often, inter-municipal cooperation. Political or administrative boundaries seldom coincide with the areas where risk reduction needs to be planned and implemented. The paper also includes some discussion of innovations in national systems and funds to support local disaster risk reduction. KEYWORDS development / local risk reduction / urban areas I. THE LOCAL NATURE OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTIONDisasters materialize at the local level: lives and livelihoods are lost, houses and infrastructure are damaged and destroyed, and health and education are compromised. Vulnerability and hazards interact, generating specific risk conditions that are socially and geographically specific, dynamic and in constant flux.(1) Risk management also becomes possible at the local level, precisely because risk conditions are specific to time and place. There is a widespread consensus that risks and disasters are part of the development problem, that risks are a function of human activity and responses, and that risk reduction should be addressed locally (at the local scale and with local actors) together with issues of environmental degradation, participation, accountability and access, all of which underpin vulnerability.Increasingly, disaster risk reduction is understood as being an integral part of local development. Most issues of land use management, regulation and provision of services and infrastructure fall on local governments. These responsibilities include zoning, ensuring the availability of sufficient

Over the last 10–15 years, there has been a heated debate about the ability of private companies to provide adequate water and sanitation services to low-income households and their neighbourhoods. There have been a few successful examples of private provision to low-income areas but it has generally not proved possible to replicate these. This paper considers how sparsely populated, low-income and largely unserved urban settlements might obtain full coverage of formal water and sanitation networks under a private concession contract, drawing on the case study of Moreno municipality in Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. The paper describes an initiative implemented by IIED–América Latina that seeks to address deficiencies in water and sanitation provision through partnership-based management, a participatory process whereby different types of actors collaborate with each other, bringing their own particular strengths. Through awareness-raising and a participatory assessment of water and sanitation provision in the municipality, a local partnership-based management unit was formed. It is hoped that this will be institutionalized into a local water authority. Given that extending conventional water and sewerage services to the many unserved settlements is unrealistic in the short term, the paper suggests that providing both water and sanitation services to the poorest areas like Moreno is likely to happen only if all the actors involved – the public sector, private company, regulator, NGOs and communities – are committed to working together towards a solution.

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