Sustainable Urban Economic Development Programme (SUED) Urban Adaptation: How the UK Government is Working with 12 Intermediary Cities in Kenya to Empower them Against Impacts of Climate Change Context Urbanisation in developing nations provides an opportunity for intentional economic growth that is based on the inter-connectedness of market - oriented growth and sustainable development solutions. As populations rise in their primary cities, emerging secondary (intermediary) cities are expanding to accommodate the increased demand to agglomerate economic opportunities in a sustainable way. As local governments (municipalities and counties) rush to meet the demand, there is a pertinent need to ensure that they do so in a resilient way that enables them to future proof the urban centers with emphasis on climate adaptation and mitigation. In the recent past, Kenyan local governments and institutions have focused on the impact of climate change to determine how they will adapt to its projected effect such as decreased water resources in arid and semi-arid areas with significantly little thought given to how they can proactively utilise varied development methodologies to generate future local adaptation approaches. In developing Kenyan intermediary cities (municipalities) there is an increased sense of responsibility to develop their urban areas in a way that is climate sensitive. This is because predictions show that within urban centers, climate change has the potential to reverse urbanisation and development gains through infrastructure destruction caused by natural disasters. Further, if urban resilience is not prioritised as urban centers develop, there will be a continual economic cost of disasters that will need to be incorporated in municipal budgets greatly hindering their progress in economic development. As such, urban resilience has become a necessary agenda for urban centres’ managers due to its potential to cause socio-economic shocks that may stunt their economic advancement. Urban Centers’ managers need to ensure that their urban climate resilience approaches embrace climate change adaptation, mitigation actions and disaster risk reduction while placing emphasis on the need to create dynamic systems that are responsive to the evolving climatic environment. This is especially true for secondary urban centers’ managers who are for the first time not only dealing with rapid increase in their urban population but a surge in the demand for urban quality and responsive urban services coupled with the lack of funding to put in place adequate planning that will inform their land-use and investment projects. Without a concerted effort being put on making planning decisions, there is a potential to miss out on the need to marry planning for climate change and urban development which will lead to negative economic development outcomes. It is imperative to note that to achieve sustainable urban economic development, the local leadership needs to have in place spatial or development plans mainstreaming climate change that will help them manage the urban development process. If they lack a pathway that incorporates adaptation/mitigation
1|Page