Risks and Responses to Urban Futures: Building synergies between urban development processes and peri-urban communities for enhanced ecosystem service

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Our vision is of a world in which diverse peri-urban residents recognise the value of ecosystem services (ES), are able to identify potentially destructive pathways which erode these ES and work with stakeholders (e.g. civil society organisations, policy makers and regulators) to develop constructive pathways that protect ES and help lift people out of poverty.

Our project involves impact activities at three interacting levels: 1) peri-urban communities in the vicinity of Delhi, 2) building on our Delhi case study, national policies of direct relevance to other Indian cities, and 3) a south Asia regional network. In each case we draw on established contacts and extensive experience within the research team.

We aim to provide an evidence base and analytical tools that will support greater coherence across the policy streams of environment, health, agriculture and development, to achieve poverty alleviation and urban development goals while the long term sustainability of ES is maximised. Our focus is on building epistemic communities and ES-conscious policy makers, rather than directly tackling vested political and economic interests. The overall goal is, nonetheless, that these activities continue after the research funding ceases, with community representatives, researchers and intermediary organisations skilled and knowledgeable enough to engage in on-going impact initiatives.

Our primary target beneficiaries are poor communities dependent on peri-urban ES, whilst secondary beneficiaries include local political actors, national and regional policy makers, government service providers (e.g. water, agriculture) and health/environment NGOs. Our theory of change, to be developed at the inaugural workshop, starts with the assumption that excellent science needs to address local concerns, engage the most affected people and translate these concerns into policy relevant findings, linking science, practice and policy.

We will engage with peri-urban communities and stakeholders (government officials, policy makers, NGO workers, environmental activists) from the onset. We will utilise participatory approaches throughout including community participatory mapping and impact pathways analysis, in conjunction with a programme of community meetings, workshops, training sessions and policy dialogues. We will engage in dialogue with stakeholders using the maps of ES flows from our spatial analyses, using these visual tools as a way of engaging in discussions about different strategies and policies for peri-urban ES and livelihoods. In addition to identifying specific local interventions to protect ES with the communities involved in Delhi, we will explore specific entry points and processes for local and national policy interventions. In order to do so, the project will build on different partners' existing relationships and engagements with key policy processes (e.g. IWMI engages with policy makers on urban agriculture, water and urban resource reuse and recycling).

Finally, we will establish a regional south Asia group on peri-urban ES to support development of ES/PA methodologies, identify opportunities to raise awareness of ES and poverty alleviation interactions in city policies and plans for resource management. The group will include representatives from each of the cities participating in peri-urban ES mapping activities (Delhi, Varanasi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Dhaka and Khamandu) and from other relevant national and regional groups including WHO and FAO.

Our range of communication material will include details on the participatory mapping of ES and their values, spatial charts of processes, project newsletters, blogs, as well as academic seminars, conference papers, and peer-reviewed journal articles. A project website will provide a collection of new material, including documents, photos, accounts of café scientific and other meetings, and a central space for on-going discussion.