As climate change induced risks intersect with unprecedented urbanisation, the implications on livelihoods and health of urban poor in the Global South are immense. Interventions target either the household and or the state/city-region. While the former is insufficient to engage with externalities of livelihoods and resource access, the latter is too abstract an arena for action. “Community Commons” or shared spaces within settlements constitute critical spaces to evolve resilience strategies that can attenuate socio-spatial deprivations of the urban poor.

The commons experience multiple intersecting risks. By extension, these spaces also embody the potential to address these risks. The research attempts to comprehend the myriad ways in which these spaces accommodate individual and community living to position these as critical elements of adaptation and mitigation.

Check out the highlights of this research in the ArcGIS StoryMaps below. https://arcg.is/0f1fSz

The research employs a co-creation process. Bringing together CBOs, researchers, and policy and planning professionals it foregrounds ground-up perspectives, informing the formal top-down climate action. The research outlines geographically and socio-culturally contextual adaptation / mitigation strategies to strengthen the commons as social, economic, and environmental spaces.

The case-studies represent varying geographic and cultural contexts such as the urban poor settlements in Dharwad, Ranchi, and Bengaluru in the Indian context, Moravia (Colombia), and settlements in South Africa. The project is supported by the ARA Micro-grants (Adaptation Research Alliance) and our partners are Plan Adapt (South Africa), URBAM (Colombia), and Mahila Housing Trust (India).