LIRLAP Stakeholder Workshops in Thailand and Vietnam

On 16 and 22 July 2021, the IRPUD project LIRLAP (Linking Disaster Risk Governance and Land-use Planning: The Case of Informal Settlements in Hazard Prone Areas in the Philippines) held its first online stakeholder workshops in Thailand and Vietnam. The aim was to present the project and future joint work steps in the two new partner countries of the research and development phase (2021-2025) of the BMBF-funded project and to discuss the following topics with the stakeholders:

• How are disaster risk, climate change adaptation and urban planning linked in Thailand and Vietnam?
• How does the government deal with informal settlements and where are they focussed?
• What options and strategies for on-site urban upgrading or resettlement are currently being pursued and where are the problems?

The 30 to 50 participants, each consisting of representatives from authorities, ministries and NGOs from Thailand and Vietnam, discussed in detail with the project partners from the Research Unit in Urban Futures at the Thammasat University and Policy in Bangkok and the Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA), as well as the LIRLAP partners from the School of Urban and Regional Planning, University of the Philippines (SURP), the Institute for Spatial Planning and Development Planning of the University of Stuttgart and the Teaching and Research Unit Human-Environment Relations of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich discussed the issues of disaster risk, climate change adaptation and urban planning. This was discussed especially in relation to informal settlements and poorer sections of the population. Other topics were how the next planned steps will be implemented in concrete terms. The first steps were also taken towards mainstreaming and the cross-national exchange of experience. Another focus was the planned PhD programme of the faculty with SURP and training programmes for local planners.

Followed by the workshops conducted by LIRLAP partner Thailand and Vietnam in July, LIRLAP held online workshops in November 2021 on two separate days for the individual work packages (WP). The workshop purpose of WP2 Resilient Upgrading was to disseminate intermittent research results and validate its current research findings. Two themes are selected for this purpose:

1) alternative land and housing tenure to promote on-site upgrading; and
2) land readjustment as a potential for citywide upgrading.

Participants were also resource persons from Quezon City and Social Housing Finance Corporation, who have been working on issues of housing and public service for the urban poor.
On the same workshop day, WP3 Resilient Retreat focused on different typologies of resettlement, reflected from previous resettlement projects in the Philippines. Also, WP3 discussed fieldwork survey, to be conducted early next year. Resource persons from Quezon and Valenzuela City government and Social Housing Finance Corporation were able to demonstrate their current housing development policies and considerations on alternative tenurial instruments. For WP5 Capacity Building, Prof. Magnaye Prof. Yap from SURP and Dr. Wolfgang Scholz from IRPUD, TU Dortmund announced the updates in the training programs for early 2022 and progress in the development of the Dual PhD program.

LIRLAP Research Profile