Today, over 54 percent of the global population resides in urban areas. Migration to the urban areas is expected to continue, and it is projected that the world’s urban population will grow to 66 percent by 2050 (World Urbanization Prospects 2014 Revision, United Nations).

Similar trend is observed in Indonesia, where urban residents have been increasing at an average annual rate of 4.1 percent, thereby stressing the infrastructure of the cities. Often, inadequate infrastructure leaves many communities without basic services and vulnerable to natural disasters, which may cause significant losses to lives and livelihoods.

Indonesia has unique experience of upgrading housing and slum environment with active community engagements that integrated resilience aspect. George Soraya, Lead Municipal Engineer of the World Bank, who have assisted the program over 15 years, delivered a lecture presenting this unique approach in Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s training program on "Improvement and Disaster Prevention of Housing and Living Environments" on October 13, 2016.

This collaboration over the training opportunities was built on successful collaborations last year. The World Bank Disaster Risk Management Hub, Tokyo connects the relevant experience in Indonesia to address the challenges and lessons that wider peers can learn.

Following the lecture, the participants actively discussed the challenges their countries faces and exchanged views among participants referring Indonesia and other cases, in line with the concept of JICA training program – "Knowledge Co-Creation".