Community-driven coalition to create a climate-resilient and inclusive Bengaluru

Bengaluru: Citizens, civil society practitioners and academia have come together to launch ‘Ellara Bengaluru’,a community-driven coalition that will create initiatives to build a climate-resilient and inclusive Bengaluru city.

The coalition will work on enabling people across all wards to be fully equipped to tackle various economic and livelihood challenges caused by growing climate adversities. The initiative has been backed and supported by Mahila Housing Trust. Ellara Bengaluru sets its inaugural footprint in the heart of the city: Shantinagar ward 166.

The coalition brings together close to 20 organizations that are working in the same geography or on similar issues. This includes Janaagraha, Biome Environmental Trust, Hasiru Dala,Selco Foundation, Socratus, Bengaluru Moving, INDE, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, LabourNet, WRI India and Sensing Local, among others.

Each organization will bring its own functional expertise and create ward-level factsheets that will tailor comprehensive data tools, which in turn will be used in working on ward-level reforms. These factsheets will capture critical socio-economic, and infrastructural data, and environmental parameters that will help facilitate development actions at a ward level.

Speaking on the importance of this coalition, Bijal Brahmbatt, Executive Director of the Mahila Housing Trust said that this coalition is bringing together the voices of the vulnerable and is intersecting it with concepts of urban development and climate resilience. “With increasing urbanization, and the climate becoming a big issue, climate plans are still made separately and not integrated with the actual urban development plans in cities. We are trying to bring together these two sects of voices through this coalition,” Brahmbatt added.

The coalition envisions working towards an approach that supports grassroots approaches to integrating principles of climate change and disaster management as well.

The campaign plans to cut across key thematic urban issues, including water and sanitation, solid waste management, health and nutrition, environment, energy, mobility, public spaces, and livelihood. Climate change -resilient urban housing for the vulnerable, associated disaster management, sanitation and WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) will be the initial focal themes for action.

Bengaluru has seen its population increasingly multiply over the past two decades with an influx of people arriving in the city to pursue employment and educational opportunities. These factors, coupled with the adversities associated with global climate change and growing urbanization, have created multiple urban bottlenecks like rainwater flooding, sanitation, waste management, increase in average ambient temperatures, among other issues.

Policymakers across the globe relentlessly stress the fact that climate change and issues of inequality are deeply connected and cannot be dealt with in isolation. The poorest in the country who depend on outdoor and manual work, and children and women are comparatively more vulnerable to ghastly impacts of climate change.

Ellara Bengaluru, a name that identifies not only the Kannada identity but also resonates with the inclusive spirit of the forum, aims to take this city climate action plan across the ward level.

The coalition plans to engage nodal officers on climate actions to gather inputs from the local communities and incorporate these learnings into the overall framework. Ellara Bengaluru aims to eradicate these inequalities and create more equitable living conditions by empowering the urban poor and vulnerable communities living in Bengaluru.

With the urban landscape continuously changing, it’s important for the representation of the informal sector; and having actively worked with this sector it becomes crucial for us as an organization to represent this section, Akbar A, Director Programme Design at Hasiru Dala, a partner with Ellara Bengaluru. “Bengaluru has a lot of NGOs working on different things, hence it is important that all these collectives come together and work on their areas of expertise,” he added.

The consortium will also include political representatives, city administrators, and city-level service providers.

The framework introduced by Ellara Bengaluru will seamlessly integrate into the workings of the city and shall continue to improve and evolve in parallel to the city’s growth and development.