Sorsogon, November 14 2010 — The Climate Change Project in Sorsogon City goes full steam ahead as the city gears up for the review of its Comprehensive Land use Plan (CLUP) and Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) with the aim of updating and enhancing them considering the impacts of climate change. The UN-HABITAT Team was composed of the following: Laids Mias Mamonong (Project Coordinator), Warren Ubongen (Shelter/DRR Specialist), Lara Togonon (Environmental Management Specialist), Malou Mendoza (Livelihood Specialist) and Cris Rollo (Knowledge Management Specialist).
The team met with the Sorsogon City Team led by City Mayor Leovic Dioneda on November 14, 2010. In support the capacity development of the city as integral to the partnership between UN-HABITAT and the city government, the specialists will contribute to the work on enhancing the city planning process.
The Mayor shared with the team that because of his experience in the CCCI Changwon meeting, the city is now planning to organize a Bicol Region LGU forum on climate change that will facilitate the sharing of the city experiences and learnings from MDGF/CCCI processes. The event is planned on December 2010 to coincide with the Sorsogon Festival.
Following the discussions with the TWG/IWG, a whole day meeting on the CLUP/CDP enhancement was conducted with the Local Planning Team composed of the different City Department Heads and other stakeholders to discuss the forthcoming CLUP review. Engineer Honore, the city CC Project Coordinator, updated the body on the project status. The city climate change resilience initiative is now mainstreaming the vulnerability and adaptation assessment (V&AA) findings into the city planning systems through actions in developing quick wins on CC adaptation.
The mission presented the highlights of the shelter strategy and workshops results which the city already developed but still lacks the operations plan. It was agreed that the city will deliver the operations plan prior to the CLUP/CDP workshop with the leadership of the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) and the Urban Poor and Cultural Affairs Office (UPCAO).
The DILG representative (province) shared the current guidelines for LGUs in local planning. Amillah Rodil shared the overview of CC/DRR mainstreaming in the CLUP/CDP aimed at enhancing the spatial and sectoral strategies that should consider both the negative impacts of CC and other natural disasters and the new opportunities that could arise from the changed climate scenario. The process will involve 3 workshops with in- between assignments for sectoral teams prior to each workshop.
The UN-HABITAT team of experts also conducted a barangay action planning workshop with the community leaders of Barangay Sirangan. The community action planning/meeting took off from the results of previous focus group discussions and the baseline survey. Taking off from the results of the two activities and considering CC projected impacts, the community identified and prioritized their issues. The activity resulted in the development of barangay climate change action plans for the following priority areas: (1) House Stucture Improvement, (2) Alternative Livelihood Development, (3) Improvement of Water and Sanitation Access. A visit of the identified hotspot priority barangays, also the demonstration projects sites, familiarized the team of the local context.
Written by: Cris Rollo, UN-HABITAT Philippines
