Technology for social well-being: Strengthening urban resilience in developing countries integrating infrastructure, energy, health and social inclusion

Technology for social well-being: Strengthening urban resilience in developing countries integrating infrastructure, energy, health and social inclusion

COVID-19

Current measurement

energy

gender

health

inclusion

infrastructure

Pandemics

Planning

resilience

Sociology

Time measurement

Urban areas

This paper is based on the premise that the principal purpose of science and technological development should be the well-being of society in harmony with environmental sustainability. Vaclav Smil [1] argues “commonly used measures of energy use – be it conversion efficiencies, energy costs, per capita utilization levels, growth rates, consumption elasticity, or output rations – are just helpful indicators of the performance and dynamics of processes whose aim should not be merely to secure basic existential needs or to satisfy assorted consumerist urges but also to enrich intellectual lives and to make us more successful as a social and caring species.” Energy and electricity access and use is valuable not in itself, but for what it enables women and men “to do or achieve” [2]. Grubler studied the history of past energy transitions and identifies ‘grand patterns’, one of which being the critical importance of end-use — consumers and demand – “with technology and the social settings co-evolving, depending on each other” [3]. Feminist studies in science and technology treat technology as a ‘socio-technical’ product and describe the relationship between gender and technology as one of mutual shaping [4]. Gender and development studies put forward the concept of ‘gender mainstreaming’ which has been applied to infrastructure programs, such as energy, transport and digital infrastructure, based on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) approaches. The paper draws from these frameworks. Norbert Wiener considered the resilience of urban centres in preparation for a potential nuclear attack and outlined what he considered to be some key features of urban plans. In the first draft of his urban plan, titled “Civilian Defense Plan”, his central argument is that the atomic bomb has rendered our previous understanding of civil defense obsolete and that “we need to reorganize our cities where they stand” – markets, points for medical supplies, hospitals, transportation, etc [5]. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the inter-relatedness and inter-connections between physical infrastructure, key utilities and services, and economic, health and social outcomes. There is an urgent need to rethink and transform cities to respond to the reality of Covid-19 and potential future pandemics, and to recover better, by building more resilient, inclusive and sustainable cities. International experiences show that cities with similar densities and levels of economic development have fared very differently in their ability to contain Covid-19. This indicates that the strength and duration of impacts of Covid-19 are not solely determined by a city's population density, but also by local capacity and preparedness to deal with such crises, infrastructure and service delivery systems, citizen's trust and confidence in society's institutions and the level of functional responsibilities and resources available to them through decentralized systems. Some of the key lessons for recovery and ‘building back better’ include the importance of an effective health system response, urban and regional planning, physical distancing, city-wide slum upgrading and housing programs, land-use and regulations to regulate hygiene conditions, significantly scaling up the low-carbon energy and infrastructure transition, access to key utilities and services for poor and vulnerable groups such as women, slum and transient populations, people with disabilities and the elderly, social protection, rethinking business supply chains, more resilient and inclusive ICT and digital connectivity and a pressing need to address gender inequality and social exclusion in relation to vulnerabilities. These new challenges require a new approach that integrates governance, physical environment and infrastructure, social environment, economic environment, planning and resourcing for resilience, and gender equality and social inclusion (GESI). The objective of the study was to develop an integrated approach to strengthening urban resilience based on infrastructure, energy and health linkages, with a focus on GESI impacts. Drawing from lessons learned from various connected fields: climate-related disaster programs to designing infrastructure

power and energy systems to incorporate resilience and reliability

universal health coverage and health system strengthening

and the preliminary lessons drawn from the activities undertaken to control the Covid-19 pandemic, a Resilience Assessment Framework has been proposed. The framework is intended to be used to assess the current resilience maturity level of a city. It can also be applied to measure progress, at different time intervals, towards a prospective target maturity level.

1-9

R. Mohideen

2021 IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW)

2021

conferencePaper

2643-4482