From Informality to Impact

The report finds that while a diverse range of urban resilience solutions exist in the Global South's informal settlements and economies, most are in early development stages and heavily reliant on philanthropic funding. It highlights a significant gap in private sector investment and municipal buy-in, while noting that these interventions often yield co-benefits in health, gender equity, and livelihoods. The document recommends that municipalities integrate informal settlements into city plans and that funders coordinate to streamline access for small-scale innovators.

• Urban resilience solutions implemented by non-governmental actors in informal contexts are predominantly in the early stages of development and testing, indicating that the maturity of these solutions remains in incipient phases.
• There is a severe lack of climate adaptation funding for cities, with only 1.2% of all urban climate finance flows directed toward adaptation and resilience solutions.
• Philanthropic funding is a primary source of support for both sectors, with 60% of not-for-profits and 42% of for-profits depending on it, which is significantly higher than the 17% of urban adaptation projects financed by grants cited in general literature.
• Not-for-profit organisations are significantly more collaborative than for-profits, forming approximately 6.6 times more partnerships.
• Resilience interventions in informal contexts provide transformative benefits beyond climate adaptation, most notably in enhancing human capacity, with nearly 70% of organisations reporting improved skills and capabilities in local communities.
• The most significant barriers to scaling include a lack of human capacity, complex land tenure, risk-averse regulatory environments, and a scarcity of primary data such as census and climate information.
• There is a mismatch between investor expectations and the reality of resilience projects, where investors often demand rapid growth or 'buzzwords' like AI and blockchain over simple, effective, and slower-yielding resilience solutions.
• Informal settlements are frequently deprioritised by governments, and even when political will exists, a lack of knowledge on how to implement climate solutions often impedes progress.

APA

Angheloiu, D. C., Bhandari, A., Rodrigues, E., D’Souza, L., & Ginoya, N. (2024). From Informality to Impact. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/from-informality-to-impact.pdf

Chicago

Angheloiu, Dr Corina, Ashali Bhandari, Evita Rodrigues, Lianne D’Souza, and Namrata Ginoya. From Informality to Impact. Global Resilience Partnership, 2024. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/from-informality-to-impact.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{angheloiu2024from, author = {Angheloiu, Dr Corina and Bhandari, Ashali and Rodrigues, Evita and D’Souza, Lianne and Ginoya, Namrata}, title = {{From Informality to Impact}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2024}, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/from-informality-to-impact.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }