KARACHI: A network supported by the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GRCF) will investigate the links between violence and climate change in marginalised city communities in Pakistan.

Led by Prof Nausheen H. Anwar of Karachi Urban Lab at the Institute of Business Administration, the Urban Violence and Climate Change Network is one of the 20 Global Engagement Networks launched recently to tackle challenges in the developing world.

The networks bring together UK researchers with collaborators from across the developing world to share expertise and find solutions.

Prof Anwar will collaborate with UK lead Dr Arabella Fraser of the School of Geography at Nottingham University.

The project is bringing together two research communities — those working on violence reduction and those on adapting to climate change — to understand these links in greater depth, and work with practitioners to find solutions to improve urban environments to be safer and more sustainable.

Prof Anwar’s research looks at the power-laden forms of climate adaptation, planning and sustainability practices and policies in Pakistan, with a focus on dynamics of water security and gender, and the violent logics of urban planning that exacerbate inequality and deepen vulnerability.

‘For ordinary citizens, the new normal is a permanent state of crisis’

“We are living in exceptional times today as we witness the covid-19 pandemic unfold amid the crises of planetary, ecological, and social health. This combined with ongoing austerity measures, suggests that for ordinary citizens, the new normal is a permanent state of crisis. In urban Pakistan, the temporariness of work and housing, decaying infrastructures and exposure to institutional and political violence, have altogether made people’s lives extraordinarily difficult.

“With more and more people on the move and heading for cities in search for a better life, we need to urgently address the question of how to plan inclusive cities and build healthier and happy communities,” said Prof Anwar of the department of social sciences and liberal arts at IBA.

Dr Fraser’s research looks at how to build social resilience to climate change in the most marginalised urban communities. She said: “Climate change and violence are growing development challenges, both in regions that are rapidly urbanising and those that have predominantly urbanised. Both negatively affect lives, livelihoods, health, and productivity. We hope that by exploring innovations to reduce the multiple risks that people are facing (and which will include Covid risks and associated responses), we can support efforts towards safer and more secure cities for the most marginalised.”

The network currently has 15 partners in South America, the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the UK.

The GCRF award will allow Dr Fraser, Prof Anwar and colleagues to build a network of critical researchers from multiple disciplines, working alongside those involved in day-to-day decisions about how to plan for and support vulnerable urban communities.

The network will create a platform for debate as well as sponsoring new research projects to take off in ways that can inform current-day policy needs.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2020