Beating the heat: Investing in pro-poor solutions for urban resilience

The recommendations provided in this report offer a basis for the Asian Development Bank to scale up extreme heat-related adaptation support in urban areas of Asia and the Pacific, and thereby contribute to the climate priorities and climate adaptation finance targets under Strategy 2030. Countries in Asia are experiencing extreme heat events, with temperatures reaching record highs. Preparing for a warmer world will require a wide range of pro-poor policies and investments based on long-term planning and must include actions at all scales: individual and household, neighborhood, and city. This publication aims to increase awareness of opportunities to pursue pro-poor urban resilience initiatives to reduce the increasing impacts of heat stress that urban areas face.

This report recommends the eight key policy and investment-related pro-poor measures to deal with heat stress: (i) Improve preparedness through heat action plans; (ii) adopt heat-responsive building design standards; (iii) undertake risk-based land use management; (iv) improve employment and labor market-related regulations to protect workers from extreme heat; (v) implement large-scale “cool roof” programs; (vi) scale up investments in blue and green solutions as part of urban infrastructure; (vii) invest in early warning systems and effective dissemination of alerts to vulnerable people and; (viii) invest in research and development.