The steps in phase 2 help to build a bridge between strategy and implementation. The output of Phase 1 is an overall resilience strategy that identifies the major challenges facing the city. In phase 2, the city will begin to develop an implementation plan to address those challenges. This implementation plan includes more developed project ideas as well as a financing plan which describes how the various resilience building options will be paid for. The steps in phase two also serve to narrow a broad range of resilience-building options to select those that are most appropriate for the city. Each step of phase 2 serves as a sort of filter, and thus by the end of phase 2 the city will have a shortlist of clearly defined project ideas that are consistent with the city’s resilience plan as well as its overall spatial and development planning goals.
The first step in phase 2 is to develop a list of resilience and adaptation options to address the strategic priorities identified in the resilience plan. For example, one strategic priority might be to address urban flooding. There are many different ways to address urban flooding. In some cases, these approaches may be complementary. For example, improved maintenance of drainage systems at the city level can complement improved planning for new flood management infrastructure and community-based early warning and response strategies. In other cases, due to limited resources and/or technical considerations, cities may be faced with a choice between different options or sets of options. During step one of this phase the city government works with stakeholders to identify all of the available resilience options. It is important to identify multiple ways of addressing the identified challenges. This will lead to a rigorous project design (phase 3) by demonstrating that the selected project idea is the best option among several, and that several approaches were analyzed to determine the most appropriate option given the local context and other factors.
After generating multiple options, the next task is to review them to develop an implementation timeline which lists the options in terms of urgent needs, medium-, and long-term planning priorities. This process also helps in identifying which action areas will be targeted for project financing. Referring back to the flooding example, the city may have a chronic flooding problem that recurs annually or seasonally. Longer-term measures to address chronic flooding could include improved design standards and code enforcement for newly developed areas, incentives for developers to include onsite storage of water, and other measures that are best implemented through changes in the legal and regulatory landscape. At the same time, other more urgent actions can be focused on the acute impacts of flooding to help mitigate the damage and suffering caused. These more urgent actions are in many cases the types of activities that are most appropriate for project financing. For example, addressing the acute impacts of flooding could include the creation of an early-warning system with SMS updates, improved evacuation planning, and disease prevention and control, all of which could form the basis for project design.
The output of step 1 of phase 2 is a list of adaptation options that could potentially be developed into projects.