Project: 5 month Internship at UN-HABITAT ROLAC – United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Regional Office for Latin America and Caribbean.



Title: Ideas for an improved and integrated implementation of UN-HABITAT Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction programmes towards sustainable development - Learning lessons from Cuba and the debate on Green Economy.​

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Supervisor: Petter Naess (AAU) and Erik Vittrup (UN-HABITAT)



Aalborg University / UN- HABITAT 2011 / 2012

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UN-HABITAT ROLAC works with different urban issues. The Cities and Climate Change programme and the Disaster Management programme are 2 of these problematics. However, both programmes are separated, developed by different teams and focusing on separated issues: Climate Change Initiatives is much more a theoretical, long term programme understanding, while Disaster Management focuses mainly in Disaster Response and Recovery. The bridge between both themes and its implementation in current projects faces difficulties. On the analysis of UN-HABITAT work, these challenges were addressed.

Different opportunities, in the eminence of RIO+20 summit, on the polemic debate on what is it about Green Economy, this report aims to bring provocative ideas for better implementation of an integrated approach of Climate Change Initiatives and Disaster Risk Reduction within UN-HABITAT work. For that, is important to address different concepts, planning processes and methodologies: Cuba is analyzed as a successful case were programmes are effectively implemented and integrated, and Green Economy is presented as a potential tool for the achievement of sustainable development, if managed adaptively.