Although urban centers are often ill-prepared to meet the basic needs of rapidly expanding populations, the urban poor are incredibly resourceful people, with their own networks and the proven capacity to save and invest in the betterment of their communities. Climate change can stimulate action that improves and transforms the most vulnerable urban communities.

This video, narrated by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Angélique Kidjo, tells the stories of the winners of the 2015 Momentum for Change Awards, under the Urban Poor category.

Climate change is happening now and its effects are felt most by the world’s poorest and most marginalised communities. Please share to keep climate change top of the global agenda.

Climate change will increase the gaps between developed and developing countries, in terms of wealth, health and food security. This will make achieving goals to reduce poverty more difficult.Poor people with few assets
cannot easily recover from climate disasters or change how they make their
living. They rely heavily on agriculture, fisheries, rivers and forests. These
resources could change drastically with climate change, making these groups
much more vulnerable than wealthier people. Additional factors, such as health problems

Small communities are often the most severely affected, yet the least equipped to cope with the impacts of climate change.In recognition of this, the UNDP-GEF Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) project pilots the community component of the GEF Strategic Priority on Adaptation, building the resilience of communities and the ecosystems upon which they rely in the face of climate change impacts. Key features of the programme include:

This paper presents an assessment of climate risks from the existing climate as well as from a range of scenarios. It assesses the expected annual loss to economies from existing climate patterns, a projection of the extent to which future economic growth will put greater value at risk, and the incremental loss that could occur over a twenty-year period under a range of climate change scenarios based on the latest scientific knowledge.