Good afternoon, my name is Fiona Lord, and I'm a researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS. My presentation today is from my doctoral research on the topic of urban transformations to sustainable and resilient futures in Southeast Asia.

Today I'm going to provide an overview of the trends and emerging challenges associated with sustainability and resilience in Southeast Asia. I will make the case that these challenges associated with rapid urbanization in Southeast Asia require

urgent attention. I will provide an overview of Southeast Asian policy and strategy responses to address these urbanization challenges, and then I'll provide a research agenda for harnessing the potential of transdisciplinary research to assess and support

the urban transformation process to accelerate sustainability and resilience policies and strategies and their implementation. I will now start the first part of this presentation and discuss the urbanization

trends and sustainability and resilience challenges in Southeast Asia. The first trend to highlight in urbanization in Southeast Asia is the rapid and uncontrolled development that has occurred since the 1990s.

Like many other parts of the developing world, urbanization has not been carefully planned or managed in many cities of Southeast Asia. Urban development has been primarily market-led and fueled by land speculation. Long-term urban plans have in many cases failed in Southeast Asia,

even if they have been aided by planning tools or zoning codes, because they have not sufficiently responded to the dynamic political economy and social cultural practices that determine city growth. The OECD has found that most city-level spatial development plans in Southeast Asia are

not formally adopted as legally binding and mainly regarded as indicative guidelines. As a result, urban landscapes have been rapidly reshaped by private development projects.

The urban real estate boom in Southeast Asia is not slowing down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second major trend is the rising public infrastructure deficits in Southeast Asian cities. Investment in urban infrastructure has not kept pace with the demand and population growth in Southeast Asian cities.

The challenges associated with infrastructure are chronic. These include the increasing costs of service provision, inadequate outdated or poorly maintained infrastructure,

poorly performing institutions, and in particular congested roads and the prioritization of cars over public transportation. In both Cambodia and Vietnam, the two case studies of my research, investment in urban transportation, urban sanitation, drainage and water supply has not kept pace with urban growth.

For example, in Phnom Penh, where you can see the photo on the top right hand side of this slide, there is no wastewater treatment infrastructure in a city of more than 2 million people.

Also, major transportation projects have been stalled in major cities of Vietnam and Cambodia due to insufficient funds or technical problems. And as highlighted on this slide, these have been further stalled because of the pandemic.

Furthermore, with insufficient investment in solid waste management, infrastructure and services, up to 30% of solid waste is not being collected regularly in Southeast Asian cities. The third major trend is the increasing resources consumption levels and

contribution of Southeast Asia's cities to climate change. The number of middle-class people in the region is rapidly increasing as the urban population's desire for a higher quality of life increases, there is a growing level of resources consumption.

Industrial development linked to global supply chains is a major contributor to growing energy and water consumption in Southeast Asian cities. Resource efficiency is needed in a range of urban systems, including industry buildings and transportation, as well as for the metropolitan area as a whole.

While both Cambodia and Vietnam have low levels of carbon emissions currently on a per capita basis, their emissions are growing exponentially with economic growth and urbanization. The fourth major trend is the declining livability of cities and their increased exposure to environmental contaminants in Southeast Asia.

Urban populations have become increasingly exposed to air pollution and environmental contaminants. Without sufficient drainage infrastructure, communities are increasingly exposed to flood waters, particularly in peri-urban areas.

There's illegal dumping of waste and septic tanks being discharged illegally into rivers and waterways. Industrial emissions are increasing significantly from the manufacturing sectors in particular, and overall urban

livability is declining with traffic congestion, air pollution and shrinking urban green spaces in cities. The fifth major trend is the increase in vulnerability of urban residents to climate change and disaster events, particularly the urban poor.

The risk of urban flooding and storm surge is increasing due to increased intensity of monsoon rains and expanded urban development in hazardous locations, particularly in coastal cities.

On the map on the right hand side of this slide, you can see the extent of the recent flash flooding event in Cambodia in October, which affected around 176,000 households, particularly in urban areas.

Because of the rapid urbanization processes, natural ecosystems are becoming more and more vulnerable to floods, the clogging of rivers and the infilling of urban lakes. And the destruction of mangrove forests and wetlands. As seen on the graphic on the left hand side of this slide, the urban heat island effect is also impacting lives in Southeast Asian cities.

So in Ho Chi Minh City where this research was undertaken, temperatures are expected to increase by 1.2 to 1.7 degrees Celsius.

In addition to existing climate projections because of this urban heat island effect. So overall, these trends have resulted in a breakdown of economic, social and environmental infrastructure in urban areas.

While urbanization has had a transformative role in Southeast Asia's economic growth story, the urban transition is currently described by a range of scholars as currently incomplete and fundamentally unsustainable in Southeast Asia.

I will now move to provide an overview of Southeast Asian policy and strategy responses at regional, national and sub-national levels, focusing on Cambodia and Vietnam as two case studies. At the regional level, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has

established a number of initiatives to support urban resilience and sustainability. ASEAN established its framework for sustainable urbanization in 2018 and under this framework, sustainable urbanization is supported through a range of pilot initiatives and technical cooperation.

This is also supported by the ASEAN Smart Cities Network and the ASEAN Initiative on Environmentally Sustainable Cities. In this slide, you see the strategic focus areas of the ASEAN Sustainable Urbanization Framework, which include civic

and social, health and well-being, security, industry and innovation, the built infrastructure environment and the quality natural environment.

Cambodia has provided national and sub-national policy guidance to its cities on urban green growth and sustainable development. Cambodia has endorsed a national policy for green growth and has established a guide on the urban development process called the Green Cities Strategic Planning Methodology.

Cambodia's capital city has established its Phnom Penh Sustainable City Plan, which goes to 2030, and sets a vision that by 2030, Phnom Penh will become a clean, green and competitive city, offering a safe and quality lifestyle to its residents.

Vietnam has also provided national guidance on urban green growth and climate change action planning to its cities. So the Green Growth Vietnam Urban Development Plan to 2030 was established in 2018, which you can see on the left-hand side of this slide.

And this has been used by a range of cities to develop green growth and climate change action plans. I'll now move to the opportunity to harness the potential to accelerate urban transformations through transdisciplinary research.

Sustainability transformations theory has emerged in global political discourse and scholarship over the last 10 years or so,

focusing on the depth and the breadth of the changes that are needed to address global sustainability problems. Transdisciplinary research involves multiple forms of expertise and more explicitly links academic research to practical forms of knowledge.

As seen in this slide, transformation involves moving from niche innovations towards social, technical, regime changes and then landscape changes. As markets, industry, policy, culture, science and technology all support these wide and deep transformational changes.

Urban transformative capacities are needed to initiate and sustain urban changes towards sustainability.

So as seen in this framework developed by the scholar Wolfram, there are multiple transformative capacities that can lead to transformational change in cities. These include leadership, communities of practice, systems awareness and inclusive and multi-form governance.

Using this framework in my doctoral research, I am planning to investigate case studies of rapidly urbanizing cities in Cambodia and Vietnam and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their capacities and their potential

transformational changes that could come through increased transformational capacity development in these cities. I will be holding participatory design workshops involving a range of urban stakeholders in each city to analyze the institutional arrangements

and the potential governance improvements to achieve sustainability transformations. This will take a cross-sectoral approach, looking at a range of urban systems and sectors

and drawing on nexus and systems level thinking. Ultimately this research will support identifying the constraints to urban governance and what are the potential sustainability reforms. It will help to promote existing governance nodes, leadership support

systems, experiments and innovations that are contributing to urban sustainability transformations. And it will empower participation and co-design processes to strengthen networks of urban transformation.

Please get in touch if you are interested in collaborating on this research agenda on sustainable urban transformations in Southeast Asia. Thanks for the opportunity to present at this conference today.