In this, third episode, Vishal Mehta introduces one of the outputs of SEI's City Health and Wellbeing Initiative, namely the Urban Toolbox for "liveable" cities. This Toolbox is a collection of digital tools that support the understanding of different dimensions of urban sustainability.
Vishal is joined by Diane Archer from SEI's Asia office in Thailand and Rosie Witton from SEI's Oxford centre in the UK.
The Urban Toolbox will be published online in the weeks following the release of this episode. It will be available on the weadapt website at www.readapt.org.
Once on the site, one can navigate through the different networks available. Within the network section, all the current networks will be visible. That is where SEI's Urban Toolbox will be sitting as well.
In this, third episode, Vishal Mehta introduces one of the outputs of SEI's City Health and Wellbeing Initiative, namely the Urban Toolbox for "liveable" cities. This Toolbox is a collection of digital tools that support the understanding of different dimensions of urban sustainability.
Vishal is joined by Diane Archer from SEI's Asia office in Thailand and Rosie Witton from SEI's Oxford centre in the UK.
The Urban Toolbox will be published online in the weeks following the release of this episode. It will be available on the weadapt website at www.readapt.org.
Once on the site, one can navigate through the different networks available. Within the network section, all the current networks will be visible. That is where SEI's Urban Toolbox will be sitting as well.
Vishal Mehta 00:10
Hello and welcome to our third episode of The City Health and Wellbeing podcast. I'm your host, Vishal Mehta. I'm a senior scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, SEI. I am based in the US center in Davis, California. SEI is an international nonprofit that works in several countries at the intersection of science and policy. We are interested in unpacking what makes a city a healthy environment where every citizen can have the opportunity to thrive. In our third episode, we introduce one of the outputs of the City Health and Wellbeing Initiative, namely SEI's Urban Toolbox for liveable cities, which is a collection of digital tools that support the understanding of different dimensions of urban sustainability. I am delighted to have two of my colleagues, Diane Archer and Rosie Witten, join us today. Rosie is a research fellow with our SEI, Oxford office on climate change adaptation. And Diane Archer is a senior research fellow in our SEI's Asia office in Bangkok, Thailand. Thank you for joining us, Rosie and Diane and welcome. Delighted to have you and how about you introduce yourselves. You'll do you'll do a much better job then I would. Go ahead, Rosie.
Rosie Witton 01:25
Yes. Hi, I'm Rosie Witton. I'm a research fellow at the SEI, Oxford centre in the UK. I work mainly on projects relating to climate change adaptation, particularly in mountain environments or in cities and urban environments. And I also have a focus on citizen engagement and stakeholder engagement in other projects as well.
Vishal Mehta 01:46
Interesting, Rosie. So, are there particular countries you tend to work in or.. just depend on... ?
Rosie Witton 01:51
No... no particular countries. And, for a lot of our projects, it seems to be global. For our mountains projects in particular, you know, we do work globally. So, we have partners in a variety of different regions. For some of our projects, we are EU focused, so we focus on the European... or we focus on Europe in those projects.
Vishal Mehta 02:13
Thank you, Rosie. Diane, over to you.
Diane Archer 02:15
So my name is Diane Archer. I'm a senior research fellow at SEI Asia. We are located in Bangkok. I lead the urban research cluster and we are a team of three research associates and myself.
Vishal Mehta 02:30
And we also have a research fellow, Ploy, who is working on fossil fuel emissions.
Diane Archer 02:34
Yes, and we do research on issues relating to achieving sustainable and inclusive urban areas. So our projects revolve around city health and wellbeing, air pollution, solid waste management, especially plastic waste management, and also issues around climate change resilience and the role of nature-based solutions in cities.
Vishal Mehta 03:01
Thanks, Diane. Diane, you forgot mentioned you're also the co-lead with Steve's in the way of the City Health and Wellbeing Initiative. And... so, it's perfect that you're here with us. We spoke with Steve, on the first episode, a few weeks ago, it's just been released. And now, we are here with you and Rosie. So, let's get right into it. The next set of questions and discussion will be about what exactly is the SEI Urban Toolbox for liveable cities. For short for this podcast... for the rest of this podcast, I'm just going to call it the Urban Toolbox. And... what is it really? Where does it live? How was it designed? And what's its purpose? I know that it's one of... one of the many outputs of the Initiative. But... it's got so many tools on it that are, actually, beyond what we did, as I remember, in this Initiative, that I'm... kind of... guessing that it's a compilation of useful digital tools and software that can be used for practitioners and planners in urban areas. Does that sound about right, Diane?
Diane Archer 04:14
Yes. So the SEI Urban Toolbox for Liveable Cities, basically is an attempt to gather various tools developed across SEI in one place and to bring all the tools that may not have been developed specifically for urban usage, but that are relevant for urban contexts, and bring them together in a single toolbox, essentially. The City Health and Wellbeing Initiative has been running for five years now. So we're in the sixth and final year this year. And, we thought it would be a good opportunity to bring together some of the tools that we use as part of the City Health and Wellbeing Initiative but also to pull together other tools that we think would be useful for city stakeholders like urban planners, but also civil society groups in cities as well, to enable them to foster, for example, more inclusive planning processes or to gather the necessary data that they need to inform planning processes. Just one note... is not necessarily just digital tools. So, a lot of the tools are more like guides, in terms of, you know, how would you facilitate a process of, for example, community engagement. What ways can you do this in, and it would offer guidance in terms of... this is how we could, for example, structure discussions, or these are some of the activities that could be done in a participatory way, in order to enable a more participatory approach and a more inclusive approach to urban planning. But obviously, some of the tools are also digital. So for example, the LEAP tool or the WEAP tool are very much are relying on software, as well. So it's a mix of different types of tools.
Vishal Mehta 06:11
I see Yes, Rosie had sent me a list of these tools that I'm just looking at right now. And I had some thoughts. But Rosie, would you like to add something to what Diane said?
Rosie Witton 06:22
So yes, I think Diane summarized that very well. As part of the Urban Toolbox, this is... you know, where this is going to be... one of the outcomes of the City Health and Wellbeing Initiative. We are aiming for this to be an online toolbox, and we're going to be hosting this on "weadapt", an online network. For those of you who don't know, what weadapt is... it's a online space for researchers, practitioners and policymakers who are working on climate change adaptation and related areas or topics. It's a place for them to share information about their projects and learn from each other. This has built a weadapt community over the last couple of years. It consists of many different users and organizations, including international and national nongovernmental organizations, government ministries, universities and research institutes, as well as grassroot charities and, so, the Urban Toolbox that we've designed and created will be hosted on this. And the tools that we have mentioned, or found to include, will be created as articles. So, the information will be available on each tool, and then there will be corresponding case studies, which can be visualized on a map and will give more information or contextual information about how each of the tools can be used.
Vishal Mehta 07:38
Excellent. So, how was it designed this particular Urban Toolbox?
Diane Archer 07:44
So we designed it through a four phase process, and we tried to make this as... a sort of, collaborative and co-design, like... user co-designed approach as possible. So first, within the CHeW (City Health and Wellbeing) team, we carried out an external review of what existing tools or toolboxes that are... that are relevant to urban settings. So, for example, any... like... academic papers or any materials online, and what kind of target audiences they have, in order to see what's already out there, and what SEI could add value to. Secondly, we did an internal scoping of SEI tools. So SEI produces quite a lot of tools and methods. So we reviewed all of these and identified ones that would... that had either been used in an urban setting already or had potential to be applied in an urban setting. So, we reviewed what materials were available, what kind of guidance material was available for users. And... on top of the CHeW project's own tools, or including the CHeW project's own tools were identified over 20 projects with tools that were relevant to an urban setting. So, following these two phases, the third step was a co-design workshop with urban stakeholders. So, we organized both online workshops and face-to-face workshops with city stakeholders in various cities, including in the to CHeW case study cities, which are Udon Thani in Thailand and Nakuru in Kenya, but also additional meetings in Kampala, in Lusaka, in Kigali and in Bogota. And these were workshops where we tried to identify some of the key urban challenges faced by the city stakeholders and the types of tools that they can use to help them to solve these problems, and use discussion format such a,s for example, a strength, weakness, opportunities and threats or SWOT analysis to see if you had this particular tool, you know, what value would it have for you. And we also had discussed issues such as... like... what makes a tool accessible in terms of language, format, whether its use... has to be used online or not; things like that; that would help us with the design of the toolbox... make it as useful as possible. And then finally, the fourth... fourth phase was an internal workshop within SEI; to make sure that we had full coverage of the urban-related tools that we wanted to include, how we should categorize them in the toolbox, and what elements of... of design should we apply to the toolbox to ensure that it meets the needs of our planned users. And also based on the feedback that we gained through the workshops with city stakeholders. And following these four phases, the tool was then put together.
Vishal Mehta 11:05
That sounds pretty rigorous and time consuming, actually. So you mentioned...
Diane Archer 11:10
And also...
Vishal Mehta 11:11
... sorry... I was just
Diane Archer 11:13
Oh, it's okay....
Vishal Mehta 11:16
Go ahead... that's fine.
Diane Archer 11:18
It's taken over a year. So we're coming towards the end of it now. Yeah.
Vishal Mehta 11:23
Well, I had two questions. And maybe I can ask Rosie this to start off is, you know, Diane mentioned something about language. And I think about language a lot in our international work; me, myself being from... from India and speaking various languages. So are there plans to translate it into different languages? Is that already happening? What are your thoughts on that, Rosie?
Rosie Witton 11:50
So, one of the kind of best features or one of the really good features about weadapt and posting this toolbox on weadapt is that there is a plugin automatically on the website, which allows you to translate it, or articles and case studies into a variety of different languages. I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but it is effectively a Google Translate plugin. So obviously, while there may be some limitations, it is at least a very good starting point. So hopefully, a lot of the articles and case studies would be easily translatable via that feature.
Vishal Mehta 12:23
That brings me back to what Diane was saying about who are the different possible users of this tool. And when... when you described how... about the language translation and so on, it's... it seems like it's meant for a pretty broad audience, overall, the collection of tools.Rosie Witton 12:42
Yes, it definitely is. And I think this does vary tool to tool. So I can, you know, I can't give an exact answer. But a lot of the tools can, maybe, focus on participatory action for different communities or residents in a neighborhood, for example. So, you know, it does vary very much from community based projects, all the way to, you know, potentially helping policymakers and governments view different things and maybe in a different manner, or use these tools to support some of their work. So, it really does vary depending on the tool.
Vishal Mehta 13:17
Perfect. One of the other things I think Diane mentioned was that, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a collection of SEI tools right now? Is that right?
Rosie Witton 13:27
Yes, that's right. So currently, it's tools that have been created or used on SEI projects and... yeah.
Vishal Mehta 13:35
And is there any, is there any effort to or thinking about expanding it to tools that are SEI as well as broader developed...
Rosie Witton 13:47
Diane... you want to take that on?
Diane Archer 13:50
So, as part of our scoping review, we identified that there are already some other urban toolboxes and toolkits out there, quite a lot of them are like indices, like a city, you know, resilience index, or things like that. And we think what... what we can potentially do is try to connect with the owners or the creators of other tools that are relevant in urban settings and see how we can collaborate or sort of co... co-share, co-promote our urban toolboxes because we tried to make our... or position our urban toolbox so that it would add value to what's already out there rather than duplicate any existing tools. So we see that our toolbox has potential to be used alongside other existing urban tools as well to offer a full... full set of tools to urban stakeholders.
Vishal Mehta 14:51
Perfect. So... I guess I wanted to give our audience a sense of what kinds of tools there are. And, so I'm going back to Rosie's list that Rosie... you had emailed a while ago. But I see that this is one category, which is about citizen science, citizen participation. There are tools here in the list on participatory GIS as well as on citizen science and air pollution. There's also a tool on wellbeing surveys that's related to this that I see. There's another set of tools, which is about basically software WEAP and LEAP, which are used extensively in the US center where I am. WEAP is the Water Evaluation and Planning System. It's a water resources decision planning platform that we use a lot in the US center and, and also in other centers. And LEAP is our Low Emissions Analysis Platform that's used for climate mitigation studies. And I see a tool here called Map Stakes, I have not heard about it. So I'm looking forward to going in and finding out more about it. There's also an excellent tool called STG Synergies, that I see that the Sustainable Development Goals Synergies, it's a tool that helps to understand the tradeoffs and synergies or coherence between different sustainable development goals... targets and goals, depending on which projects you want to pursue to achieve these goals. What I can make out from this is that there are certain categories that... that leap out. One is that, one way to categorize them as what you said earlier, Diane, is that some some of them are guides, for example, PGIS - Participatory GIS - is probably a guide on how to do participatory mapping and a guide on the use of certain tools, probably open source. Am I right time?
Diane Archer 17:00
Yeah. So in this context, we used PGIS, in the CHeW Initiative, where we had physical printed out maps. And so... the toolkit will also explain how how this can be done, and what you can use PGIS for. So, in the context of city health and wellbeing, we use it to get community members to map out places in the city where they felt most relaxed, where they went to socialize, and also places in the city where they felt stressful. And this helped us to create a map of the city that highlighted places where people, you know, where levels of wellbeing might be higher or lower, depending on how people perceive those areas.
Vishal Mehta 17:49
Any other guidance you can provide on these tools, in terms of specific tools that I may have missed in that list, Rosie...
Rosie Witton 18:01
There's not any specific tools that I can provide guidance on. But you know, just to say, obviously, these are the tools that we are initially uploading into the Urban Toolbox, and you know, this is going to be a continuously developing process. So you know, as more tools are created, or come out, obviously, they can be added to the toolbox in the future, and hopefully included, as you know, moving forwards. Hopefully, it's continually updated.
Vishal Mehta 18:27
Yeah, that that leads to my one of my next questions, Rosie was, is there a plan to keep developing it; keep it alive and current? Because as you know... like, for example, in mapping, my... in one of my first classes in graduate school, my teacher or professor at the time said, as soon as you create a map, it's redundant, because it's already in the past. So... I keep thinking about that, and how... what are the plans to keep this alive and current?
Rosie Witton 19:00
Yes, so for... the... until the end of this year, at least, we are hoping to make sure that all of the SEI tools that we've gathered and reviewed over the last few years are included into this Urban Toolbox, and then hopefully moving forwards after that it will be a continuous process for members of SEI, who are on projects where they're using these different tools or creating new tools will want to upload their tools to the Urban Toolbox; it should be something that people can do themselves. So hopefully that will help with the continuity of that in the future.
Vishal Mehta 19:32
Right. Do you want to add anything to that point, then?
Diane Archer 19:36
Not on that point specifically, but I just want to go back to the question of the... like, categories of different types of tools. And I think... so, within weadapt or within the toolkit there will be four different categories but more generally, you could say that some tools focusing, for example, on what available monitoring tools there are; some tools are focusing more on how to encourage collaborative and participatory decision making; some tools are more about how to manage urban resources and then some tools are specifically on the topic of development of infrastructure such as green infrastructure or water, sanitation and hygiene. So that's one way of categorizing them. But there's different ways of cutting the cake.
Vishal Mehta 20:29
Got it. I guess the other point I wanted to ask is, has this toolkit already been launched? I... it sounds like it's going to be launched by the end of the year or the middle of the year. And how does one find it on the weadapt platform? I think it'd be good to share how one accesses this whole suite of tools with the audience with a URL, which we can include when the podcast is released as part of the... the information material.
Rosie Witton 20:57
Yes, of course. So we are aiming to have the Urban Toolbox published online in the next few weeks. So... fingers crossed, in the imminent future. And it will be available on the weadapt website; to get to weadapt it's www.readapt.org. And then, within that, you can go to the different networks available; I believe it's under the... there's a tab for learning. And if you click into the network section, there are all the current networks available on weadapt there and that is where our Urbal Toolbox will be sitting as well. So, I unfortunately don't have a link for it just yet. But hopefully in the next week or two.
Vishal Mehta 21:35
Thanks very much, Rosie. So Diane, you'd also mentioned that there would be a policy brief that will be coming out. Can you let us know a little bit more about that.
Diane Archer 21:45
So the policy brief is ready to launch as soon as the website or the tool goes live. And it basically just provides some context about how we came to design this Urban Toolbox, and what... how it can be useful for city stakeholders and how we've sought to respond to their needs in creating this toolbox. So hopefully, it provides the necessary background to... to encourage people to use the toolbox as well. And in terms of launching, as Rosie said, it... we're planning to launch it very soon. We will have a couple of events in Africa in June, where we plan to launch the toolbox, and then it will be a sort of gradual launch throughout the year. So, for example, at other events, such as the Asia Pacific Urban Forum, which isn't happening until October, we also plan to have a session on the toolbox as well. But there might also be other events where we showcase the toolbox. So keep an eye out for those.
Vishal Mehta 22:56
Perfect. I guess my last question, and I want to thank you both for joining us. I know it's nighttime for you, Diane in Bangkok right now. And it's also evening for Gokul, our producer in India. My... my last question or thought really is, how does one monitor the use of these tools? Is there a monitoring and evaluation and learning system in place for tracking the use of these tools? Rosie, I'll put you on the spot there.
Rosie Witton 23:24
Thanks. So, I... one of the key features on weadapt as well is that you do have this ability to connect with the authors. And, so... each author of a tool or whoever might have used the tool, their profile is... on weadapt is connected to the tool article. So, you know, if anyone is ever interested in finding out more information about where or how the tool was created, or where it's been used, they can reach out to anyone who might have used it previously, if that information is available in their profile. And that just helps increase the collaboration and communications surrounding each of the tools. And it also, you know, helps provide feedback. If anyone does use the tool one has any concerns or any feedback to provide. So that's one of the key ways to do it. Diane, I don't know if you wanted to add any information on our monitoring and evaluation techniques.
Diane Archer 24:18
So... yes, I just want to reiterate what Rosie said that basically, that was one of the key reasons we chose weadapt because it's not just a one way platform; there is the opportunity to build a community of practice around the use of the tools. So we hope that we will be able to see how much usage various tools are getting and whether there are any concerns or feedback from users that we can then integrate into further iterations of the various tools as well. I think our plan is also, for example, if we apply a particular tool in a setting, we would try and creates more material. For example, like how-to video or showing a tool being used in practice that could then be uploaded to the platform to generate additional material for toolbox users too.
Vishal Mehta 25:14
Perfect. Well, I think that's about all we have time for... for this episode. I want to thank Rosie and Diane, for being with us in your different time zones, especially Diane, thank you for joining us. And this has been the third episode of the City Health and Wellbeing Initiative. Thank you and good night.