On February 21st, we kicked off our 2025 Talking About Transitions dialogue series with a panel discussion featuring (Speakers) on building resilience in India’s informal settlements.
Few countries face the tremendous challenge of building urban resilience while urbanising like India: between 2020 and 2035, almost 200 million people are projected to move to urban areas1 and our cities are far from ready. Without adequate planning, especially for low-income groups, informal settlements will likely proliferate further. Today, 17% of India’s urban population lives in informal settlements, facing heightened exposure to risks such as flooding, heatwaves, and landslides, exacerbated by overcrowding and insufficient infrastructure and services.
However, efforts to build resilience to emerging risks largely overlook the vulnerability of residents of informal settlements, with these areas generally lying outside of the ambit of formal planning. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for innovative solutions that build resilience to climate risks.
This dialogue aimed to address the urgent need for building resilience in informal urban contexts, facilitating a dialogue between implementing agencies, researchers and funders.
Find below an edited transcript:
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Good evening, everybody. And welcome to the talking about transitions – our dialogue on building urban resilience in India’s informal settlements. At transitions research. We really believe that people are at the heart of climate change solutions. And for us this discussion is about people, about communities that are the heartbeat of our cities and yet stand at the front line of climate risks.
So we have a lot of people who are doing research and working on partnerships. Of course, a lot of people who are doing related climate work, but also a lot of people who are just here to learn and engage with something new and since we say that people are at the heart of these conversations, take a minute to imagine what it would be like waking up in the peak of summer in a home made of tin sheets. By midday the inside temperature has soared past 45°C. The house is like an oven. There’s no reliable electricity, so fans or coolers aren’t an option. Water is scarce, and when it does arrive it’s unpredictable. And then, a few months later, after this summer heat, the same home is under a foot of water. After intense rainfall drainage systems are overflowing, flood water is creeping in, and on top of all of this you have no legal claim to land, so rebuilding means starting again from scratch.
This is what reality looks like for millions living in informal settlements in India communities that power our urban economies and our cities, and yet remain the most exposed to climate risks. They face heat, flooding water shortages all while struggling with insecure tenure and limited access to finance or infrastructure.
And so the question we really find ourselves trying to engage with today is, how do we build and scale lasting solutions that truly center and work for these communities.
Last year a couple of us at transition research worked with the team at Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) to do a landscape study of urban resilience solutions across the global scale.
We scoped 130 solutions. We did a survey interview and an in-depth literature review to identify what are these key opportunities and barriers for scaling solutions. And I think, while there were many interesting takeaways, one of the key takeaways was that this space is incredibly fragmented. There are practitioners, researchers, and funders who often work in silos, and as a result miss opportunities to learn from each other to collaborate for greater impact.
And so what we’re really trying to do through this dialogue is to bring together these very different insights and perspectives. And we’re really thrilled to have a fantastic panel of 3 very accomplished people and people with very different and very rich work experience and while they have very long bios that they’ve all sent to us. I’m gonna introduce them very quickly so that you have a chance to hear from them directly.
Our panel today has Dr. Parag Agarwal, Dulari Parmar, and Rishika Das Roy.
Dulari is an architect and urban designer with Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA). She leads climate justice initiatives in informal settlements across several cities. She’s played a key role in climate, hazard mapping and community driven climate vulnerability assessments. She’s passionate about mapping literacy for marginalized groups and has helped communities leverage data for advocacy.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Rishika Das Roy is leading sectoral strategy and investments for the India Climate Collaborative (ICC). She has 14 years of work experience across the policy cycle, from designing to implementing and evaluating climate programs. She’s worked with Oxford policy management, BBC media action and the Government of India supporting smart cities and such bad missions. She brings deep expertise in behavioral insight, policy, and design. And of course, the reason we reached out to her primarily is climate investment strategy.
And lastly, Dr. Agarwal, who’s a seasoned entrepreneur with 35 years of global experience, Parag sir founded Janajal in 2013, which is a social enterprise revolutionizing tech-driven water access in India. He patented something called the JJSUITE Platform and Water on Wheels initiative which provides decentralized sustainable drinking water solutions. In 2024 he launched the Big water protocol, which is a blockchain-based initiative for incentivizing sustainable climate action while expanding safe water access.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): So on that note. We’re really excited and glad to have the 3 of you with us today. For the benefit of the audience. We thought of breaking up this discussion into 3 segments. We start with a few opening remarks from everyone to build context. Then, we’ll explore the nuances of building resilient solutions in informal settings before moving on to the larger question of what it takes to scale these solutions.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): To start off, a common question for the three of you—we’d be interested to know, from your experience, what you see as a major barrier to building resilience in informal settlements? If you had to name one critical challenge that keeps coming up in your work, what would it be and why? Maybe we could start with you, Dulari, then move on to Dr. Parag, and finally, Rishika, if you could touch on this for a couple of minutes.
Dulari Parmar: Yeah, I’ll not take more time. But thanks a lot. Actually, Evita, and especially Ashali, for thinking of us. And maybe I’ll directly answer your question. I think.
All climate action revolves around the issue of power and who holds it. In our climate justice work at YUVA, we recognize the power imbalance that exists within the climate space. What we intend to do is shift power from the existing normative space to the people who are actually impacted by it. Within this power dynamic, land becomes a critical issue, especially when working in urban areas. In highly congested cities like Mumbai and Guwahati, we understand that land is central to every climate action we take. The biggest challenge is determining who has access to land, who has knowledge about land, and how communities can access it—not just for climate action, but for existing and surviving in the city. So, I’ll end my answer there.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Thank you for that. And I think that’s given context for us to then build on in subsequent questions. Dr. Parag. Maybe. Your idea of the biggest challenge or barrier.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: Well, I think Dulari touched upon the fact of inequality, and, you know, we’ve always approached this as practitioners. We’ve been working on the ground—personally, I have been in the social sector for almost 28 years, and with Janajal for the last 12 years. We believe that democratizing communities through equal access to resources is the key. And therein lies the biggest fundamental gap. Again, you could call it inequalities, but I’m trying to define those inequalities. It’s very important that everybody has access to resources. It is these inequalities that create the gap, which eventually leads to oppression. Unfortunately, they have rights, but they have no right.
So, the land they live on is not theirs. Maybe the electricity connection they have is not legitimate. They have no access to a legal water connection. And, of course, when we look at things like food—these days, everyone has food because they have to buy it, so that is not a problem. But their fundamental rights are deprived, and that is where I think change is needed. This is exactly what we have worked on through the medium of safe water. We have always advocated that, for us, water is not a product, not a commodity, not a utility—it is a medium. It is a medium of change.
It is a medium of empowerment—empowerment of a woman, her family, her children, and so much more. The cascading, cumulative, and collateral benefits that something as simple as safe water can provide are mind-blowing. That is something that really needs to be understood, and I’d be very happy to talk more about it as we continue the conversation.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Definitely. And I think that’s a brilliant context to get started with. So, land for Dulari, rights, inequality, and social hierarchies for—from Dr. Parag. Rishika, the major barrier that you see?
Rishika Das Roy: I think it’s perhaps not unique in any way, and everyone probably knows this, but it’s important to state it nonetheless. The biggest issue, as I see it—and as practitioners see it—is the systemic and systematic exclusion of these communities from formal urban planning processes and governance structures. So, if there is no legal recognition, no tenure security, and no equal access to basic services, you are locking in people who are so visible in your day-to-day lives in cities, yet taking away their visibility—making them invisible. As a result, you end up building a narrative of resilience that overlooks the needs of millions, and that narrative is just not going to work, right?
Rishika Das Roy: And the reason why that’s not going to work is when you try to match demand and supply. I’m really sorry to use that kind of framing, but if we really look at how climate finance is flowing, you’re not going to be able to address chronic underinvestment until and unless what we consider informal is brought into the formal conversation. So that barrier is exclusion. The barrier we need to solve is perhaps even data, right? Because they are two sides of the same coin.
Who you’re excluding, what risks they face, what kind of access they need—all of that needs to be documented. Until you bring them into formal planning through a co-governance model, you will never truly understand how to solve for those gaps. It’s a slightly macro-level issue, and I’m sure all of us have grappled with this. This is not new to anyone, but I just wanted to state that upfront.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Absolutely fair enough, and I think it’s a very important context to then talk about building these solutions and eventually scaling them. So, if I can use that to segue into the question of what it takes to build—maybe, Dr. Parag, I can start with you. Your work with Janajal is transforming access to safe water in informal settlements.
Could you walk us through how your model builds resilience on the ground? Who are the key players you collaborate with? And what do you think have been the most effective interventions in terms of impact?
Dr. Parag Agarwal: So. You know, if I had to use one word to describe our greatest USP, it would be decentralization. What we did was create an intervention that hinged on decentralization and decentralized access to safe drinking water in an equitable manner. Each word here is extremely meaningful, simply because, for the longest time, there has been a lack of access.
First of all, I want to start by saying that everyone refers to water as just “water,” but the way we see it, water is actually divided into two categories: water and clean water. And both are as different as chalk and cheese. It’s very important to understand this bifurcation because people often talk about water access or the lack of it without making this distinction.
We’ve always said that 100% of India lacks access to safe or clean water because even those who are getting it are buying it.
And because their affordability quotient is high, they are able to mitigate that gap comfortably and not feel the pinch. But those who cannot afford expensive packaged water are the ones truly struggling, and that is where we decided to step in and bridge the gap. For 12 years, we have been practicing and understand that the same clean water, when packaged in a bottle with a swanky label and endorsed by celebrities, could be sold for ₹50 a liter.
We have been practicing and have remained adamant about delivering water to people’s homes, at their doorstep, for just ₹1 a liter.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: And it has been one of the greatest challenges. The lure of breaking out of that ₹1 shackle and adding a zero to it—if not two zeros per liter—has obviously been there. But we have resisted and continue to resist that simply because we want to stay on the sustainable side. We wanted to eliminate single-use plastic and do away with all the unnecessary costs associated with the supply chain, distribution, and consumption of water. Why should the common man buy a bottle of water for ₹20, of which ₹18 is inconsequential?
The water contained within is only worth ₹2, but all the rest is trash cost.
And I’m calling even taxes, labeling, and everything else trash cost because that’s not what they are buying into.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: So the point is that this is what we’ve tried to overcome. We first created IoTization, developing our own tech platform. It took us eight years to secure a patent, and just last year in June, we were awarded the patent by the Government of India. Today, we have the most comprehensive and complete water management platform that traces water from source to treatment to delivery to consumption. It includes KYC, date timestamps, and qualitative, quantitative, and transactional parameters—all captured on-chain.
We’ve actually collected 33 data points for every dispensing transaction over the last 12 years. We’ve delivered more than 200 million liters of water, have 2 million subscribers, and have accumulated a billion data points. We never realized it was that much until we started counting recently. And while I won’t segue into “Big Water”—which is the next evolutionary step for Janajal—I’ll take a pause here to allow the conversation to continue.
But just to summarize everything I’ve said, the two key elements we have strongly leveraged are decentralization and technology. When I say technology, we had to resist the temptation to integrate too much, as it would cannibalize our operating costs. We had to ensure that the end user wouldn’t have to pay more than ₹1 per liter. Therefore, our technology had to be extremely curated and optimized. We often used 2.5G versions of technology instead of 4G because we didn’t need the latest, high-cost version—we were happy with what was efficient and cost-effective.
Just sharing that with you, but happy to let others speak as well.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Sure, sure. And if I can just quickly follow up on this—when you speak about decentralized delivery, who are the key partners that enabled this reach?
Dr. Parag Agarwal: So we are the only selected we are the only innovative technology selected by the Government of India under Jal jeevan mission and Amrut. So urban and rural deployment and implementation in a decentralized fashion. Last mile delivery of safe water to people’s doorsteps. The Government of India is our greatest partner
Now. Besides that, we’ve worked with the USAID. Besides that, we’ve worked with IRCTC. Besides that, we work with private sector companies, corporations, foundations. We work with the Gsma Innovation Fund, Netherlands.
We work with others you know, fortune. 500 companies in conjunction with them to implement their CSR vision or their ESG mandate.
The short of the long is I come back to that point. Water for us is not a product. We never went out in cookie cutter mode and operated by saying: There’s a solution. And that the solution is customized to suit the interest of every stakeholder in a world where everyone walks away feeling a winner.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Fair, then
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): this is very helpful context, to begin with, and sort of moving from that model, I think, Dulari, maybe we can talk about you guys work, and a lot of that is hinged on climate, justice and community led resilience.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): We wanted to understand how you and how does YUVA approach this collaboration with communities? What do you think? What have you found to be the most effective strategies? To co-create a community to co-create with communities for long term sustainable solutions. Would love to hear from you on that.
Dulari Parmar: Thanks. Thanks, Evita, for that question, just to give a little quick background of Yuva. So Yuva has been working under habitat labor, youth rights, child rights for the past 40 years. Now since 1984 and very recently, we started our climate justice work. And that so happened because we were hearing from the community, and we had spoken with Ashali about this, that they were not able to cope
Dulari Parmar: with the increasing impacts of climate change, whether it be flood or heat, or, you know, torrential impacts of cyclones. So it was from the communities that we realized that. Oh, there is a need for this project, and there’s the need for us to also integrate it as a part of our work. So under the human rights framework, we are also now, since the past 4 years, working on climate justice
To start with, I think the urban poor have always been receivers of climate change. Whether it be some EV program or new infrastructure coming into the city, as Rishika rightly pointed out, they are absolutely invisibilized. Beyond that, their participation is not even considered. So one of our key interventions—or key thought processes—going into this project was working with the community.
Now, how do we work within a civil society space? I think one part of working in this space is also understanding that we will face a lot of backlash because we are a civil society organization. We work directly with communities; we are not academic institutions or think tanks that can conduct research and propose scientific approaches to working in the climate space. So we are constantly dealing with this backlash—the think tank-ization of the climate space. In fact, their numbers have doubled in the past few years.
Coming from that background, we have, on our own end, developed a community model for working in urban informal settlements called the Community Climate Action Planning Framework. This is a four-pronged process where we approach the community from a macro perspective, understanding climate hazards at the city or regional scale and overlapping them with informal settlements in the city.
So again, coming back to Rishika’s point—they are invisible. They are not mapped. There is no spatial database on informal settlements in the community. So we started our climate justice work by mapping informal settlements across Mumbai and its region, then overlaying climate hazards on the bastis and identifying where climate hotspots exist within the city—where heat, rain, cyclones, and sea level rise impacts overlap in one basti.
One of our pilot projects was in Ambujwadi, an urban informal community located along Mumbai’s west coast, which experiences extreme heat and flooding throughout the year.
So one way to approach this was initiating our work with a community based vulnerability assessment along with the youth from the community.
Dulari Parmar: So we had learning and training exercises on how do we unpack climate and also shifting the onus of climate action, not to the people, but to the state, to the government, who is responsible for a lot of this action, and through that we mapped vulnerabilities in terms of climate and social, in the Basti which led to developing a community climate action plan. The Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP) is basically a vision of how and what are the priority areas of action in the Busti and how they can be dealt with locally in collaboration with the local government.
So a lot of this work is happening in Ambujwadi, and since 2021, we have now expanded this work in 3 other cities, which is Navi Mumbai, Vasai, and Guwahati
Another part of our work is also integrating climate informed spatial planning. So very recently. In fact, from 2022 Navi Mumbai’s Development plan was released, and later Panvel and Guwahati’s in 2024.
So Yuva has been involved in spatial planning processes since the early 2000s, where we have looked at 9 different city development plans, and how they can be socially informed as in how there can be homeless shelters, public housing, and public infrastructure. But beyond that, very recently into these 4 cities, we’re also looking at how spatial planning and climate can be overlapped, for instance, where do busties exist within the city and advocating for that? But beyond that, where do flood hotspots exist within the city, and how can we demand the government or the planning authority to allocate land for flood mitigation or heat mitigation?
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Thanks. I think that’s very helpful, I think, for people who are hearing that you are in their work for the 1st time. Very helpful context. And then, with this perspective, from a profit for profit and a nonprofit model. We come to who finances and how this is financed. And I think, Rishika, we wanted to talk about that with you.
In the RISE report that we’ve done with GRP, one finding was that innovation exists. Solutions exist. But when it comes to scaling, that is where the struggle is, and this is most often due to funding constraints. You get that initial grant amount or the amount for the pilot. But then what happens when you want to scale?
So we wanted to understand from a funder perspective what makes informal settlements in particular, a tough space for climate funders. And how do you see groups like ICC? Maybe working with NGOs and the private sector to sort of plug that gap.
Rishika Das Roy: Okay, so this is a slightly lengthy response, perhaps from my end, because it kind of needs a bit of unpacking. Right?
, why is the private sector not moving into this space? And by that, I’m talking about climate resilience or adaptation in general, because we can’t really skip that to get to the informal part of the conversation. If we look at global climate finance data, we see that there is a $69 billion deficit in adaptation finance. That’s where India stands—we are missing $69 billion annually in climate adaptation finance. Now, that might seem like a huge number, but just six states in India—Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, and so on—need that quantum. So, the data itself is not complete in terms of what our resilience requirements are.
Rishika Das Roy: Now, if we try to map that against the kind of finance cities receive, in general, only about 1.2% goes towards urban adaptation. So, we’re facing multiple issues—there’s a data gap, a lack of understanding of what climate adaptation finance comprises, and no clear taxonomy for it.
If I were to tell you that raising the plinth of an informal settlement to improve stormwater drainage and monsoon resilience is an adaptation measure, you and I might naturally agree that it makes sense, right? Similarly, if I were to say that we need to green public infrastructure, it’s not just about providing access to clean water. It’s also about how a person from a temporary shelter can physically access that clean drinking water—whether through heat stress or after experiencing a hydrometeorological disaster. There are multiple ways to unpack this, and what seems obvious to practitioners is not at all obvious to the private sector.
What the private sector needs is demonstrable proof.
Rishika Das Roy: There needs to be some kind of ROI (return on investment). The private sector requires demonstrable proof that what they are financing has a clear taxonomy—one that is recognized by both the government and institutional financiers. Right? But adaptation and urban resilience are so complex that no one has developed a dedicated taxonomy for India. That’s the first gap. After that, we move into exploring data-backed financial structures, models, and incentives.
When we engage with the private sector, there’s always a need to communicate in numbers, and that’s where we often lose them. A significant part of what ICC does is figuring out how to blend and de-risk private capital by infusing philanthropic capital. Right? We all know philanthropic capital is not return-seeking.
Rishika Das Roy: Because of this, philanthropic capital is more agile and risk-tolerant. It doesn’t fit into the traditional ROI model, where returns on money are constantly expected—that’s not the purpose of philanthropy. Over the past two to three years, especially after certain COP (Conference of Parties) measures, our focus has been on moving beyond the traditional PPP model (Public-Private Partnership) and introducing a fourth ‘P’—Philanthropy.
Rishika Das Roy: When we integrate different sources of capital, we can overcome the first barrier—ROI—because philanthropic capital is better positioned to quantify co-benefits. Let me give you an example.
All of you familiar with the work of SEWA or the Mahila Housing Trust (MHT)—especially in climate-proofing homes against heat stress or developing heat-related insurance models—know there is data backing their impact. A study by MHT shows that every rupee invested in climate-proofing homes can save informal workers ₹5 in heat-related income loss.
When pilot projects produce clear, measurable language, demonstrating that every rupee invested not only builds adaptive capacity and resilience but also brings additional benefits—whether in livelihoods, health, or income saved—it automatically strengthens the case for scaling up.
Rishika Das Roy: So that’s one part of it. The second part, beyond ROI, is how do we structure blended finance models that layer public funds, private investment, and philanthropy together?
Now, I’ll give you another example—one that’s more personal, as it’s something the India Climate Collaborative (ICC) has worked on. When we talk about loss and damage, particularly in urban populations and the informal sector, a key question is: How do we quantify loss for communities where data doesn’t exist?
There was an ADB report—this was pre-COVID, in 2019—that revealed something concerning. It showed that every time a disaster occurs, and compensation is disbursed through the UPDA (under NDMA and SDMA frameworks)—what we call the disaster framework—the amount provided by the Central or State Government is actually 2.5 times less than what is required.
In an informal urban community, it takes an average family 19 years—yes, 19 years—to recover from a single disaster.
With climate change, we’re looking at multiple hydrometeorological disasters occurring at different times, scales, and intensities. Right? So, if we really want to involve the private sector, we need to ask: What kind of digital public infrastructure can we create around this conversation?
To tackle this, we partnered with an organization called SEEDS. Using seed capital—or what ICC calls catalytic capital for innovative solutions—we developed India’s first-ever disaster wallet or e-wallet.
This digital tool doesn’t just track economic losses but also non-economic losses that communities face. It’s being integrated into our national repository for loss and damage and is actively helping migrant workers and displaced individuals gain access to compensation.
This is a great example of how philanthropy can step in—providing systems visibility and leveraging data, technology, and financial tools—to build something institutionalized. And when you institutionalize it, you ensure that the informal sector is included.
That’s one of the best and easiest ways to create real impact.
There are multiple ways to use blended finance models for scaling solutions, but the foundation must always be data, systems visibility and a deep understanding of finance. Only when we truly understand these aspects can we build, infuse, and scale something meaningful. Sorry, I went on for too long!
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): No worries. But thank you. I think that that’s a very broad base and a deep dive into finance challenges. And I think this segways very well into the next segment on understanding scaling and and I can see that people have already actually started putting questions in the chat. So we’ll try and get into the scaling bit quickly so that we can move to audience questions. Maybe Dr. Parag. We can start with you, and we’ll try and keep it, maybe a little shorter.
On the question of scaling, as a private sector organization, how do you see balancing social impact and financial sustainability? How is that negotiated in the process of scaling efforts for a private sector organization?
Dr. Parag Agarwal: It’s a it’s a very, it’s a very difficult path
Dr. Parag Agarwal: I would never encourage anybody else to go down that path, but having said that, I would never move away from this path. I mean so that is one thing to be said, but there is a constant need for viability gap funding, and I think Rishika made some great points, and I wish I could recall all of them and reproduce them. But I won’t. But she touched upon the need for financing and unlocking more and more financing sources.
And that is something which is very, very key. So again, I will only speak from the very micro intervention of making clean water or safe water available to people and to communities, and from that perspective. One of the greatest challenges has been centralized funding bottled up in a centralized manner But the need to deploy it is in a decentralized manner.
And decentralized manners. I’m not referring to our intervention, I’m saying different communities have different needs. There is a different approach. And I think that is one of the biggest impediments number one, as she. You know, one of the points you’ve said and stood out for me was the minus 2 and a half x of funds being released. Now, whether for Apada or for Apaballa. In both cases the funds are always minus 2.5 x than what they need for the longest. I’ve had conversations with impact funds – who 1st asked, What is the ROI? What is the IIR on the project? And I said, Look. Where? Where does this question come from? You’re an impact fund. We are an impact activity. If you support this activity, there is another ROI which is called return of impact.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: which is what we can quantify. We can measure. And we’ve already proven that for every dollar that goes into making clean water available to communities $236 is the commensurate return on impact over 5 years. Not our assessment. This is a 3rd party US based auditors assessment on our projects and similar, but they refuse to look at that. So I have. I have. I sit on global forums. And I’ve gone out and sat with the donors and said, all these guys sitting over here are venture capitalists in disguise of an impact fund.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: The reason why they run an impact the the reason why they run this impact agenda and impact charter is because they want to attract the LPs on the back who will put money into their fund.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: But eventually they are running the VC approach because they need to pay themselves salaries, and they need to pay themselves bonuses.
This gap is something that needs to be solved. And one of the ways I want to now take, you know, the next 2, 3 min into talking about big water that we are doing. And it is trying to decentralize even financing sources. So we are actually big water is a web, 3 initiative which, which, as I call it, it, stands at the intersection of the web of the universe and the metaverse, which is which aims to monetize data in the hands of the user by giving them clean air and giving underserved communities clean water at the same time. Besides healthy rewards on a daily basis for conducting a good sustainable action. Now I may have said a lot of things which may be a little confusing. But let me quickly show you a device. This is our deep end device.Deepin stands for decentralized physical infrastructure. This is the deep end model. This is our deep end device, which is an air purifier. Now, if you install this air purifier and you run it, and you do not share your personal data. You share weather data with us as your participation into the protocol, into the big water protocol, you will earn daily rewards and at the same time for every device. We will give a thousand liters of safe water to underserved communities free of cost.
What are we doing? We are now. We’ve gone into a new universe called the Metaverse and we are trying to now create more avenues for revenue to bring that money into the mainstream activity and support people at the bottom who live at the bottom of the pyramid.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Fair fair, and I’m just gonna have to maybe stop you there. But a very interesting conversation of where tech comes in also, as I understand, a key part of being able to scale these.
Dr. Parag Agarwal: You know, there’s AI, there’s functions involved. There’s a whole tech which comes in now.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): And so, instead of moving from that private sector conundrum, if we could ask you—not specific to your experience—but if you could speak for the broader nonprofit sector and for people who work in rights-based models hinged on community participation, what does scaling then mean for organizations like this? How do advocacy, co-creation, and community mobilization play a role in scaling efforts?
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Some perspective on that would be really great.
Dulari Parmar: Yes. I would like to directly. Point out that working in a basti is messy. And that’s why it’s often visualized or often not a part of the planning process or not just climate, but any spacial planning or other processes. So usually, the approach is okay. This is so messy. Let’s get it out of our way, you know. That’s why we see a lot of evictions, because our governance and systems are yet not able to understand how to work in a basti and beyond that. When you come to climate action, you see, there are not just flooding, but there are multiple interlinked vulnerabilities.
So by doing any form of climate action, you’re not really resolving the root cause. And that’s why I think one of the important factors of scalability is that it not just has to respond to climate hazards or climate impact. But it also has to respond to the inter-links that exist within the basti.. So it’s not just open space and tree plantation, but also doing solid waste management in that open space, making sure that ground water gets drained out of that open space so that that open space sustains for a longer time.
So so within the scalability factor, I think one of the important factors to consider is that these interlink, interlinked vulnerabilities of social and climate change, need to be addressed together, and when we did our mapping we did exactly that, that we did not just map flooding and heat in the basti, but we also sought to understand the toilet condition in the basti, the sewage condition in the basti, the solid waste management condition in the basti, so that whenever we come up with an intervention it’s just not dealing with heat but beyond that, I think one important factor to scalability is also to link to the existing processes that exist within the city.
So in 2022, the Mumbai Climate Action Plan was released, and after which we were able to partner with WRI and TISS on Mumbai Urban Greening Initiative which looked at urban, informal, vulnerable communities, and how heat resilience can be developed in these communities. So then again, we started with an idea of, okay, let’s do nature based solutions in the basti. But over a long period of time, working with the community, we realized that oh, everyone has different priorities. Men wanted a gym in that open space, whereas women wanted an area to sit.
Dulari Parmar: So you know, when? How do you negotiate these different ideas and dreams? About an open space, and beyond that, how do you integrate the nature based solution within this complex framework. So along with nature-based solutions, we also looked at public open space, public realm, open space creation. So it was not not just tree plantation, but also enabling different factors. The seating area needs to be there, Wall painting needs to be there. Different forms of tree plantation should be there, and beyond that we also looked at community engagement from a stewardship perspective, that because the because the space is so less and the area that we’re dealing with for the open space is so less that we wanted to make sure that everyone had their dream getting fit into the nature based solutions. And beyond that when we look at the intervention now, in the long term, the people who are involved in the planning of the planning of the open space and now implementation are now able to take care of the plants even after you have sort of stepped out of it. So I think this stewardship can only be enabled when people are a part of the planning process right from the beginning, and this helped the scalability factor of it. So after we worked with them, WRI. And then we, through our Chalo Basti Badle campaign, garnered a lot of public funds to scale this model into Basties across city of Mumbai. So the same project was then we were able to again scale it in different Basties across Mumbai, and also in Navi, Mumbai and Panvel. So scalability. Again, there were a lot of challenges through the way we learned. But along with the challenges, there were also these pilot aspects that we could replicate across different communities now, not just in Mumbai, but also thinking about replicating in different contexts like Guwahati or Akola, which is a second tier city. So yeah, multiple factors and scalability. But that was my short take on it.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Thanks. I think that’s a very helpful perspective.
I think that we get to hear from people who has diverse perspectives in the private sector, and from an NGO, and I think a big finding from the RISE report is that these are 2 players that need to come together and work.
And so and then I think, Rishika, one quick question for you before we head to the Q. And A. And I see there are 2 questions on finance for you. But you delved into the challenge with adaptation, financing, but to sort of zoom in a little bit more specifically on informal settlements from a climate funder perspective. What do you think for someone who’s looking to do a project and implementing agency? What is it in their design of their project that could make it more investable or scalable from a funder point of view, like what are things that could be done differently in the project design and implementation stage. That you think could help.
Rishika Das Roy: So I feel like this is something that becomes a bit context specific. And it actually comes down to the whole ecosystem operating in that urban space? Right? So who are the stakeholders? Who? What does the local urban governance look like? What does civil society there look like, and what can they create together? Because what’s happening generally is that a lot of the pilots that we’re seeing in this space are not being able to scale.
And they’re not being able to scale, because either they’re not fitting that ROI framework that I was talking about, or they’re not being able to get follow-on funding right? So they are not being able to catalyze. Now 3 things that are working where I feel like we’ve been more successful pitching it to larger private scale or private sector investors has been around shelters because everyone’s understanding that there is an absolute need to work on good quality, but low cost shelters, especially with the heat trends in India, right? So shelter and roof, school roofs, etc, are getting some traction. The second big thing is looking at the Green Skills market. And that’s something that we don’t often talk about, because whenever we think of informal networks, and we immediately start thinking of the circular economy, and where informal workers fit into that, there is a massive opportunity to talk about green scaling and reskilling programs. So if it is something to do with the economy and creating green jobs, the private sector is willing to listen. So that’s a good hook. And the 3rd thing, perhaps, you know, is not necessarily about a sector itself, but more about urban services. So if there’s something specific to planning or co-governing services and access to essential services, and how we can climate proof, urban services. That’s something, again, that the private sector is interested in. So if you’re able to sort of work upwards from some of these 3 big pockets.
And we’re able to create more data which helps us build a framework for this kind of funding, where investing in informal settlements has actually been de-risked, we’ll be able to crack better quality blended finance mechanisms. We’ll also be able to crack what other cities globally have done which is called outcome based financing. So we can, like Jakarta, have done this very well with, say, flooding, where the private sector has been told that they’ll only be repaid, or they’ll be repaid more like with a factorial advantage when losses from flooding have been reduced right? So such models can only come about when we go with what the low hanging fruit is. We try to match that with the needs of the vulnerable community, design something, make it robust, get the data from it, build a framework, build a narrative, and then try and scale that up in terms of ambition and in terms of task.
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): Fair fair thanks for that, Rishika.
Alright. I think that’s a fantastic note to sort of end things with. We wanted to start with the challenges and end with opportunities to act
Evita Rodrigues (Transitions Research): At Transitions. Vikrom is always telling us about being climate optimistic, because it’s so easy to to feel like the world is ending, and things are in doomsday, but it’s great to know that there are opportunities to act. It’s fantastic to see people like the 3 of you acting and doing things on the ground, and I hope for everyone attending, there was something interesting to take away from.
