Before joining The Hague Academy’s course on Urban Governance: Resilient and Smart Cities in 2024, Gwladys Nicimbikije was already engaged in climate resilience efforts in Burundi. Taking the training shifted her understanding of urban resilience from top-down strategies to data-driven, community-led resilience planning. Today, she works as an independent trainer and expert, training communities to use open-source data and participatory mapping to assess and respond to climate-related challenges, from waste management and capacity building in solar electrical systems safety to flood prevention.
‘Taking the course on Urban Governance: Resilient and Smart Cities has raised my awareness of local resilience as a means of local climate response. It has influenced both my teaching methods in university education for graduate student as well as in delivering specialised training for professionals.’ Gwladys shared.
A New Perspective on Community Awareness
The training enabled Gwladys to see local resilience as more than actions that communities can take to absorb climate related shocks. The session on disaster risk reduction explained how to identify vulnerabilities in a community, for example minority groups, who may face worse health or environmental effects when disasters occur. Drawing a connection between DRR concepts and innovative technology helped her to pinpoint the ways that we can tell compelling data-based stories to increase awareness of resilience within the community and encourage active participation.
Gwladys was especially inspired by the course’s focus on innovation and community-led solutions. Study visits to the Green Village in Delft and the Scheveningen Living Lab helped her a
ppreciate how experimental thinking and nature-based solutions could be applied to real-world challenges, starting on a small scale.
‘The course on Urban Governance: Resilient & Smart City inspired me to adopt an experimental mindset and to explore innovative solutions for local resilience projects.’
During the course, she also connected with peers from around the world – exchanging experiences and exploring how different countries are using smart technologies to reduce disaster risks and promote sustainable and resilient urban development. The Hague Academy’s focus on peer learning, encouraging participants to share their context-specific expertise, is something that Gwladys also focuses on in her trainings and when determining resilience priorities.
A Back Home Action Plan to use Data for Local Resilience
For her Back Home Action Plan, Gwladys focused on Sustainable Development Goal 11: making cities inclusive, safe, productive, resilient, and sustainable. Her idea was to develop a decentralised, AI-powered data platform for monitoring waste management systems in Burundi.
Key steps included:
- Training professionals in the use of open data for tracking waste and recycling processes
- Involving neighbourhood residents in data collection to promote engagement and awareness
- Working with four of her university students on an independently initiated project, without institutional support
She used tools shared in The Hague Academy training like the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Ishikawa “fishbone” diagram to help participants break down a problem to understand the various causes and possible interventions. Her interactive training sessions featured visual methods such as infographics, mind mapping, and scenario planning, which are techniques we encourage at The Hague Academy.
Building a Culture of Resilience in Burundi
Since implementing her Back Home Action Plan, Gwladys has expanded her work on data analysis for local resilience to address other urgent issues like flooding, which disproportionately affect rural and low-income communities in Burundi. Many residents lack safe housing and access to healthcare, making disaster preparedness even more critical.
By engaging students, professionals, and local leaders in workshops and knowledge sharing sessions, Gwladys is building a culture of resilience in her community. Through this inclusive, hands-on approach, she is strengthening the skills and knowledge of local stakeholders and long-term impact by instigating the use of data for local resilience. In this way, change starts in the minds of the people and is ultimately reflected in the innovative solutions that are implemented.
Feeling inspired?
If you resonate with the need in your area for more smart city solutions, improved local resilience against climate risks, and the empowerment of communities and practitioners to codesign and lead change, you can check out our open trainings on Local Climate Response and Urban Governance: Resilient and Smart Cities happening next year: Urban Governance: Resilient and Smart Cities and Local Climate Response.
For more disaster risk visual & ecosystem services, explore them on Glwladys’ Shutterstock portfolio.
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/nicimbikije?rid=437269671
For photos supporting sustainable housing for urban home gardens, feel free to find them on my dreamstime portfolio:
https://www.dreamstime.com/gwladysnicimbikije_info
Visual assets on local climate resilience through nature-based solutions & biodiversity—can widely be found here.