This paper considers how resilience thinking and, in particular, its emphasis on learning has been applied in 10 cities in Vietnam, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Applying a “shared learning” approach in the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) has helped to create or strengthen networks, build appreciation for complexity and uncertainty among stakeholders, provide a space for deliberating concepts such as vulnerability and resilience, and build knowledge and capacities for stakeholders to engage and represent their own interests. Shared learning approaches face considerable challenges navigating politicized urban environments, in which the nature and value of existing systems − and therefore the value of building resilience − are contested. This article suggests that deliberate, strategic intervention by facilitators may contribute to more transformative change on behalf of equitable, socially just outcomes – and thus cautions against seeing urban climate vulnerability as a technical challenge, or shared learning as a “toolkit” for building resilience.

This paper uses the emerging crises in water management in North East Thailand as a case study to examine the effectiveness of existing institutional structures and processes to adapt to an uncertain future climate. We argue that it is through an analysis of the interface of actors, institutions and physical infrastructure that climate vulnerability can be better understood, and conversely, that climate resilience might be strengthened. This research has global significance as case studies of emerging water crises provide valuable insights into future vulnerabilities and the Thailand experience speaks to similar challenges across the global South. Our findings illustrate that water managers on the front line of dealing with climate variability are constrained by the interaction of infrastructure that was designed for different times and needs, and of institutional structures and processes that have emerged through the interplay of often competing organisational remits and agendas. Water management is further constrained by the ways in which information and knowledge are generated, shared, and then applied. Critically the research finds that there is no explicit consideration of climate change, but rather universally-held assumptions that patterns of water availability will continue as they have in the past. As a result, there is no long-term planning that could be termed adaptive, but rather, a responsive approach that moves from crisis to crisis between seasons and across years.

This volume brings together primary research conducted in secondary cities of Southeast Asia. It provides readers with improved knowledge regarding issues of vulnerability, governance, and climate resilience. The goal of the book and the Urban Climate Resilience in South East Asia (UCRSEA) project is to suggest possible next steps, even as urban systems are dramatically changing in the face of socioeconomic and environmental challenges. The chapter summarizes specific examples from the book drawn from Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand. As the authors document, urban citizens most directly affected by climate change lack access to power and need to be able to participate in the creation and implementation of climate-adaptation strategies if they are to be more effective.