Roadmap to Recovery for Earthquake-Affected Municipalities in Türkiye : SymbioCity

As a response to the February 6th Earthquakes in Türkiye 2023, SALAR International is launching Roadmap to recovery, aiming to help municipalities do evidence based, inclusive and participatory assessment and prioritization of needs regarding recovery.

On February 6th 2023 Southeast Türkiye and Northern Syria were hit by two major earthquakes with devastating impacts for people living in this area. In Türkiye over 50 000 people lost their lives and 1,5 million became homeless. Several cities suffered major destruction of buildings, infrastructure and institutions. Municipalities that were not- or less damaged became hosts for large numbers of internally displaced people.

Several of the affected municipalities are long time partners to SALAR International and its Reslog project, which started supporting municipalities in becoming more resilient in the refugee crisis of the war in Syria.

Just after the earthquakes SALAR Internationals’ Managing Director Ryan Knox and the Reslog team visited the affected municipalities and met with mayors, municipal staff and community members (read more about the visit through the links below).

The Urban functionality assessment and roadmap to inclusive recovery initiative

As a response to this crisis SALAR International adapted its expertise in resilience and municipal planning for recovery purposes and launched its Urban functionality assessment and roadmap to inclusive recovery initiative. The aim of this initiative is to help municipalities do evidence based, inclusive and participatory assessment and prioritization of needs which in its turn can guide the donor community to coordinate their support for medium to long term recovery in the most sustainable and efficient way.

This is a unique initiative in its holistic and inclusive approach combining:

Analysis of data and interviews with municipal teams on the impact on municipal services and infrastructure.
Focus Groups Discussion inviting different groups of the communities to jointly prioritize their needs in terms of municipal services.
The information collected in these processes was brought back to the municipalities by the Reslog team who assisted in prioritization and costing of investment needs.

As a result 11 City Reports for affected municipalities, including investment priorities, are now finalized. These will be launched 29th February in Ankara in association with the Swedish Embassy in Türkiye.

More information:

SALAR International visits earthquake-affected areas in Southeast Türkiye to plan for recovery