Resilient infrastructure delivery, transparency and governance in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Santa Catarina in Brazil is affected by adverse climatic events such as floods, flash floods, landslides, windstorms, tornadoes and coastal erosions. Floods have caused fatalities and major damages to infrastructure and continue to do so routinely. Many people live in high-risk areas of coastal flooding and landslides and without a robust risk management, mitigation and adaption strategy, communities are prone to major disasters and displacement. Problems related to lack of city planning, lack of integrated urban drainage networks and lack of robust infrastructure networks are blamed for poor city resilience. Governments are known to react rather than plan and prevent. Lack of transparency, political interference, governance and institutional fragility of local administrations are blamed for not implementing long-term city-planning measures. This paper examines the policy framework and the governance structure that is in place to improve the resilience of the infrastructure projects. Literature review, case studies and action plans for the region provide an understanding of the current debate. It establishes the need for joined up integrated coastal and land zone management and governance solutions to be implemented by all stakeholders.