Co-Creating Urban Resilience by Community Engagement in Central Asia

Mountain cities in Central Asia face growing climate-related challenges, including ecosystem degradation, water vulnerability, exposure to natural hazards, and the loss of green infrastructure. Responding to these pressures, the Naryn Urban Resilience Programme (NURP) demonstrates an integrated model of low-carbon, climate-responsive, and community-driven urban development. Drawing on the NURP case, this paper explains how collaborative processes (co-creation) among residents, municipal actors, investors, and technical experts build urban resilience in Naryn. The NURP introduced multi-level capacity-building programmes for residents, municipal departments, and local businesses, focusing on sustainable landscape design, slope and riverbank stabilisation, public-space management, and the use of climate-resilient local flora. The NURP activities include nature-based solutions (NBS), circular landscape practices, community engagement, and GIS decision-support systems to strengthen Naryn's adaptive capacity. Community engagement activities led to the formation of a local expert group that facilitated co-design, stewardship, and ongoing dialogue between residents and authorities, strengthening social resilience and shared ownership of public spaces. Using NURP cases, the paper analyses which institutional arrangements amplify or inhibit co-created resilience interventions. The findings show that the combination of participatory greening, native-plant-based NBS, and digital planning technologies creates a practical pathway toward resilient, energy-efficient, and climate-adaptive urban development. The Naryn case highlights the importance of co-governance structures, blended learning approaches, and local ecological knowledge for sustaining NBS in resource-constrained mountain environments. The paper concludes by outlining how lessons learned from the NURP could be applicable across similar urban contexts in Central Asia and beyond.