Khulna Co-creation Workshop Report: Leverage and Action Workshop

In Khulna, Bangladesh, the USAID-funded Asia Resilient Cities (ARC) Project works with the Khulna City Corporation to support the city’s resilience goals

ARC uses systems thinking approaches to understand the various complex challenges and opportunities in Khulna. The project engages a diverse group of city stakeholders and government officials to become systems thinkers in order to jointly create potential activities for system strengthening and resilience building. One tool ARC uses is a system map, which serves as a visual backbone of the project because it depicts connections between different perspectives, behaviors, and structures that form the city system. ARC facilitates a series of workshops to jointly develop, or “co-create,” the system map. The first Context Workshop identifies the issues and opportunities on the way to achieving city goals. Next, a series of community activities and expert discussions ensure that voices from vulnerable communities and expert entities are incorporated into the system map. Additional workshops further build the system map by identifying the areas with the greatest potential for improvement. The completed system map then guides ARC and city stakeholders to define a road map for Khulna to promote resilient and sustainable urban development.

This report summarizes the content and outcomes of the second Khulna co-creation workshop, the Leverage and Action Workshop, held on October 30-31, 2023.