RISE program celebrates completion of community upgrades in Makassar, Indonesia

This July, the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) program celebrated the completion of community upgrades in Makassar, Indonesia.

Residents of urban informal settlements experience some of the harshest living conditions, exposed to environmental contamination hazards affecting health and wellbeing, which are disproportionately exacerbated by climate change.

Our formidable team in Makassar and the transdisciplinary research program at Monash University has co-designed, and now implemented, a suite of constructed water-sensitive local infrastructure upgrades with informal settlement communities designed to meet each community's unique stressors, providing access to essential sanitation and water services and strengthening climate resilience to flooding and water shortages.

Now, more than 1,400 residents across 325 households in the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, have received RISE's unique combination of ‘green, grey and smart' solutions to improve living conditions.

Speaking at the ceremony, RISE Co-Director and Director of Monash Art, Design and Architecture’s Informal Cities Lab, Professor Diego Ramirez-Lovering said, “The number of one billion people living in informal settlements today is projected to reach three billion by 2050. The sustainable and responsible growth of cities in low- and middle-income countries must support these communities.

“However, governments are challenged with keeping up with their rampant growth, and we need to urgently develop approaches that improve living conditions now – especially in ways where communities play a central role in developing solutions that best suit them – while developing a research-informed evidence base for best practice approaches in the future.”

By co-developing tailored solutions in partnership with communities, we have a better chance to create a thriving future where nobody is left behind.

Discover more about how RISE here: https://www.monash.edu/mada/research/project/rise