The project has brought conflicting parties using platforms such as the Community Peace Architecture Forum CPAF and the People First Impact Method P-FIM. This approach has succeeded in bringing people at the community level together to discuss and resolve their issues at the local level using community driven solutions. Communities have been able to resolve disputes arising through mediation of the CPAF and articulate their needs, and goals through P-FIM. All of which have helped the project to design and deliver on its objectives with the buy in of local communities.

The Project Map serves as a tool on our website for a better visibility and visualization of projects implemented by the International Alliance member organisations: both projects funded by the Alliance and projects run independently by the Alliance's members.

As an interdisciplinary and inclusive multi-stakeholder platform bringing together different disciplines, the Alliance invites efforts on a wide range of topics related to the work and goals of the Alliance to be presented on this project map, for others to see and get connected.

With more than 5,300 buildings in the George Town Heritage City, it is important to proactively prepare the site in reducing the risk of fire incidents. GTWHI is working proactively to provide at least one smoke detector and a fire extinguisher for every building within the World Heritage Site. A fire safety training session was also held under this programme, in collaboration with the Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia. Participating communities were trained on practical measures to prevent and mitigate a fire emergency (installing a smoke detector, using a fire extinguisher and others).

Since July 2020, fire extinguisher maintenance has been conducted for the first phase Community-Based Fire Responders. The GTWHI team went on house visits to all 50 participants to check their fire extinguishers condition, renew the Fire and Rescue Department’s certificate which is displayed on the fire extinguisher, and understand the issues and challenges faced by them during the difficult times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Informative posters is one of the disaster risk reduction toolkit developed by GTWHI to raise awareness on disaster mitigation measures and emergency response preparedness. The posters introduce fire and floods as key hazards, with information on risks, vulnerabilities, prevention and reduction strategies. These posters have been produced in four local languages – English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil – to address the multicultural communities in Malaysia.      

Community-based workshops and awareness campaigns on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management have been organized by GTWHI for local communities. Representatives from local communities (caretakers of heritage buildings or residents alike) attended the trainings to identify risks, discuss preventive measures, and develop emergency actions. These sessions enhanced local communities understanding of disaster preparedness, enabling them to identify hazards, assess vulnerabilities and possible factors, as well as reducing the potential impacts of disasters on the site.

The workshops were structured as follows:

1. Introduction of key concepts with examples, site mapping and imagination games.
2. Participants shared disaster scenarios and proposed mitigation measures for people and heritage, drafting emergency response strategies.
3. Participants detailed the risk analysis and identified possible actors and their roles before, during and after a disaster
4. Participants presented their case studies with Standard Operation Plan for the before, during and after a disaster.
5. Participants presented their cases at the Experience Sharing Workshop on DRR Strategy for Heritage Cities in Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Africa.

Development of an action plan after the SAGE process was very crucial as it ensured that recommendations provided in the SAGE process were addressed in a systematic and targeted manner whereby key stakeholders who participated in the SAGE process were also engaged in the action planning process hence, they drew the roadmap for implementation of those recommendations.

In addition, recommendations which came out of the SAGE process informed Honeyguide on areas of priority in designing WMA governance capacity building programs.

Effective communication is an important aspect of the IMET assessment. Of course, effective communication between the project implementers and other stakeholders, including the funding institution(s), is needed during project development and implementation. However, in the IMET assessment, it is critical that the results of the assessment are effectively communicated to stakeholders. The stakeholders include those involved in the assessment and others who may not have participated. In our case, we organised an information sharing event at the national level to which different national stakeholders were invited. In addition to the presentations made at this event, information packs providing an analysis of the IMET results were shared with all participants. We also developed a summary results banner that was later deposited (and still is) at our project office. It is the first thing anyone sees when they walk into our office. We also developed simplified brochures in three local languages for community stakeholders.

This project encouraged the participation of youth and community volunteers to gain support and increase local knowledge of the importance of protecting local ecosystems. Increased community involvement will work to build capacity while empowering and strengthening local conservation efforts. The group of volunteers we currently work with is a mix of residents and visitors, men and women, young and old and from a wide range of backgrounds.

Efforts are made to keep policymakers involved and inform them of the importance of mangroves in general and restoration in particular to gain their support. 

Enhancing the conditions in the degraded areas,  eleminating threats in the mangrove forest will lead to natural regeneration. However the restauration can be sped up by using nursery grown saplings. New plants from the nursery are used in degraded areas and along the coast to support reforestation efforts. Expanded mangrove forests will form a first line of coastal defense for extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels, supporting an ecosystem-based approach to climate change adaptation and mitigation on the island. This also includes a pilot program to encourage regrowth of mangroves in degraded areas and demonstrate intervention method success.

Community livelihood initiatives have to be linked to market and promotion for them to be sustainable and provide a financial impact that they have been designed to bring forth. 

When building the capacity of a community to produce eco-friendly items, there is a need to establish a very good foundation of how these products will reach the market but also what are the demands in the market when it comes to quality criteria. Leather items in particular especially items made with Naturally tanned leather stand a chance in the market, however they need to meet high quality standards and be promoted so as to enhance consumers to know of their existence. For this solution initiatives were taken to assess the market for Leather products in main cities such as Nairobi town, Arush Town and even Zanzibar to identify shops or dealers who would be willing to purchase the products. 

Promotion of the products in different platforms is also very key through catalogs, social media and participation in fairs/exhibitions. Market linkages and promotion is a bridge for the community livelihood initiatives to bring financial benefits and make communities willing to continue the production chain.