Creating Livable Cities through Inclusive Urban Design: Lessons from Viet Nam and Indonesia for the World

The importance of creating age-ready, universally accessible cities has become an important part of the World Bank's mission. Inclusivity is increasingly being seen as a global public good, especially for those facing aging populations.

Our initiative of pioneering work on universal accessibility and inclusive cities started small—an unexpected question from a client in Viet Nam sparked a journey that has expanded into urban infrastructure initiatives that now touch millions of people.

It began in Vi Thanh, a city in the Mekong Delta where the World Bank’s Viet Nam Scaling Up Urban Upgrading Project was preparing to upgrade a low-income area with proposed investments in roads, canals, and sidewalks. The city government asked our team if we could suggest ways to meet the needs of disabled and elderly residents on project sites. The client’s question got our team thinking: how could we incorporate inclusive features into the project?

Universal accessibility was a nascent approach to Viet Nam’s urban development at the time, so this looked like a good opportunity to pilot a more inclusive approach. We brought in a consultant from Japan, an architect who uses a wheelchair. His visit was financed by the World Bank’s Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) Partnership, which supports incorporating universal accessibility, safety, resilience, and sustainability into infrastructure.

Disability is often viewed negatively in Viet Nam. But when local officials saw our consultant hard at work, despite maneuvering up and down stairs, their attitudes changed. Here was someone overcoming barriers to provide valuable technical input. It showed that disabled people can play productive professional roles when the built environment enables their participation.

The physical environment posed more challenges than our consultant expected. But his on-the-ground advice directly shaped infrastructure designs that better serve users of all abilities. We developed national guidelines on accessibility, a first for Viet Nam. We also trained local government staff responsible for infrastructure in the seven Mekong Delta cities. 

Replicating the model

Our experience in Viet Nam opened the door to a larger opportunity in Indonesia with the National Slum Upgrading Project, better known as KOTAKU (“our city”). Here, we not only replicated the successes from Viet Nam but also incorporated lessons learned, impacting 43 Kelurahans (urban wards) with complex/challenging slum conditions located in 15 cities and a national-level scale up envisaged to over 2,500 kelurahans participating in the project.

We expanded on the Viet Nam model with additional funding from the Australian government. Consulting economists, architects, and community development experts specialized in universal accessibility we conducted cost-benefit analyses showing that inclusive design from the start is far more efficient than retrofitting to meet accessibility standards later. To empower city coordinators hired for the project, we developed detailed checklists for auditing community accessibility, enabling them to identify and enact targeted improvements efficiently. And we advanced methods for collecting accurate data on disability to ensure investments match actual populations in need.

These initiatives were synthesized into a Universal Accessibility Toolkit, incorporating training materials and other practical resources tailored to Indonesia’s slum upgrading program, including:

• The KOTAKU Guide to Disability Inclusion, which showcases the critical role of inclusive urban planning in addressing the needs of disabled individuals in Indonesia.
• A cost-effectiveness analysis of two pilot projects in Indonesia that demonstrates the economic and social benefits of incorporating universal accessibility into infrastructure projects.
• Universal accessibility physical design guidelines, which address the challenges of implementing universal accessibility across diverse urban environments.

The toolkit is now being applied to new programs in Yemen and Senegal to integrate accessibility measures into urban reconstruction.

Building “Age-Ready” cities

Our efforts in Viet Nam and Indonesia are part of a larger global narrative that champions inclusivity and accessibility in urban development. Lessons learned from these projects contributed to a groundbreaking report, Silver Hues: Building Age-Ready Cities, which outlines a vision for cities that are both age-ready and age-friendly. With the right policies, the potential of aging populations and urbanization can be seen as opportunities. 

The report highlights global experiences to rethinking aging and promoting an age-free society, where older individuals lead active, healthy lives, contribute to the labor market, and are integral to the longevity economy. It suggests adapting infrastructure for the aging demographic through the innovative reuse of existing structures for elder care and community revitalization. Additionally, it focuses on enhancing urban mobility and walkability by embedding universal design in public transportation, supporting easy access for older persons and those with disabilities, and facilitating greater participation in society and the economy. A series of dissemination events happened in Japan, Korea, followed by an East Asia and Pacific (EAP) Regional Paper launch in China.

The transition towards inclusive cities requires a multifaceted approach that considers the unique needs of all residents, particularly the elderly and disabled. Overall, we are proud of what we have achieved since that initial question in the Mekong Delta triggered a fascinating journey, an important agenda now taken up widely by the Bank's leadership .

But there is still tremendous room to grow. We dream of a future where inclusive design is at the heart of all urban development initiatives, seamlessly integrated from the outset rather than as an afterthought. We should not view accessibility, resilience, sustainability, and other aspects of quality infrastructure as optional add-ons—they need to become integral to how we conceptualize any project from day one.

The broader World Bank team that participated in these series of efforts include, in alphabetical order: Andre Bald, Evi Hermirasari, Hoa Thi Hoang, Kumala Sari, Maitreyi Bordia Das, Narae Choi, Terri B. Chapman, and Vibhu Jain.

Related:

QII Principles in Action: Viet Nam: Upgrading infrastructure design for universal accessibility