Civic Engagement and SDG 11: Communicating Urban Resilience to Citizens Empowering public participation through strategic messaging

Abstract

The ability of cities to absorb and respond to environmental, social, and economic shocks, in other words, urban resilience, has since become a high priority under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Civic engagement is a key that is needed to make the strategies of urban resilience inclusive, responsive, and actionable. The current paper discusses using strategic messaging to increase citizen awareness and involvement in the approach to urban resilience. Taking a mixed-methods design consisting of literature review, survey analysis, and case study, the research will look into the effectiveness of specialized channels of communication and framing of the message on the interpretation of citizens, participation, and action. The results show that customized messages, the involvement of digital platforms, and engagement workshops highly enhance the view of urban resilience and readiness to participate in sustainability efforts by the citizens. The author of the study identifies practical implications of the research on municipal authorities, urban planners and policy-makers, e.g., how to shape successful communication strategies to promote civic participation. The drawbacks are presented by the limits in the size of the sample, geographical peculiarity, and fluctuating nature of the digital communication venues, which can influence generalizability. It is recommended that future research ought to be done on longitudinal effects, cross-cultural evaluation, and the inclusion of new technological changes, including AI capabilities in messaging and real-time feedback mechanism that can continue to contribute to increasing citizen engagement with their leaders..