100 Resilient Cities Unveils City Leader Advisory Committee

By Bennett  Oghifo

100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC), has unveiled the City Leader Advisory Committee, a group of city chief executives that would contribute their expertise to the global resilience movement. 

100 Resilient Cities helps cities around the world, including Lagos, become more resilient to the physical, social, and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century. 100RC provides this assistance through: funding for a Chief Resilience Officer in each member city who will lead the resilience efforts; resources for drafting a resilience strategy; access to private sector, public sector, academic, and NGO resilience tools; and membership in a global network of peer cities to share best practices and challenges. 

According to a statement by the organisation, the Advisory Committee members will advise on policy and advocacy, act as global champions and help 100RC identify and prioritise key issues essential to building urban resilience as 100RC pivots to implementing resilience building projects in cities. 

The Advisory Committee was announced at the 100 Resilient Cities Urban Resilience Summit taking place in New York this week. 

The nine founding members of the Committee are: Monica Barone, Chief Executive of Sydney, Australia; Megan Barry, Mayor of Nashville, USA; José Isabel Blandón Figueroa, Mayor of Panama City, Panama; Giorgos Kaminis, Mayor of Athens, Greece; Diriba Kuma, Mayor of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Kunal Kumar, Commissioner of Pune, India; Patricia de Lille, Mayor of Cape Town, South Africa; Ye Lwin, Mayor of Mandalay, Myanmar; and Claudio Orrego, Intendente of Santiago de Chile, Chile.

Michael Berkowitz, President, 100 Resilient Cities, said “Four years ago, the Rockefeller Foundation created 100 Resilient Cities in response to massive urbanisation and the twin threats of climate change and globalization. Since then the importance of cities, and therefore our work, has only grown.  

Now, our practice is at a turning point.  We’re pivoting from the early stages of planning, to the implementation of concrete projects aimed at improving the lives of people in our member cities.  The City Leaders Advisory Committee formalises the role these city executives have played as the global leaders of the urban resilience movement and will help shape the movement in years to come.” 

100RC’s urban resilience work builds on a century of work by the Rockefeller Foundation helping the poor and vulnerable and more than 50 years of urban planning and policy expertise.  Since 2013, 100RC has worked with its network cities to place 80 Chief Resilience Officers and 32 Resilience Strategies have been released to date. 

The City Leaders Advisory Committee will meet in person once per year with a planned inaugural meeting in Athens in September 2017 in conjunction with the Athens Democracy Forum.