Interviews with Michael Berkowitz, President of 100 Resilient Cities, and Dr. Arnoldo Matus Kramer, Mexico City’s Chief Resilience Officer
Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) was founded in 2013 as a separate NGO to help cities face three major threats and challenges: growing urbanization, globalization, and climate change. Initially, a commitment of $100 million dedicated to build urban resilience was made by the Foundation (the commitment has now gone up to $164 million).
With this initiative, 100 Resilient Cities supports cities in building a Resilience Strategy aimed at identifying the main risks they are facing and the best way to tackle them. To help cities drive transformation, 100 Resilient Cities has set up different tools from financial to technical support. The initiative encourages cities to hire a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) who is the single point of contact within a city’s government.
The CRO’s mission is to both deliver the Resilience Strategy of a city by assessing risks and to monitor implementation of the plan. Today, 40 resilience strategies have been set up through 100 Resilient Cities with 90 Chief Resilience Offi cers in place in cities.
