Since the launch of the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, writes Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin, we have been inspired – and daunted – by our member cities’ willingness to confront the many challenges ahead

As we move deeper into the 21st century, the stresses and shocks come faster and faster. They’re hitting hard in all parts of the world, and cities are bearing the brunt because that’s where the largest segments of our populations live.



While a huge amount of effort has been focused – with good reason – on climate-related shocks, our 100 Resilient Cities initiative continues to highlight and address so many other challenges that are equally powerful, equally destructive. Social unrest, economic shocks, disease outbreaks, cyber terrorism, other kinds of terrorism, earthquakes, infrastructure failures ... they’re all part of the daily news cycle somewhere in the world.

It’s been thrilling to see our cities’ mayors come and talk so excitedly about the progress they’re making in this area or with that project. But we must be realistic: all that progress could be wiped out by the very next storm; the next moment of social unrest or economic crisis. There is deep vulnerability in the world’s cities, but there is also an incredible opportunity – to help them act on these challenges in more integrated, holistic ways.

So while have reached our “full quota” of 100 member cities less than three years after the initiative launched, we understand that we are still only at the beginning of our learning curve. In another three years, we want to ensure that no city in our network makes a mistake that another city has already learned from. That’s a big goal for us.

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We always knew this initiative would rank among the Rockefeller Foundation’s most ambitious efforts. We needed to work with 100 cities to create a launchpad for influencing the next 1,000. We received almost 1,100 applications from cities all over the world in scores of different languages. The scope of the challenge for our team was enormous – but our biggest inspiration has been the energy and commitment of the cities themselves.

Now their efforts are making national governments sit up and pay attention. By watching their own cities in action, by seeing the serious work they’re doing, governments are understanding what resilience really means, and requires.

In three years’ time, all 100 of our cities will have their Chief Resilience Officers in place. A great many of them will have launched their long-term Resilience Strategies, and we’ll see hundreds of the programme’s platform partners doing thousands of projects – and leveraging billions of dollars in the process.

That’s the other thing I couldn’t have expected: the positive response of so many companies, thinktanks and individuals with real resources to offer, which our cities would otherwise never have known how to access, nor been able to afford. CEOs, academia, research labs, the NGO research sector ... all are asking us what they can do for cities.

Crucially, I also believe we are cracking the finance nut. We’re seeing “developed world” cities getting better municipal bond ratings because they have Resilience Strategies in place – which unleashes one part of the capital markets. And with regard to “developing world” cities, we recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Finance Corporation, which means in the future, IFC’s billion-dollar financing for infrastructure programme will be done through a resilience-building lens.

So while we say we’re only spending $164m on our 100 Resilient Cities programme, the billions that this can unlock over the next three years and beyond has been front-and-centre of our thinking from the outset.

Of course, city mayors are politicians with, often, short-term political lifespans. This can lead to grand announcements that gain a lot of attention, but aren’t the right option for the long-term health of the city. We learned during the first round of applications that you need to have the hard conversations early on. You’ve got to look that city mayor or chief executive right in the eye and say: “There is no single silver bullet; there’s not going to be some mega-grand project with a ribbon for you to cut … There are going to be lots and lots of difficult, smaller projects; lots of incremental achievements. Are you willing and able to commit to that?”

Over time, I believe we’ve been able to show these city leaders that there are multiple ways to get to the same outcome, and that the most expensive plan is, indeed, often not the best one – just the first one they thought of.

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The 100RC application process alone has demanded deep introspection on the part of each city, with regard to how it operates and structures itself. The same is true for the development of the Resilience Strategies, which are so much more integrated than traditional city plans.



Take Boulder, Colorado: their strategy shows that when you build flood walls, you can integrate them with your new transportation systems – your rail and bike paths – in a way that also allows for more green recreational space to be built. For a single investment, you’ve achieved four goals. It’s much more cost effective, and that integration in itself will make the city more resilient.

We’ve found that our cities’ strategies are extraordinarily specific about who’s going to do what, how it’s going to get done, how long it’s going to take, and where they’re going to secure the funding. But what’s also striking is how seriously they contemplate the social issues affecting them, and the vast inequalities we are seeing in cities throughout the world. Traditional urban plans rarely did that.

The kind of impact we’re noticing gives me a strong sense of satisfaction. I really think we’ve touched a chord. But it’s tinged with fear, too – because what the application process also showed us is just how vulnerable many cities around the world now feel.

Dr Judith Rodin is president of the Rockefeller Foundation. This article is distilled from a longer interview