100 Resilient Cities Pioneered By The Rockefeller Foundation

100 Resilient Cities (100RC) was dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century. 100RC supported the adoption and incorporation of a view of resilience that includes not just the shocks – earthquakes, fires, floods, etc – but also the stresses that weaken the fabric of a city on a day to day or cyclical basis. Examples of these stresses include high unemployment; an overtaxed or inefficient public transportation system; endemic violence; or chronic food and water shortages. By addressing both the shocks and the stresses, a city becomes more able to respond to adverse events, and is overall better able to deliver basic functions in both good times and bad, to all populations. Cities in the 100RC network were provided with the resources along four main pathways: 1) Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city’s resilience efforts; 2) Expert support for development of a robust resilience building strategy; 3) Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public and NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and 4) Membership in a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other. Through these offerings, 100RC aimed not only help individual cities become more resilient, but to facilitate the creation of a global practice of resilience building, which it successfully did. 100 Resilient Cities was financially supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and managed as a sponsored project by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides governance and operational infrastructure to its sponsored projects.