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Future Cities Summit Canada brought together dozens of Canadian, US-American and global municipalities, mayors and councilors, governmental agencies, international practitioners in urban policy and experts in sustainability and urban resilience to share experiences, best practices and new visions of an urbanizing world. Resilient/City CEO, Dr. Alexander Mirescu, led the Summit Workshop on Future-Planning: Infrastructure & Investment, which focused on the necessity of bringing sustainable and resilient mechanisms into the design phase of urban infrastructure, such as transportation (bus rapid transit, light rail lines, motorways and streets, right of way). Considering how much municipalities spend on critical infrastructure, it is project-critical to include storm water capture and flood mitigation into these efforts as a way to extend life cycles, reduce expensive asset loss and disruption from floods and offer residents reliable municipal services even in times of stress.

Resilient/City is looking forward to building its relationship with Cupolex building systems, global leaders in providing design and engineering services for storm water management and flood mitigating soil technologies. According to Resilient/City president, Dr. Alexander Mirescu, “our friends at Cupolex and Pontarolo Engineering fill in the most complex and difficult gap in bringing urban resilience past the last mile of project, namely, implementing design and engineering approaches for the built environment. Partnering with Cupolex is the result of great synergy and a common vision of working with municipalities and the private sector. With Cupolex, Resilient/City joins research and policy with resilience-minded design and engineering, thereby offering a complete set of resilience services, from crafting policy to pouring concrete.

From 15-19 October 2018, Resiliént/City, UNISDR Promotor Henry Peralta and the United Nations Development Program organized and led the “Resilience and Human Security facing Disaster Risk and Climate Change” with our new partners at the Centro Interamericano para la Seguridad Social/Interamerican Center for Social Security (CIESS) in Mexico City. The four-day certificate training was attended by several government agencies in social security, public health and infrastructure from over a dozen Latin American and Caribbean countries. The “Resilience and Human Security” exposed workshop trainers and participants on the negative effects of disaster on developing states’ ability to deliver social security services, unemployment benefits, job security and reconstructing infrastructure. Much more academic and research attention is needed to assess how resilient practice and risk-based governance models for social security can generate more resilient societies, reduce poverty and insulate jobs, the all-too important tourism sector and critical infrastructure from climate stress.

Following up on our work in Los Angeles in January, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction brought together again the Chief Resilience Officers from Los Angeles and Mexico City. The UNISDR City-to-City Exchange focused on multi-hazard resilience models, comprising aspects of resilience to seismic and hydrometeological hazards, preparedness and prevention and sustainable urban mobility. You can find the link to the official UN report under our ‘Publications and Reports’ page or click on the link below:

From 20-25 April 2018, RESILIÉNT/CITY CEO, Alexander Mirescu, was invited to the Academy of Sustainable Urban Mobility, organized by UN-Habitat, the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) and the Federal Government of Germany’s international development agency, GIZ. Invitees to the AoSUM received training on new technologies in urban transport – such as Bus Rapid Transit and Urban Gondolas – and training on conducting feasibility studies, survey’s and assessing which modes of public transit best fit an urban environment.

Resiliént/City proudly announces that today, 1 March 2018, it has signed a Letter of Association with the globally-recognized Training and Technology Transfer Ltd, a Wellington-based provider of global development strategies. Both companies share similar experiences and synergies with some of the largest executing agents of global development strategy – the World Bank, UNDP, the Asian Development Bank and government funded DRR and resilience policies. Resiliént/City looks forward to a successful partnership with TTT Ltd.

Representatives from Los Angeles and Mexico City discussing resilient transportation strategies

From 29-31 January 2018, Alexander, in his role as UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign Promotor, supported a high-level City-to-City exchange between the 100 Resilient Cities Chief Resilience Officers of Los Angeles, Marissa Aho, and Mexico City, Arnoldo Mathus Kramer. The mission of the C2C exchange was to enhance the sharing of lessons learned from Los Angeles’ long history of seismic risk with Mexico City. On 19 September 2017, a strong earthquake struck the Mexican capital, killed hundreds, injuring thousands and causing extensive damage to residences, the private sector and critical infrastructure. Under the gracious leadership of CRO Marissa Aho and tremendous support from the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, the C2C focused on Early Warning Systems, preparedness, water infrastructure and resilience recovery and reconstruction. A follow-up C2C will take place in March 2018.