First year of Making Cities Resilient 2030 draws to a close December 2021

     

Dear MCR2030 local government and municipality representatives,

As the first year of Making Cities Resilient 2030 draws to a close it is very encouraging to see such progress from cities and districts all over the world in understanding, communicating and managing their climate and disaster risk more effectively.

MCR2030 already has nearly 630 member local governments covering a population of almost 440 million. We also have seen a number of Resilience Hubs emerge. These are municipalities committed not only to protecting their own citizens and city’s infrastructure systems and assets but inspiring and supporting other local governments to move do the same.

Local governments are on the ‘frontline of opportunity’ in this era of the Climate Emergency. It is at the municipality level that the biggest dividend in avoided future disaster losses can be reaped.

The evidence is clear: those cities that invest to better understand, communicate, and manage their climate and disaster risk protect the lives and livelihoods of their citizens as well as their local infrastructure systems and assets.

With more than 90% of all disasters now related to climate change and extreme weather events, inaction will only escalate risk and losses. Climate change is generating more powerful storms, exacerbating coastal flooding, causing more deadly heatwaves, and prompting greater water shortages and more protracted drought. It is amplifying disaster losses, both in terms of human lives and livelihoods as well as the overall economy. And these losses are increasingly concentrated in urban areas.

Local leadership and capacity to better understand, communicate, and manage this increasing climate and disaster risk is a huge opportunity to invest in a resilient future; one where citizens continue to be safe and economically active; their homes remain dry; roads stay clear; bridges remain standing; power and water supplies keep working; and schools and hospitals stay open.

Local governments that do now in terms of climate and disaster resilience, the less they will suffer – and the less they will pay – in the future.

Reducing the impact of disasters: keeps people out of poverty; protects hard-earned local development gains; and enables municipalities to become more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

In 2022, MCR2030 is committed to supporting your municipality to continue its progress along the Resilience Roadmap with increased and easier access to support, tools and services to help your local government along that journey.

For latest news on the MCR2030 website, please visit here: https://mcr2030.undrr.org/mcr-latest-news

To access all the resources available on the MCR203 website, please visit here: https://mcr2030.undrr.org/

And for those active on LinkedIn please visit the MCR2030 page

Best wishes to all our member local governments and service providers for a resilient and safe 2022!

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Office for Northeast Asia & Global Education and Training Institute

4F, G-Tower, 175 Art Center Daero, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 22004, Republic of Korea

www.undrr.org  |  www.preventionweb.net