Monrovia –The City of Paynesville has been officially admitted in a group of hundred resilient cities around the world under the Rockefeller Foundation.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
The Rockefeller program is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are growing part of the 21st century.
Hundred resilient cities supports the adoption and incorporation of a view of resilience that includes not just the shocks such as earthquakes, floods, disease outbreaks but also the stresses that weaken the fabric of a city on a day-to-day or cyclical basis.
At the official admittance the Mayor of Paynesville City Cyvette Gibson, she was excited to be part of the program and said it is a huge opportunity for the City of Paynesville.
“We are here to sit with outsider of government the community leaders so that we can sit and discuss to come up with a road map for the city development.
“These are not something we are doing for today, these are long term goals we are setting and we are also coming up with a ten year master plan for the municipalities as well,” Mayor Gibson said.
For his part, deputy internal Affairs Minister for Urban Affairs Steve Nuefville said, Liberia is fortunate to be among the few countries around the world to make the City of Paynesville City safe and ready for disaster.
“This program will make our city safer and prepare for any future disaster. Liberia is ahead of lots of countries in dealing with collecting data that is getting us ready to compliance to the new urban agenda which says cities should be smart and ready for disaster.
“Flooding is one of our shock we spoke about so if we know that this specific community us likely to flood we go into these communities before the flood to address the issues so the purpose is that we build resilience in the cities to be able to deal with issues before they arrive,” he said.
Cities in the hundred resilient cities categories under the Rockefeller foundation are provided with resources along four pathways including financial and logistical guidance for establishing innovative new position in city government, where a chief resilient officer will be appointed to lead the city resilient efforts.
The Rockefeller foundation as part of support will support chief resilience officer to lead stakeholders in the development of a resilient strategy. This strategy, developed over the course of six to nine months, will serve as the city’s roadmap resilience.
It will also provide access tools, service providers, and partners from the private, public and non-profit sectors who can help cities develop and implement their resilience strategies. It will also enable cities share best practices, solve problems collectively, and learn from other resilience experts.
Though these offerings, hundred resilient cities aim to not only help individual cities become more resilient, but to facilitate the creation of a global practice of resilience building.
The program began working with their first cohort of 32 cities in December 2013 and announced their second class of 35 cities in December 2014.
The program is financially supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and managed as a sponsored project by Rockefeller philanthropy Advisor an independent 501 nonprofit organization that provides governance and operational infrastructure to its sponsored projects.