Reporting website
of the European Week of Regions and Cities
| 2017
Investing in resilience: A necessity for European cities? What solutions?
UDITE President, Francisco Alveirinho Correia, underlined the need for integrated approaches locally that incorporate multidisciplinary analysis of risks and events as part of local resilience strategies. He outlined a number of the key stresses facing local government at the moment, including budget austerity at local level, globalisation, ageing populations, increasing health costs, public involvement and engagement in local democracy, digitalisation, energy efficiency and the capacity to handle big data and bridge the public's demands with technology solutions. Following a discussion between the moderator, Geoff Meade, and panellists, resilience in the local context was defined as “an integrated and strategic approach to strengthening the socio-economic attractiveness of the urban ecosystem, whilst guaranteeing its sustainable growth by withstanding stresses and mitigating risks associated with major shocks.” Eric Lesueur presented Veolia 2EI’s experience with robust infrastructure projects, including resource conservation, successful flood management, critical energy supply, heat wave mitigation and critical event management. He played a short video entitled “Copenhagen – a city becoming resilient to flooding” that showcased a recent VEOLIA initiative. Grzegorz Radziejewski, Cabinet Member to Vice President Jyrki Katainen, spoke of the need to “build resilience for our citizens, their security and new opportunities” a topic covered in the recent Reflection paper entitled Harnessing globalisation - “today more than ever, local issues go global and global issues become local. While globalisation affects nearly every aspect of our lives, our citizens and regions experience these developments very differently. Now is therefore the time to consider what the EU can do to shape globalisation in line with our shared interests and values. (…) And to agree on how the EU — from its institutions to Member States, regions, municipalities, social partners, wider civil society, businesses and universities — and its international partners can come together to harness globalisation.” Holger Robrecht from ICLEI presented the Smart Mature Resilience Project and its 5 steps to achieving local resilience including baseline assessments, risk awareness, co-creation of the Resilience Strategy, effective implementation & monitoring and evaluation & reporting. These 5 steps are key to delivering on commitments to UN Sustainable Development Goal 11.9 – “By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change and resilience to disasters”. Miguel de Castro Neto, “Smart Cities Personality of the Year 2017” and Assistant Professor at NOVA Information Management School in Lisbon, presented a Smart City ecosystem approach to resilience. These cities are platforms for collecting a wide variety of passive and active open big data that is essential to managing local infrastructure demands and stresses and anticipating shocks as part of resilience planning. He presented OEIRAEU.pt that enables rapid analysis for predictive policing in Lisbon.
Take away message
A discussion page and access to all materials is possible on the UDITE Knowledge Hub.
  • Building resilient regions & cities

    Building resilient regions & cities

Code

11A63

Day

October 11

Organiser(s)

Chair

Speakers

  • Francisco Alveirinho Correia, UDITE President, UDITE - European Federation of Chief Executives in Local Government, Portugal
  • Eric Lesueur, CEO of Veolia 2EI, Veolia 2EI, France
  • Grzegorz Radziejewski, Member of Cabinet - Vice President - Jyrki Katainen, European Commission, Poland
  • Holger Robrecht, Deputy Regional Director, European Secretariat, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, Germany
  • Ronny Frederickx, PRIMO board member, Public Risk Management Organisation (PRIMO Europe), Belgium
  • Miguel de Castro Neto, Professor, NOVA IMS Information Management School, Portugal