Scaling urban resilience: Reflections on the Resilient Cities Forum

“Resilience is not a slogan — it’s practice.”

In this episode, Phil talks with Lina Liakou, Co‑Founder and Global Director for City Engagement & Practice at the Resilient Cities Network, about the Resilient Cities Forum in December and two major outputs: the Solutions Map and the Call to Scale Urban Resilience. Together, they take stock of a decade of urban resilience practice, unpack what really works in cities (governance, finance, data and community), and tackle the hard questions of how to move from inspiring pilots — community resilience hubs, green schoolyards, integrated capital planning — to durable, citywide systems. Lina explains common barriers (siloed funding, lack of evaluation, political turnover) and why collective action, skills-building and institutional buy‑in are essential.

An insightful conversation for city leaders, planners, funders, resilience practitioners and community organisers looking for practical routes to scale proven resilience solutions.

Find out more and join the Call to Scale Urban Resilience here.

Thank you for listening to this episode. 

For any comments, questions or insights please contact phil.emonson@jbaconsulting.com.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Climate Resilience Podcast brought to you by JDA Consulting. I'm Phil Emerson, and in this podcast series, we unpick some of the complexities, challenges, and opportunities on the topic of climate resilience with some inspirational thought leaders. Whether you're working on local adaptation projects, planning for climate risk, or simply looking for hope act by science, you're in the right place. If you enjoy these conversations, be sure to follow the podcast and subscribe wherever you listen. Share with your friends and colleagues too. Anyone interested in building a more resilient future. Now let's jump into today's episode. My guest today is Lena Laiku, co-founder and global director for city engagement and practice at the Resilient Cities Network. Today's episode we'll be talking about the recent Resilient Cities Forum, an event that brought together chief resilient officers, leaders and resilience practitioners from right across the globe. We'll also discuss the recently published Call to Arms and Solutions map from the Resilient Cities Network and how we scale from pilots and trials. This is going to be a great conversation. And Lena, it's fabulous to have you on the podcast. Perhaps you could start by giving a brief introduction to yourself and a background to your career.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Thank you, Phil, and thank you for having me at the podcast. So I lead our city engagement and practice for the Resilient Cities Network. So I work directly with our chief resilience officers and city leadership across our 102 cities across regions. So my work sits at the intersection of urban governance, climate risk, and delivery. And I help cities move from strategy to implementation. I've been part of this community for around a decade. I used to be the chief resilience officer of my hometown, which is the city of Thessaloniki in Greece.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Excellent. Lovely thanks. Well, I we're going to touch on a number of those topics there. You've mentioned climate risk, you've mentioned delivery strategy to implementation. So yeah, a lot to a lot to unpick with you, and it's great to great to have you on. Let's start with the forum then, the event, which this is being recorded in in mid-December. Uh so it was held, it was held last week. Could you tell us what the event was intended to achieve and why you uh gathered the leaders and practitioners from across the globe that you that you did?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Sure. And it was the Resilient Cities Network uh biggest uh convening since uh 2019, uh after we transitioned out of the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative. We had the honor and pleasure to co-organize it together with uh the conduit in London, and we brought together um more than um uh 34 uh member cities, their chief resilience officers, uh city directors, a few um mayors, deputy mayors, together with the broader um resilience community, partners, knowledge institutions, urban and resilience practitioners, funders, etc. And um what we tried to do with the with the forum was on the one hand, it's been almost a decade since um um what we call the urban resilience practice kind of took over, uh, which kind of coincided with when 100 resilient cities was launched, when the city resilience framework was also uh developed by ARUP with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, also when other kind of more global programs such as uh the U Inhabited kind of global resilience program also was launched at the same period. So, what we try to do here is take stock of a decade of practice, what cities have built, uh, what works, um, and try to understand how we kind of shift the conversation from how you know we we build resilience uh uh through pilots and innovation to actually how we shift from pilots to systems. Uh, and we deliberately focused on uh themes such as governance, finance, data, and community that are, in a sense, the levers that determine whether resilience kind of sticks within the urban community. And um for us, this was the the the forum was less about you know inspiration and talking about the urgency of urban resilience, and it was more around direction, how we scale, what works, and what are the resources that we actually need in order to reach more cities and more people.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Brilliant, and we'll come on to that point around scaling um a little bit later. Um so I'm glad you've touched on that. Um clearly a decade of practice then, as you as you as you said, um, and a lot to a lot to gather and collate in terms of of perspectives in terms of what's worked. But was there a particular um urgency about the gathering now? I suppose why why now in particular?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

I mean, I think we all agree that uh cities are under immense uh pressure. We are living in an era of uh, as we call poly crisis, from climate shocks that are accelerating, fiscal pressures um within the public sector, uh political turnover, uh growing social vulnerabilities, polarization. Everything happens at once. Um, and this is not about crisis management. Uh, this is around um a complete change of um how we think about urban uh governance. Uh and this is what we say is that we've been working for again 10 years on urban resilience, and um the moment is now uh because it is clear why resilience matters.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, yeah. And in your opening remarks at the at the event last week, I think you said you know, resilience is not a slogan, you know, it's not a strapline, um, it's it's practice, and we need to now um direct and scale that practice and learn from all of these uh great example cities, the 34 member cities, identify what's worked uh and and embed and go and go stronger. Um I mean my my own reflections, um fabulous event. Um great to be um great to be in the room with such uh uh inspiring leaders uh and practitioners, some fabulous conversations, really good round tables as well. They were very thought-provoking um in the afternoon, so delighted to be part of it. Um the Resilient Cities Network, then, um on the on the back of the forum um have produced and uh disseminated a number of outputs. There was a there was a call to arms and there was the solutions map. Um you know I've I've I've digested these and I've I've read these with with keen interest, and it's clear as you've referenced that there is a lot of learning that shapes where we are now from the last decade, some really good practice. So I suppose um let's let's dive into into those those two documents um in in particular, um what your intentions were with with publishing them, who you intend to reach, and let's just have a bit of a discussion around yeah, around around um all of that learning that that you've that you've identified and maybe some particular examples. So, yeah, tell us about the call to arms and the solutions map.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Sure. Um we wanted to leverage this opportunity of bringing uh those cities together and those resilience uh officers and offices, along with again the organizations that are actually supporting them in building resilience on the ground. And because there is this kind of constant uh discussion around oh, what resilience looks like on the ground, and you know, what's the difference between resilience, urban resilience, and climate action or sustainability. So I think what we try to do here is on the one hand, bring together all these solutions, practices that cities have been building for the past few years, whether these are governance structures within their own entities, um, you know, the dedicated chief resilience officer positions or chief heat officer positions, or this type of directories of, for example, Cape Town has the directory of future planning and resilience. San Francisco has connected their capital planning with resilience. So there are these types of um examples and case studies across the world, whether this is in terms of governance, um, in terms of planning, the different kinds of planning frameworks, types of strategies, the way that they uh understand uh risk, the way that they are trying to manage risk, and whether this is kind of modeling processes, whether these are operational centers, um, kind of simulation exercises, to more kind of community-led and place-based kind of solutions. So, what we try to do here is trying to bring all this knowledge together, and rather than creating just a compendium of case studies, to create almost a taxonomy of what the urban resilience practice looks like. Because this, you know, resilience is contextual, so every city based on their context might approach it differently, but they're actually very similar typologies of practices that span again from governance to um policies to uh in uh you know physical interventions on the ground. And this is what makes urban resilience, you know, urban resilience uh valuable, is all of this together because if you see each one on its own, this doesn't, you know, you can say, oh, climate action, oh sustainability. But seeing them all together is what kind of moves the needle uh forward. So this is what we try to do with a solutions map. And we are talking about with uh taking stock of more than a hundred case studies and so on, and then try together with our participants, uh partners, cities, and so on, define you know what do we need collectively to put out there? What should the world know about where the resilience practice is going and what is actually needed?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um your comment there that um you know resilience is is is contextual. Um rings true. Actually, I was having a I was having a conversation with a colleague just this morning about about that. There is no necessarily there is no one size fits all, um, because every location has its own unique pressures when it comes to to to finance or community or demographics, um, governance, etc. But it but I can understand how those typologies and those uh those approaches um uh it's really important to share those. Um and and and that phrase that you finished with there, I think what what the world should know, tell the world. Um we've we've done the uh we've done the the pilots, we've done the trials, um let's let's spread this word and we will come on to, as I've said previously, um how we now move forward, uh, how we scale. Um the other document then was a call to arms, um, which has obviously got a very different um purpose than the solutions map. The solutions map being that that taxonomy, those those good examples from around the world. The call to arms are very different. Um talk to us, talk to us about what you're trying to achieve then with the call to arms.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Sure. And the solutions map is the evidence, and the call to scale is what we need to do in the next in the next years. What we need to do as a community and what uh globally uh needs to happen. Uh so the call outlines six areas um where kind of commitment is needed, and by commitment we mean you know from city practitioner practitioners, resilience experts, funders, partners, you know, you need a whole of society approach to tackle urban resilience. And these are um one is how we need to strengthen resilience leadership and governance, and I touched upon you know the different ways that cities are approaching it. Um the second is uh how resilience needs to become an integral part to urban planning and development, and how resilience must be built into planning regulation and investment uh choices. Um, expand access to finance for resilience, and that's a whole other discussion around what it means and how we finance resilience. Uh, accelerated delivery through community-centered solutions, uh, and at the center of what we do is uh communities, and uh being able to look at resilience at the neighborhood scale and not just citywide is key, especially in order to understand vulnerabilities and how we integrate and we engage and we um uh work with the people on the ground, but also understanding what is needed and where also the global ecosystem can help, which is around how we build the skills and how we equip cities without skills, tools, and knowledge uh to lead. Because resilience requires this learning, constant learning process and kind of feedback loops and reflections. This is an integral part of the resilience practice. And of course, the the last part is around how we further strengthen collaboration and collective action. And we've seen how much cities um need uh to work with each other, and we say that you know one city leapfrogs because of the of what they've heard from another city and vice and vice versa. And we need more uh collaboration between both the global institutions that are supporting cities in this uh and between cities themselves.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Brilliant, fantastic. And that that point you finished on there, you know, collaboration and collective action. Um a theme uh that we discussed on say every podcast potentially is how resilience requires m cross and multi-sectoral partnerships. Um and I was just reflecting actually on the the last episode we had, which was with John O'Brien, MBE, um, who has um designed and delivered the anthropy gathering in in Cornwall in the UK, and the slogan for that is leave your ego and silo at the door. Um, you know, and he he gave an example of you know, if you go to a um a doctor for a solution, or if you go to an artist for a solution, or you go to a teacher for a solution, you'll get very specific solutions. But if you bring together those three disciplines, you'll get something very unique and something very different. So the idea of of collaboration and and and looking across sectors um is really important, not just because of the very nature of resilience, because it as we've said so many times, it spans governance and planning and finance and community and and and and needs to be woven into the fabric of every community, but also because it gives us those different perspectives as well, which I which I think is fantastic. Um, well, Lena, all the very best then, with both the solutions document and the call to to scale. Um, I'm sure they can be found on the Resilient Cities Network uh website. They're they're they're they're good documents. Um we have mentioned a couple of times so far in this episode, then, um the role that pilots and and trials have uh have played, but also then the need for urgency. And you know, the time to scale from these resilience innovation pilots to adopted practices is now. You know, we we do need to talk about scale. I think there's there's a couple of elements to to this conversation. I think the first is around you know, how do how do we do more of it? You know, how how do we you know we've done pilots in various communities and various locations, how do we upscale that and and and do more of those? And are there any particular barriers and and hurdles? The second point that we can come on to is how do you then make resilience business as usual, institutionalise it across organizations and cities? And we'll that was that sort of whole systems approach. So we'll we'll come on to that, but let's start then with uh moving from piles and uh pilots and and trials uh and how do we just do more of that that good stuff? So, what are your experiences, Lena, from operating uh in the cities that you do, and uh you know what how do you think we're gonna be able to um scale and what are the barriers for that?

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Sure. So we've we've seen um and and that's the I mean that's the interest of and that's why it was important for us to to put this uh kind of work together and the solutions together, because as I said, there are commonalities here. Um an example are these kind of community um climate resilience spaces, whether these are the backalys in Montreal that have been redeveloped as a kind of multi-purpose spaces that address both climate risk but also create you know community cohesion, or whether these are the OAC schoolyards in Paris and the Philippines and in Cemarang and in Italy and Milan, or whether these are the you know the type of community resilience hubs, which are kind of multi-purpose community facilities that are you know um safe spaces in times of crisis, but also kind of community spaces um all year long. And there are many similar types of solutions, again, place-based at the neighborhood scale in the majority of the of the cases, um, and creating multiple benefits, right, and address multiple kinds of challenges, which is the whole concept of resilience. Now, we've seen cities like Houston, for example, that has a whole network of community resilience hubs um, but we in the majority of the cases, cities are able to do one, two, or three. But if we want to really push the needle and if we want to really see change and impact on the ground, you need to see that at scale. Um, just having one uh resilience hub in one neighborhood as an example will not save you in in times of uh crisis. If you just uh redevelop one schoolyard out of your 3,000 schools you have in the city, same. So here it's a matter of how you actually scale that. And what you need, I mean, a city mayor would say, I need money. Yes, true. They they need resources, but that's not it. Um, it is around how um the cities are able to uh internally break the silos and being able to say, Well, can I integrate how I maintain my schoolyards? Um integrating you know the OASIS concept and how this becomes a business as usual rather than a pilot that I did once. That requires actually uh skills, dedicated skills from the maintenance team, uh, an agency, for example, that does uh that maintains the schoolyards, because it's not the same to have a schoolyard that is green and uh has water features and play features versus a schoolyard that is just concrete. The same if you do a community resilience hub in a library or uh in in kind of other community facilities. So it is around, on the one hand, how you build this kind of processes within the cities to institutionalize uh this type of um uh solutions within their existing planning systems and governance systems and you know uh yearly capital plans or maintenance plans that uh cities have. The second is how you are able to integrate this type of solutions within the broader uh investment plans because these are not um you know activities that you can have a return on your investment, or it's easy to show the um you know the savings. Uh there is an intangible social capital that is built because of that. Um so how you integrate that in a portfolio of investments rather than a standalone, because it would be very difficult to find finance for a standalone resilient solutions, but it's how you integrate it within the broader portfolio of activities that the city does. So it is a community hub in relation to a regeneration project, in relation to an energy efficiency intervention. So how you weave this into uh the bigger kind of agendas that might have like you know stronger and more resources for that.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

And and and what you've just hit upon there, how you weave this into the bigger agenda. Um, I th I think that's the key to unlocking all of this. Um you are you are absolutely right when you say that that you know resources and and funding is is is needed absolutely there's also I think here um certainly from my experiences uh you know a change of mindset needed you know I think I think um you know working on pilots working on trials working on uh innovation projects you know sometimes um the shackles are off a little bit it can feel a little bit uh feel a little bit sexy we're doing something a bit different it can feel a little bit more exciting because you know there's also with a pilot and a trial there's opportunity to fail there's opportunity to get things wrong but also you are pushing the boundary you are doing something innovative you are doing something that perhaps nobody's done before so there's that there's that opportunity to to be a bit more creative it's it's those it's those first followers it's those early adopters it's those people across all those different stakeholder networks and and departments who um as you've rightly say the benefits and who've got that change of mindset and are bought brought into that concept who can really be the advocates for for change can't they um and and it isn't easy um it isn't easy but I think your earlier call and urgency around now being the time to scale I think is really important and really timely um you know we we we know what works you know we know what works we know the good practices um so so let's let's get on and and do it and let's weave it in across all our different sectors um that's a really interesting one yeah exactly but uh that this is what it requires uh this kind of um broader uh collective action and this type of whole of society approach because you have um you know who is who kind of funds pilots which means who um de-risks this type of uh in uh innovations or early type of approaches then how do you learn from this how are you able to show impact so there is a measurement aspect and evaluation that is important and in some cases it's missing in order then to move into um kind of the more institutional uh aspect this is where governments come in and central governments or um financial institutions that are able to support uh broader kind of systems because we we see it again and again um that for example we have it in in Europe a lot with the European Commission right um they focus a lot on the innovation side there are tons of pilots happening left and right uh but then very rarely these actually become part of the more uh central uh national funding kind of schemes so the there is a and there is a need here of alignment of alignment between those that support early adoption yeah whether these are the philanthropy you know philanthropic institutions and then how you move to the different the the next level and the next level until you know the kind of more institutional financial um organizations or again uh central government because if these are not aligned um between them uh the cities are just you know looking left and right trying to be opportunistic and trying to find you know whatever resources are available which leads in some cases doing a three types of the same strategy yeah and we see how you know we see that again uh you know oh we're doing another strategy on X because then this is where funding came in oh we are doing another pilot but you just did one two years ago well you know this is the funding we got because we need to show innovation yes okay these are important but these are do not again do not push towards a direction and the need is clear like we don't have time to spend uh here uh in just trying to ensure like who is the most innovative here we just need to align and we need to see what again what works and just say like these are the things that we need to do and these are not just place-based yeah um this is deep institutional changes these are processes this is these are uh financial instruments insurance products uh governance uh roles it's all of it together that needs to happen and uh the and you made a load of good points too there but one that stuck out for me was the role of evaluation and learning and monitoring because we'll we'll run our pilots and we'll we'll we'll take our learning from be that good or bad um but but but it's it's then it's then those ever that evidence base um and disseminating that and sharing those really positive news stories to other locations and in your case other cities other geographies um so that we don't reinvent the wheel you know if we know that there's a particular solution tool product um that that that works and is effective then let's apply it let's not let's not reinvent the wheel um so look I we've covered a lot um I suppose the final point to touch on really then and you you started to allude to it there which is how we how we make this whole business of of resilience um you know business as usual um and and and one thing we've not touched on really is is the whole system approach you spoke about it a little bit there in terms of you know cascading it across all of our different functions that we see in cities um but but but but in terms of in terms of skills let's let's look at skills um uh and and leadership as well being the other the other component here you know in terms of skills and leadership perspective how how do we how do we make resilience um embedded culturally in in our organizations or or cities what's needed so what we've seen uh within the resilient cities network and uh working as I said with more than a hundred cities for the past decade first of all it takes time you cannot assume that you know resilience understanding is built over overnight um and uh we have cities that uh you know appointed the first uh CRO chief resilience officer in uh 2016 and still if you talk with them first of all there might be like three or four people that have you know transitioned in and out from this position still they say you know ah you know I have I caught I'm I'm constantly trying to make the case of why resilience matters. So it's a constant like it it never finishes and that's kind of the role of the CRO in building the understanding and the skills within the local authority but also within the broader ecosystem because your allies might not always be within the the local authority it might actually be outside the local authority these are the community groups these are the the academia these are the this is the the private sector so on the one hand this is around it it requires consistency it requires political support if the politicians don't believe in resilience it doesn't need to they don't need to understand it they don't always understand it but they need to believe it if they don't believe in the need um just you know one person or one office or one team cannot you know cannot change the whole uh culture uh so you require um a strong political backing you need to be able to work both internally but also externally uh with your um community and ecosystem and we've seen cases where there is a political change the new political kind of party doesn't understand resilience they're not interested in that or whatever and because the the the uh the external ecosystem believes in it and has worked on it and they've committed in building resilience within their own city they're actually pushing you know the the the local administrations towards um reinstating a CRO reinstating a resilience office so do you uh you need to work on all kinds of levels both horizontally but also vertically again from let's say the the local neighborhood community level uh organization also their resilience can be more a kind of has like a materiality right um which is also important to show but also then working at the regional level metropolitan level in Sydney for example resilience became the connecting tissue between the local authorities within the broader Sydney area and there is no metropolitan authority uh but they were able to understand the importance of aligning their priorities on understanding their vulnerabilities as a as a city region rather than as local authorities on their own and then how you work at the kind of national scale and interestingly the UK is one of the best examples uh of this of this approach like resilience has been part of the national thinking unfortunately we don't see it much in other kinds of um uh countries and uh national governments and we hope that this type of approach is you know are are we we see more uh more and more absolutely here's to that um I've just written down here uh resilience isn't built overnight it's never ending uh and I I think there's there's a there's a lot of uh there's a lot of you know great comment in your final answer there which uh you know I'd encourage everybody to get behind um but um yeah resilience isn't a slogan and resilience isn't built overnight two two great two great lines thanks Lena for those um so much um that we've covered today um some really insightful um observations and your experiences from you know working globally on building resilience across those member cities now for a decade it's been a really fabulous conversation um I've learned a lot and I took a lot away from last week's forum so again thank you for um for that um Lena um we've reached the end um so thank you for a great discussion thank you Phil thank you I really appreciated the discussion and so we've reached the end of our time today if you've enjoyed the conversation please hit subscribe so you're ready for our next episode in a month's time and if you'd like to support the show consider sharing it with others or leaving a short review wherever you're listening. It really helps more people to discover and enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Phil Emundsen and you've been listening to the Climate Resilience podcast brought to you by JBA Consulting