Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030): Engaging Academia and Faith Actors to Strengthen Cities Resilience to Climate Change and Disasters

Introduction

Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. A comprehensive demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion. Local communities rely on faith leaders and actors as part of their coping mechanism in times of disasters. Faith-based groups are key to the localization of risk reduction, resilience building to climate and disaster risks and humanitarian action because they are among those at the first line of defence in preventing avoidable disasters. They are also among first responders in emergencies providing shelter during evacuation, basic needs (i.e. food, water, clothing, shelter) of those affected during emergencies, and social capital for healing and recovery.

What can we do?

Looking beyond 2020, there is an urgent need for effective multi-stakeholder relationships to work toward resilient to accelerate the progress of resilience building at the local level, to bring cities on to the resilience pathway towards achieving the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Agreement, and the Sustainable Development Goals, by 2030. Aiming to support the effective implementation of above global frameworks at regional, cities and community level, and in particular in the most deprived and marginal areas of the world, there is a need for meaningful and substantive engagement of academia and faith actors including religious leaders at all levels and Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) to reach the most at-risk communities, and effectively engage them in DRR and climate change adaptation activities to generate true resilience dividend.

The Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) is a unique cross-stakeholder initiative for improving local resilience through advocacy, sharing knowledge and experiences, establishing mutually reinforcing city-to-city learning networks, injecting technical expertise, connecting multiple layers of government, and building partnerships.

About the Webinar

Webinar on “Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030): Engaging Academia and Faith Actors to Strengthen Cities Resilience” is organised by the Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific located in Asian Institute of Technology (AIT RRC.AP) in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the United Nations Environment Programme Faith for Earth, and the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities – Network (EPIC-N).

Objectives

• To raise awareness on the importance of greater engagement of local universities and faith actors in the process of strengthening cities resilience to climate change and disasters
• To share best practices, case studies from the field and methodologies on effective collaboration and engagement of Faith Actors by UN Agencies, International Non-Governmental Organisations and National and Local Governments to support the process of the Sendai Framework for DRR and Paris Agreement implementation at national, local and community level.
• To present MCR2030 initiative approach and model of engaging various stakeholders and partners in urban risk reduction and strengthening cities' resilience to climate and disaster risks.

It is envisaged, that proposed feedback and recommendations at the webinar will be shared with MCR 2030 Asia-Pacific Regional Coordination Committee (RCC) to be considered in shaping the campaign design and methodology.