Cities from Portugal, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine exchange experiences at EURESFO 2023
On the occasion of the European Urban Resilience Forum 2023, held in Cascais, Portugal, on 18-20 October 2023, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Portuguese National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction organized an informal peer learning exchange of the Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative.
Cities from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, participating at EURESFO 2023 with the support of UNDRR (through projects financed by USAID and Japan), took part in a peer-to-peer meeting to learn more about experiences in urban resilience building from MCR2030 Resilience Hubs and Portuguese member cities. With the support of the Portuguese National Platform Resilient Cities Working Group, Portuguese cities joined the discussion to share experiences of their resilience journeys and to offer an opportunity to build relations, share expertise, and strengthen the international MCR2030 network. A key focus for the cities was to showcase their resilience projects and initiatives and connect with financial institutions also present at the event to seek funding and financing for the implementation of their DRR strategies and action plans.
This meeting was an opportunity to showcase the good practices and efforts of Portugal’s National Platform to coordinate the work around local resilience through an important contingent of MCR2030 cities and local municipalities. It will be an occasion to engage Resilience Hubs of the MCR2030 network with cities from the broader region and contribute to the main objectives and principles of EURESFO2023 to strengthen collaboration and partnerships for resilience.
The session set out some key questions and topics and invite cities and local municipalities to introduce their contexts, share their experiences and challenges, and the capacities and tools they are using to build their resilience. The session aimed to be an open dialogue, with participants urged to think outside of the box on ways to support resilience building efforts in different contexts and strengthen peer learning and support within the international MCR2030 network.