100 Resilient Cities workers seek future beyond Rockefeller

BRUSSELS — Dozens of people involved in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative are writing to Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv Shah to plead for more money to keep the network alive while they seek new backers, after the foundation decided not to renew its funding. “We, chief resilience officers, represent the cities that are the network, and we are committed to continue it,” the group will write to Shah, according to a draft letter seen by Devex. “We’re asking you to give us time and support in the transition towards a new phase of the 100RC network.” The draft was signed by 55 of the roughly 100 chief resilience officers around the world, whose positions are funded by Rockefeller through 100RC. It comes after the foundation announced a shift in its resilience work on April 1, which will see 86 jobs of 100RC staff in four offices in New York, London, Singapore, and Mexico City end in July. The initiative, announced in 2013, was underpinned by a $164 million Rockefeller grant over six years to pay for a chief resilience officer in cities across six continents. The CRO position involved uniting diverse players around a “resilience” plan, encompassing issues such as climate change, disease pandemics, economic fluctuations, and terrorism. Now, the foundation says it instead plans to open a new internal resilience office; include resilience activities in its domestic economic mobility programs; and provide a $30 million grant for resilience work at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Atlantic Council. Rockefeller spokesperson Matthew Herrick said the foundation’s board voted unanimously on the change of strategy a few weeks ago, having discussed the future of 100RC since the fall. “This foundation is hugely committed to [the resilience] space, and we want people to know and understand that,” Herrick said. He added that 100RC has lived up to its goals “and we’re very proud of that,” but that “it is the responsibility of the cities to take this work forward now.” The CROs behind the letter were not convinced. “Some cities will, as was intended by the Rockefeller Foundation, manage to continue resilience building efforts from their own sources,” they wrote in the draft. “However, that will certainly not apply to all cities. Arguably the cities whose populations benefit the most from a resilience program are the least [able] to continue without the support of 100 Resilient Cities. Please take this into account.” Piero Pelizzaro, CRO for Milan, said the Atlantic Council is “delivering policy” but “they have not been developing ... concrete support for cities to make smart, resilient, circular, sustainable [action] happen on the ground … We don’t need policy. We need to create connections between the public sector, private sector, and technical capacity … ” “I come from the research world, and that is wonderful,” Pelizzaro told Devex. “But when you come to the city level, you don’t have the time to think if something is good or not, you have to find a solution. Climate change is happening and the migrants are coming.” ‘Many, many, years to come’ Shah took over at Rockefeller in 2017, and in a speech that year vowed “strong and continued commitment to this initiative for many, many, years to come.” An evaluation by nonprofit research organization Urban Institute in December 2018 found 100RC was making “important progress,” having hired 83 CROs, released 49 resilience strategies and “secured more than $3.35 billion in external funding for urban planning projects.” But on April 1, invoking its “long history of incubating projects and entities that have matured to become independent organizations in their own right,” the foundation said its major funding for 100RC would not be renewed. Instead, it announced a $12 million grant “to ensure the work of 100 Resilient Cities is sustained and institutionalized” and “to allow continued support and transition time to the 100 Resilient Cities network through much of 2019.” One senior 100RC worker, who requested anonymity, questioned the foundation’s current “narrative” about “transitioning” the work of 100RC. “The $12 million is mostly to honor the existing commitments we had in cities around the world,” the source said. “Many cities are in the middle of their strategies, and making sure we didn’t leave those hanging was a priority. That $12 million only allows us to keep commitments and pay staff until July.” Not walking away Pelizzaro said CROs want more money to allow them to keep working while they find other donors for the future. “There should be high interest from the European Commission and the European institutions, also the European Investment Bank, the Council of Europe [Development] Bank, because they understand the need of investing in infrastructure and resilience,” Pelizzaro said. He added that 100RC was also approaching “more commercially driven foundations” linked to companies, banks, and private actors, but that “for tactical reasons … when you are negotiating, you can’t disclose the names of these institutions.” The senior 100RC source said the French government is another option, especially given President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to host climate-friendly researchers and businesses from the United States. The European Commission and French environment ministry did not respond to request for comment. An EIB spokesperson said “the 100RC model has been working well” and that the bank does “hope a solution for their funding is identified soon.” A representative of the office of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told Devex that it regretted Rockefeller’s “surprising” decision to stop funding 100RC, despite the positive evaluation and growing number of cities, countries, and nonstate actors signing on. “Paris will, of course, mobilize its contacts and networks to help them [find other partners to support the program],” the representative said. Paris was backed by the foundation to hire a CRO in 2015 for two years, and continued the role with its own funds. The letter’s authors ask Rockefeller to maintain funding for a “(small) Global Resilience Office, that supports the CROs in the cities.” The idea is for this office to continue coordinating the different activities and actors around the world, Pelizzaro said. Herrick said that although the 100RC program was coming to an end, the foundation was looking at options to “continue to sustain the network” within the three new strands of its resilience work, albeit with fewer staff members. “We are looking at options I would say for the sustainability of the 100RC network,” Herrick said. “Could another funder come along to fund 100RC? I’ll just say to that: We’re keeping our options open right now and looking at different possibilities.” “This is an effort that the Rockefeller Foundation has invested considerable resources in, and in many ways, it has achieved its goals and its objectives,” he said. “Certainly it makes no sense for us to walk away from that.” Update, April 11: This story was amended to clarify that the 100RC workers Devex spoke to are not employed directly by the Rockefeller Foundation.