General Information
UN-Habitat’s City Resilience Profiling Programme, the BCN Urban Resilience Partnership, and the City Council of Barcelona are launching “Barcelona Resilience Week,” from March 14th through 18th—a global platform for discussion and learning between leading cities and companies working to build more resilient communities all over the world. For this year’s event, more than 250 attendees are expected, including representatives from more than 50 cities.
Barcelona Resilience Week aims to give voices to and connect cities, while providing the opportunity to learn about ground-breaking resilience topics, to present, share and exchange experiences and best practices, and to gain practical knowledge. Moreover, this year’s event will provide more space for interaction, which offers attendees opportunities to create new contacts, develop partnerships and foster networking opportunities between cities, companies with extensive experience in implementing resilience projects and experts coming from international institutions. The event will feature a variety of sessions covering a wide range of topics, from water management and disaster-proof urban infrastructures to multi-stakeholder collaboration frameworks and social resilience.
Objective
Several high-level panel discussions will explore major current-affairs topics. The session, “Resilience Challenges,” will focus on a comprehensive view of urban resilience as a mainstream issue, and the factors that hinder cities from implementing resilience procedures. The discussion will aim to address methods to accelerate urban resilience efforts. “Community Practice” will be centred on communities seeking to implement urban resilience measures and how these communities can benefit from collaboration.
Who Should Attend?
The session aims to bring partnerships among cities, international institutions, and private companies into the spotlight to discuss experiences and positive results.
Additionally, “Multi-stakeholder collaborations enhancing resilience” will explore the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships with private companies, research centres, and representatives from civil society in a city’s resilience agenda. Discussion will address the benefits of these collaborations and how to successfully build such relationships. Lastly, the very relevant topic of migration and its relation to urban resilience will be analysed in the participatory session, “Migration impacts.” Initiatives to maintain public services and overcome other social, economic and humanitarian challenges during such migration crises will be considered and discussed.
Furthermore, parallel sessions will explore the most practical aspects of the implementation of resilience projects and initiatives through the presentation of case studies and specific projects. With a broad range of topics, these sessions will aim to provide a holistic view of resilience through themes such as health, social, energy, data sharing and services, to name a few.
In addition, organized site visits will offer a unique opportunity to participants to experience first-hand how Barcelona is strengthening its capabilities to become more resilient to a slew of threats. Side events have also been organized with outside organizations, including an exhibition from the international design competition, “Designing Resilience in Asia,” from the National University of Singapore School of Design & Environment. The Enginyers Industrials de Catalunya (EIC) will also be featured in a session, “Resilient Catalonia, Governance and Smart City to Face Crisis,” exploring the concept of resilience and its impact in the Catalan territory. Furthermore, the Medellín Collaboration on Urban Resilience will host a session on the international perspective on Urban Resilience.
For more information and registration on Barcelona Resilience Week, visit www.cityresilience.org.
Follow the event @CityResilience and join the conversation using #BCNResilience16.