UNDRR engages with Ukrainian cities at European Urban Resilience Forum
The 11th European Urban Resilience Forum (EURESFO) 2024, held in Valencia, Spain from 26-28 June 2024, saw active discussions and exchanges. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia brought four cities and one region (oblast) from Ukraine, participating in the Making Cities Resilient 2030 Initiative (MCR2030), to the Forum. These contributions were supported by USAID financing.
Before the main event, UNDRR organized a dynamic pre-workshop with cities from Rivne Oblast, Ostroh, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Vinnytsia, and Pokrovsk. With guidance from UNDRR experts, the workshop fostered open discussions on strategic planning involving a broad range of stakeholders. These conversations were based on initial insights from preliminary scorecard assessments conducted in February in Wroclaw. This session was highlighted by Mykolaiv’s voluntary initiative to help establish a network of participants who have joined the MCR2030 network in Ukraine. The network aims to maintain effective communication and pave the way for future collaborations among Ukrainian cities.
Silvia Haslinger Olsson of the Nordic Urban Resilience Institute, a UNDRR expert who has been working with Ukrainian cities to support their journey within the MCR2030 network, remarked, “We hope many delegates and participants take the opportunity to engage with the Ukrainian city representatives; it is mutually rewarding in so many ways.”
The pre-workshop session contributed to in-depth discussions during three parallel workshops dedicated to Ukraine at the Forum. In addition to the five cities already in the MCR2030 network, more than ten cities participated in these workshops, focusing on sustainable reconstruction, energy resilience, and economic recovery. Throughout the workshops, various cities shared their challenges and areas needing support.
Liubov Kolosova, Ecology and Urban Greenery expert at Vinnytsia City Council, stated, “We are excited to have the opportunity to meet with cities and experts. We seek not only the exchange of experiences but also new alliances that are so important in difficult times when we are addressing the same challenges as everybody else in Europe in addition to stresses from the war.”
During the plenary session titled “Roadmap from Humanitarian Response to Post-conflict Resilience and Recovery - Focus on Ukraine,” Nicholas Joseph Ramos of UNDRR emphasized the importance of capacity building for the long-term sustainable recovery of Ukrainian cities. He noted, “If we truly want to assist in the long-term sustainable recovery of Ukrainian cities, we need to focus on building capacity. This task is time- and resource-consuming and does not happen by itself. There is an urgent need to facilitate such capacity build-up and we need to identify that as a crucial investment field.”
UNDRR also ran the MCR2030 marketplace during the Forum to promote good practices of MCR2030 Resilience Hubs and the MCR2030 approach. This initiative was highly appreciated by the participating cities. In addition, the MCR2030 Regional Coordinating Committee (RCC) meeting was held in a hybrid mode at the margins of EURESFO, with ICLEI, co-chair of MCR2030 RCC. The meeting gathered feedback and shared updates from the members around the partnership activities and thematic focus on extreme weather events and resilience financing, reaffirming the commitment towards urban resilience.
Through these engagements, UNDRR highlighted its commitment to supporting Ukrainian cities in their resilience journey, ensuring they are better equipped to handle current and future challenges.
About EURESFO
The European Urban Resilience Forum (EURESFO) is an exchange platform for city representatives, experts, and stakeholders from local and regional institutions to discuss strategies, initiatives, and actions for adapting to climate change, managing disasters, and building urban resilience. The forum is organized by ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability and the European Environment Agency (EEA).