The National Resilience Council (NRC) forges a partnership with the City of Manila and private sector partners from BPI Foundation (BPIF) and the International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI) Foundation through the signing of the Adopt-a-City Agreement on December 18, 2020.
The Adopt-a-City Program
The Adopt-a-City Program of the National Resilience Council (NRC) is an innovative pathway for businesses to collaborate directly with local governments, academic partners, civil society organizations, and communities in transforming local climate and disaster risk landscapes.
Private sector investments are envisioned to strengthen the evidence-informed risk governance by building knowledge and capacities of cities towards climate and disaster resilience. The Program intersects businesses’ environment, society, and governance goals with the human, economic, infrastructure, and environment resilience of their communities. It is grounded on whole-of-society effort towards risk reduction and uses a systems lens in order to co-create science and technology-based solutions to a local government’s specific priorities and challenges. These may include investments in disaster-resilient housing and infrastructure, jointly supporting the sustainability of social and environmental protection programs, providing opportunities for social innovators and entrepreneurs, as well as, enhancing financial literacy of informal livelihood earners and MSMEs.
The City of Manila as the Adopted City of BPI & ICTSI
Manila, as the heart of the Philippines’ capital, is an important center of the country’s economic, political, social, and cultural activities. With a population of almost 2,000,000, it lies along the eastern shores of Manila Bay at the mouth of Pasig River. While it faces urban housing, social protection, infrastructure, and environmental challenges, Manila continues to be rich in potential. It is home to many of the country’s leading universities, a strong civil society presence, the Philippines’ principal trading port of entry, and symbiotic mix of large, small, and informal industries. These challenges and opportunities constitute Manila’s complex and dynamic risk landscape and highlight the importance of an informed crisis leadership and disaster risk governance.
The Adopt-a-City Program, therefore, aims to strengthen the leadership and governance capacities of local governments by adopting a resilience framework based on the interdependence of human development, a sustainable local economy, resilient infrastructure, and environmental sustainability through multi-stakeholder partnerships. It is focused on building capacities to prevent hazards from becoming disasters through dynamic risk assessments and tools that address current needs and inform strategic and operational foresight. Should hazards occur, the program will allow the city to envision a climate and disaster-resilient future through pre-disaster recovery planning.
The NRC is honored to have the BPI Foundation and the ICTSI Foundation as private sector partners in this Program. The partnership promotes the vision of BPI Foundation of empowering every Filipino to live a better life. It also supports the BPI Foundation’s goals to uplift the social and economic well-being of the Filipino people through community resilience, financial inclusion, and economic empowerment. The partnership likewise reflects the vision of the ICTSI Foundation of transforming communities and improving lives and upholds ICTSI’s goal of implementing community welfare and social services and building disaster resilience of the community.
This multi-stakeholder partnership also reflects the commitments of the Philippines to the advancement of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals, agreements on the Paris Climate Agreement, and the New Urban Agenda.
For more information about this program and other NRC initiatives, please email [email protected] or visit www.resiliencecouncil.ph.
