Networking and Collaboration Pathways for Disaster and Climate Resilience

Natural disasters are growing in intensity and frequency worldwide, demanding more resilient cities and systems to prevent costly infrastructure and property damage.

The United Nations defines resilience as the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform, and recover from the effects of a threat in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management (United Nations General Assembly, 2016, p. 22).

One way a city can enhance its resilience and ability to cope with disasters better is to collaborate, partner with other cities or be involved in the so-called city-to-city learning collaboration schemes and participate in “knowledge networks”.

Partnering with cities can range from informal knowledge exchanges to highly structured collaboration.

The study “A pathway towards resilient cities: National resilience knowledge networks” says that developing networks for resilience-knowledge sharing and support is a popular solution for building resilience in cities. In addition to the known benefits of knowledge sharing and collaboration, there remains a gain in literature and practice.

The authors from various universities in New Zealand, Elrasheid Elkhidir, Sandeeka Mannakkara, Theuns F.P. Henning, and Suzanne Wilkinson, seek to fill the gap.

“The aim of this paper is to enrich the literature and provide local governments, policymakers and analysts, resilience practitioners, and knowledge-network managers with a structured roadmap for establishing a national-level resilience knowledge network. The paper explores the benefits of a national knowledge-sharing network for resilience-building, determines criteria for selecting resilience partners, and identifies preferred mechanisms for knowledge-sharing between cities in New Zealand.”

Using New Zealand as a case study, researchers survey city authorities in the country for their perceptions of the benefits of creating a national knowledge-sharing network, their criteria for selecting resilience partners, and their preferred mechanisms for knowledge sharing and diffusion within the network. Response to the survey provided the initial criteria, which were tested nationally in selected cities to test it out before applying to international experts for international transferability.

Elkhidir, Mannakkara, Henning, & Wilkinson (2023) say:

“The study revealed that establishing a national-level resilience-knowledge network requires general and supportive conditions, specific criteria for selecting suitable resilience collaboration-partner cities, and appropriate knowledge-transfer mechanisms. The findings can guide the development of national resilience-knowledge networks and are aimed at local governments, policymakers and analysts, resilience practitioners, and knowledge-network managers.”

You can read the entire study by clicking the link in the “Source” below.

Also, check out a related study by the same authors featured in Climate Adaptation Platform.

Criteria for selecting partner cities in a national-level resilience network