The mayor of Christchurch will today pledge to introduce a budget committing at least 10 percent of the city's 2017/2018 spending to building Christchurch's resilience.
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel Photo: RNZ / Conan Young
In 2013, Christchurch was among the first 33 cities selected internationally to join the Resilience Cities (100RC) network.
Led by a private New York based group, the Rockefeller Foundation, 100RC is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to physical, social and economic challenges.
The pledge will be signed by the city's mayor, Lianne Dalziel, and 100RC Asia-Pacific associate director, Sam Kernaghan, as part of the official launch of the Greater Christchurch Resilience Plan this afternoon.
The plan is aimed at ensuring Greater Christchurch has the strength to deal with future challenges.
The Christchurch City Council said signing the pledge would give Greater Christchurch access for up to $US5 million worth of goods and services from the 100RC Network that could be used to help the city achieve its goals.
Mike Gillooly Photo: Christchurch City Council
Mayor Lianne Dalziel said Greater Christchurch had faced enormous challenges as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes and it was known there would be more challenges in the future.
"This is not simply about preparing our infrastructure or our built environment and it's not about bouncing back to the way things used to be.
"Resilience is about understanding the risks and challenges we face and developing ways to adapt and co-create a new normal," Ms Dalziel said.
The council's chief resilience officer, Mike Gillooly, said the resilience plan was a result of two years of research and collaboration with a range of agencies from across the Christchurch region.
Mr Gillooly said resilience thinking accepted that chronic stresses, such as poverty and homelessness, and acute shocks, like earthquakes and flooding, rarely happened in isolation
"By considering shocks and stresses in the same strategy, a city is able to be more responsive to adverse events and be more effective in delivering core functions and services in both good times and bad," Mr Gillooy said.
The resilience pledge will be signed during the official launch of the plan at the Christchurch City Council today.
