Dr Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation in the United States, has said Accra now has the opportunity to build on existence resilience efforts, including strategies to prepare for any eventuality that would occur.

She said her Foundation would assist Accra and other 100 resilient cities awardees, by providing funding to hire a Chief Resilience Officer, who would lead the city’s resilience efforts.

Dr Rodin made these disclosures when she paid a courtesy call on Dr Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE).

She said support in the development of resilience building strategies that would serve as the city’s roadmap to resilience, access to a platform of resilience building tools and assistance and membership in the 100 resilience cities to share best practices, solve problems collectively and learn from each other, were some of the things planned for Accra.

“Through these offerings, 100 resilient cities aims to not only help individual cities become more resilient, but to facilitate the creation of a global practice of resilience building”, she stressed.

Dr Vanderpuije said last year Accra was selected among over 300 Centennial Challenge applicants because it had demonstrated the city’s genuine commitment to implement solution that increases the community’s capacity to prepare for and bounce back from stresses.

He gave the assurance that Accra would take advantage and join sister cities within the resilience to ensure effective collaboration, adding that, “we have challenges of sanitation, flooding, and we will look forward to working toward just that”.

Dr Vanderpuije expressed gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation for supporting 100 Resilient Cities in the world.