Heritage and Resilience: Issues and Opportunities for Reducing Disaster Risks

This paper examines the unique role of cultural heritage in disaster risk reduction. Itintroduces various approaches to protect heritage from irreplaceable loss and considers ways to draw upon heritage as an asset in building the resilience of communities and nations to disasters. The paper proposes ways forward and builds on the current momentum provided by the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters” (HFA) and the advancement of a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction (HFA2) and the post-2015 development agenda. Cultural heritage is often associated with grandiose monuments and iconic archaeological sites that can hold us in awe of their beauty, history and sheer scale. However, the understanding of cultural heritage has undergone a marked shift during the last few decades in terms of what it is, why it is important, why it is at risk and what can be done to protect it. Cultural heritage today encompasses a broader array of places such as historic cities, living cultural landscapes, gardens or sacred forests and mountains, technological or industrial achievements in the recent past and even sites associated with painful memories and war. Collections of movable and immoveable items within sites, museums, historic properties and archives have also increased significantly in scope, testifying not only to the lifestyles of royalty and the achievements of great artists, but also to the everyday lives of ordinary people. At the same time intangibles such as knowledge, beliefs and value systems are fundamental aspects of heritage that have a powerful influence on people’s daily choices and behaviors. Heritage is at risk due to disasters, conflict, climate change and a host of other factors.At the same time, cultural heritage is increasingly recognized as a driver of resilience that can support efforts to reduce disaster risks more broadly. Recent years have seen greater emphasis and commitment to protecting heritage and leveraging it for resilience;but initiatives, such as the few examples that are presented here, need to be encouraged and brought more fully into the mainstream of both disaster risk reduction and heritage management. These are issues that can be productively addressed in a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction and, likewise, in the post-2015 development agenda

Rockefeller Foundation 2010 Annual Report

Contains president's letter; 2010 program highlights, including support for Africa's green revolution, sustainable and equitable transportation policy, and healthy communities; grants list; financial report; and lists of trustees and staff

City Funders: Case Studies on Philanthropic Engagement in Urban Contexts

That publication has been released by the FFSC (Funders' Forum on Sustainable Cities), a thematic network of the EFC (European Foundation Centre). It is a collection of short profiles presenting the different priorities, entry points and approaches of twenty foundations working in the urban landscape in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. Despite the diversity of perspectives, there appears to be some similarities in the overall priorities and challenges that accompany them. This initial overview seeks to highlight the many opportunities for foundations to connect with one another in the urban context to share experiences in order to leverage knowledge and maximise their impact

Partnerships for Sustainable Development Goals 2016

This present document is the fourth edition of a report that has been prepared by the Division for Sustainable Development of UN-DESA as a follow up the Rio+20 Conference in 2012, as an effort to provide status of progress multi-stakeholder partnerships and voluntary commitments have in realizing sustainable development. This current 2016 edition reviews a number of action networks and multi-stakeholder partnerships, with a particular focus on how they support the theme of the 2016 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) - "Ensuring that no one is left behind". Information in the report is largely based on submissions from the Partnerships for SDGs online platform, which was originally developed following the Rio+20 Conference in 201. The platform was recently redesigned ahead of the adoption of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015

Transnational Municipal Networks: Local action on climate change through global networks

Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) are prominent networks in the international climate governance arena serving as drivers of and advocates for local action on climate change. The main objective of this exploratory research is to establish the relation between the internal governance structure of the TMNs and their ability to carry out certain types of activities. Internal governance encompasses the means through which a TMN regulates the authority and structure within the organization. External governance refers to interaction of the network with other stakeholders and the ability to respond to external pressures as well as to position the operation of the network in the multi-level climate governance arena. From the examined cases, namely ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), and 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), and a networking event, it is clear that there is a considerable amount of similar internal governance practices utilised by networks with different historical backgrounds and structures. The applied analytical criteria, based on a framework developed by Kern and Bulkeley (2009), constituted such arrangements as information and communication, project funding and cooperation, and recognition, benchmarking and certification. These can be seen to be instrumental in delineating internal governance formation of the network. Considering key functional aspirations of TMNs which include learning, advocacy and financing, the examination of their internal governance architecture lead to the suggestion that there are preferred methods of internal governing capable of synergistic relation with the external governance dimensions and, hence, facilitating performance of their functions. Established patterns were evaluated in the context of international climate governance to reveal the importance of collaborative and cooperative interactions, climate negotiations and climate financing mechanisms in determining the factors potentially affecting the internal governance composition of TMNs

Cities Building Community Wealth

As cities struggle with rising inequality, widespread economic hardship, and racial disparities, something surprising and hopeful is also stirring. In a growing number of America's cities, a more inclusive, community-based approach to economic development is being taken up by a new breed of economic development professionals and mayors. This approach to economic development could be on the cusp of going to scale. It's time it had a name. We call it community wealth building

The Lia Fund: An Adventure in Philanthropy

Randy Lia Weil made two highly unusual decisions about the $5 million she left to be donated after her death. The first was that she appointed 14 people she knew and trusted to select the organizations and individuals who would receive funding. Most of them were lifelong activists with decades of passionate dedication to environmental, cultural and social justice issues. The second unusual thing was that she left no instructions for how or to whom they should give her bequest. She trusted them to decide.This would prove to be an adventure and a discovery, and not without its challenges for the participants. Everyone sincerely wanted to be a responsible grantmaker and do what Randy would have wanted. But it was a complex journey to turn a group of passionate individuals into a group of effective funders. Before they could make any grants, they had to agree on their mission, vision, and values. They also had to decide how they would operate and make decisions in a way that honored Randy and the values that led her to choose them. It was a tall order.After spending a year planning to establish the Foundation, The Lia Fund awarded grants to 107 organizations from 2007 to 2013. Most of the grants ranged from$5,000 to $25,000. In total the Foundation gave away$5 million. This is the story of what The Lia Fund did, how they did it, and what they learned. It describes the impact of this type of grantmaking on some of the most important issues of our time. It also looks at what foundations and individual donors might learn from this adventure in philanthropy

Getting from crisis to systems change: Advice for leaders in the time of COVID

The report recognises that we are in a crisis so deep that only far-reaching systems change can get us out of it and on a path towards a just, inclusive and sustainably prosperous world. It contains dozens of ideas across 14 key issues that are continually being fine-tuned. The report also mentions cross-cutting proposals for giving social entrepreneurs a seat at the table when world leaders meet to make decisions that will impact billions of people. This will help to break down silos impeding holistic approaches and to make it easier for social entrepreneurs to contact and collaborate with other key institutions in the ecosystem for delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals, from multilateral institutions and national governments to businesses and philanthropies.