Nairobi included in final list of Rockefeller's cities project

Wednesday, May 25, 2016 — updated on December 22, 2020 - 1 min read

From left: Managing Director for Africa at the Rockefeller Foundation Mamadou Biteye, Nairobi County Governor Evans Kidero and Michael Berkowitz, President 100 Resilient Cities after a courtesy call to Dr Kidero's office in Nairobi on July 8, 2015. The announcement was made Wednesday at joint events held in Nairobi and Washington, DC. FILE PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |

What you need to know:

This will see the capital receive technical support from the Foundation to build resilience against social, economic and infrastructure shocks.
Rockefeller will pay the salary for a chief resilience officer who will help develop a resilience plan.
The resilience plan will help Nairobi learn how to deal with chronic stresses such as food and water shortages, an insufficient transport system and high unemployment.

Nairobi has been shortlisted as part of the Rockefeller Foundation's ambitious 100 Resilient cities programme aimed at helping large metropoles around the world better adjust to modern day stresses.

This will see the city receive technical support from the Foundation to build resilience against social, economic and infrastructure shocks.

Rockefeller will pay the salary for a chief resilience officer who will help develop a resilience plan.

Resilience in this context has been defined as capacity of individuals, businesses and institutions in cities to survive and bounce back from shocks experienced.

These shocks include single event disasters like fires and floods.

The resilience plan will also help Nairobi learn how to deal with chronic stresses such as food and water shortages, an insufficient transport system and high unemployment.

Other African cities among the 37 newly added members added to the the $164 million global initiative include Addis Ababa, Lagos, Cape Town, Luxor (Egypt), Paynesville (Liberia) and

The announcement was made Wednesday at joint events held in Nairobi and Washington, DC.

Rockefeller says it has received over a thousand applications to join its network since the programme's inception, including 325 requests in the most recent cycle.