Global Initiative on Urban Resilience (GIUR) is a new effort designed to spur building and infrastructure development, create new investment opportunities and foster community action around the world. Partner organizations of the initiative include the U.S. Green Building Council, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, ICLEI International, the World Bank, the Eye on Earth Summit, the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Program on Energy, Resources, and the Environment and the Earth Council Alliance of Rio de Janeiro.
"Resilience cuts across all issues and sectors, and provides a new and vital dimension to the cause of sustainable development," commented Jason Hartke, Ph.D., vice president of national policy at the U.S. Green Building Council. "This initiative will mobilize a new brand of leadership - leadership that advances solutions today while preparing us for the challenges of tomorrow."
The GIUR will focus on eight key areas, but will refine its reach as innovative ideas emerge. These goals of the GIUR are identified as: convene a core group of organizations that will coordinate stakeholders to provide global reach and dimension to the initiative; encourage a resiliency dimension to the green building movement; take a whole-of-urban government approach; develop new incentives for budget action on resilience by local governments around the world; build awareness of resilience as an indispensable precondition to sustainable development; develop harmonized metrics for success to better achieve milestones and outcomes; integrate geographic information systems and geospatial infrastructure into planning and budget decisions; and integrate systems for natural capital accounting, avoiding losses and reducing costs associated with shocks and disasters.