In 2012, I was sitting with my colleague Holger Robrecht from ICLEI Europe in the sun after the global Resilient Cities Conference in Bonn. We reflected on the inspiring sessions, but something we were missing in this annual event. There haven’t been hardly any people from cities themselves and European ones in particular not. That felt strange. Could we do something about it? We did! In 2013 the first Open European Day came to life, and now, we had already the 10th European Urban Resilience Forum (how it is named nowadays) in Cascais Portugal! From a small crowd we grew into a movement, where around 350 participants f talked through the climate and resilience challenges and solutions over three days. Honestly, I am really proud on what we have kicked off. This forum really seems to be needed.

>>Check out for the rich experience from EURESFO 2023

The event gave me also lot of inspiration interwoven with and useful for my other activities, like ...

We need to be brave and we need innovation in cities, trying out new things.

This also means to risk failing from time to time and use this experience on building even better solutions. I was impressed to hear exactly this from a politician in my recent interview in the course of the GreenQuays-project in Breda. Daan Quaars has been the responsible alderman for the highly innovative project.

>> Find out from Daan Quaars, how such attitude can work out in Breda while politicians in many other cities hesitate to take risks.

Then ..., how can we finance all these solutions?

Are there options beyond public funding? The IGNITION project from Greater Manchester, which I also had the chance to support over three years, has found a bunch of innovative solutions for financing nature-based solutions - green roofs, green facades, green areas, sustainable drainage system. Systematically identifying all possible benefits and potential beneficiaries has enabled to develop co-financing and co-implementation schemes. Here, various beneficiaries co-develop and then co-invest in the projects. These stakeholders can be different municipal departments for green space, roads, health, education as well as private stakeholders, such as nearby cafes, shops, companies that want to provide attractive work environments and improve their image, as well as residents. 

>> Check out the co-financing approaches

However, resilience is not only about technical solutions, it is equally about people and communities.

Transformation processes towards carbon-neutral and climate-resilient cities need to be socially just to create trust and strong communities that withstand multiple crisis. With a team of experts, that I was leading, we have identified many ideas how governance for Just Transitions can look like. Leaving nobody behind in Green Transitions and making these socially just requires a truly democratic governance. In the 86 Urban Innovation Action projects we have found clever ideas - neighbourhood manager, repair cafes, residents' self-designed ecostreets, art action, a local currency and many more.

>> Read on the examples and findings for implementing Democratic Transitions for all

What is next?

We need to push for scaling up and roll out broadly all these innovative pilot solutions. Seems challenging. What would help? Let me know your ideas!

>> contact@birgitgeorgi.eu