Cape Town – In partnership with 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, the City of Cape Town has announced the appointment of Craig Kesson as its chief resilience officer (CRO), mayor Patricia de Lille said on Sunday.
100RC was dedicated to building resilience in cities around the world. The CRO would lead city-wide efforts to build “holistic resilience” to the social, physical, and economic problems that were an increasing part of the 21st Century, De Lille said.
“The CRO is an innovative new position in the City of Cape Town to lead the city’s resilience efforts and engage with stakeholders, resilience experts, and 100RC staff in developing a comprehensive resilience strategy. Mr Kesson’s appointment as the CRO has been officially endorsed by council,” she said.
This followed the announcement of the city becoming a part of 100RC in May 2016. Cape Town was chosen from more than 325 applicants on the basis of its willingness, ability, and need to become resilient in the face of future problems.
As a member of 100RC, the city would gain access to tools, funding, technical expertise, and other resources to build resilience to the problems of the 21st Century.
Kesson’s designation as CRO was an addition to his existing duties as executive director in the directorate of the mayor. Kesson would not receive any additional remuneration in his position as CRO.
“I am pleased that council has endorsed Craig’s appointment as CRO. We have high expectations of the CRO. Craig has impressive abilities to align strategy with implementation, monitoring, and evaluation and hence I am confident that he will be able to institutionalise improved resilience responses into the city administration,” De Lille said.