From April 21 to 23, the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, in cooperation with international organizations such as the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), held the "Strengthening Capacities for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilient Cities" training for relevant units of the city and front-line civil servants in various districts through combined online and offline methods. As a specific measure to implement the requirements of the Beijing Committee of the Communist Party of China's "Quick Answer to Community Calls" requirement, the training received strong support from the Organization Department of Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. Eighteen people from the Beijing Emergency Management Bureau, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, the Beijing Municipal Ecology Environment Bureau, Dongcheng District, Xicheng District, Chaoyang District, Haidian District, Fengtai District, Shijingshan District, and Tongzhou District participated in the training.

The training invited first-class experts and scholars in related fields at home and abroad from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning & Design and other institutions to introduce international frontier theories and practical experience regarding resilient cities and disaster risk reduction, which provide international thinking as reference for grassroots and front-line civil servants to satisfactorily develop resilient cities. Participants from various municipal units and districts communicated with representatives of international organizations and sister cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu, Ningbo, and Zhuhai. Under the guidance of ICLEI experts, they applied the "Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities" of UNDRR and conducted group exercises to evaluate and analyze the development of Beijing as a resilient city. The Beijing Emergency Management Bureau Chen Xinhua introduced the flood control command system and Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei's flood control work joint mechanism of "unified command, department cooperation, hierarchical responsibility, and military-civilian linkage" from the perspective of the development of Beijing's flood control command system. This introduction was combined with the flood response cases to an extraordinary rainstorm in Beijing on July 20, 2016 and shared Beijing's experience with resilient city development for flood control work. Gao Jing, from the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, introduced the main measures and achievements of Beijing in implementing the principle that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" and promoting the work of tackling climate change, focusing on the role and effect of the urban forest ecosystem in protecting the environment and advancing the development of a low-carbon economy.

Participants said that the training was rich in content and novel in form. It overcame the impact of the epidemic by means of "cloud diplomacy", invited international experts to the local area, and opened a window for them to gain advanced experience in the development of resilient cities and international urban governance.

Learn More

ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) was established in 1990. It is a non-governmental international organization with local governments as its members. ICLEI is committed to promoting global sustainable development with a focus on improving the environment. It has more than 1,500 local government members from over 100 countries around the world, including New York, London, Tokyo and other world cities. Additionally, ICLEI has carried out a series of studies in the field of resilient city building over the years and is one of the first organizations in the world to put forward the concept of resilient cities.