In 2025, Howden, Resilient Cities Network and the Sustainable Markets Initiative delivered the third year of the Global Risk and Resilience Fellowship (‘the Fellowship’). This built on the successful delivery of the previous two years, when municipal leaders in ten cities worked with the private sector to address urban resilience challenges, such as how cities can access the capital required to advance climate mitigation and adaptation.
The 2025 Fellowship worked with three cities across two continents: New York, US, and the program’s first two Latin American cities – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Mexico City, Mexico. This report provides a detailed overview of the outcomes of the 2025 Fellowship projects, as well as a reflection on the key learnings from delivering the Fellowship over the last three years.
The Fellowship was built on a simple premise; that cities can manage climate risk more effectively when they have the tools, partnerships and financial strategies to understand, quantify and transfer risk. Over three years, the Fellowship has developed and refined a multi-level methodology for private-public collaboration. This enables resilience building that combines city priorities, technical data analysis and modelling, and cross-sector collaboration to create actionable pathways for risk-reduction and resilience. Each cohort builds on the lessons of the last, expanding the network of private sector partners who are engaging with cities to address risk, and explore technical solutions for advancing urban resilience.