🎓 Resilience Finance Capacity Programs
Cities use programs that build financial capability by linking local practitioners with finance, risk and business expertise to strengthen the skills needed to design, fund and deliver resilience projects.
How cities are applying it
• Through initiatives such as the Global Risk and Resilience Fellowship, practitioners receive hands-on support from finance and risk specialists to understand climate risks, evaluate investment options and integrate resilience into budgeting and capital planning. In Greater Manchester, fellows worked with city teams to assess financial exposure to climate impacts, prioritise resilience projects and clarify how resilience should shape long-term investment decisions.
• In Accra, Addis Ababa and Cape Town, networks such as C40 Cities are supporting chief financial officers through peer learning, climate budgeting and investment matchmaking. These efforts help cities strengthen internal capability and expand access to partners, tools and financing pathways.
Together, these programs show how financial capacity-building can improve the quality of investment decisions, strengthen cross-departmental collaboration and help cities move resilience projects from concept to delivery.
Why it matters
Financing resilience requires specialised skills that many cities do not yet have. Capacity programs help bridge this gap by building knowledge inside government, improving coordination between finance and planning teams and creating clearer pathways to capital. By investing in people as well as projects, cities are strengthening the institutional capability needed for long-term resilience outcomes.