Global digital public goods (DPGs)—such as open-source methodologies, standardized resilience assessments, and user-friendly platforms—offer efficient and scalable tools to understand and address urban resilience challenges like flooding, extreme heat, urban biodiversity loss and rapid urbanization. While these resources are freely available and designed for wide-scale use, many cities, especially in low- and middle-income countries, struggle to adopt them due to limited funding, technical capacity, and localized expertise.
Additionally, the fragmented approach to resilience-building and the difficulty of scaling tools across different urban contexts create a gap between what exists and what cities can actually use. To bridge this gap, public resilience-focused goods must become more accessible, adaptable, and practical for cities of all sizes.
In recent years, innovative solutions are helping cities integrate Digital Public Goods into urban planning by combining them with initiatives like data repositories and training programs ensuring more effective and widespread adoption.
The second Cities on the Frontline session of 2025 highlighted how global digital public goods are transforming urban resilience. Through the presentation of tools and case studies by World Bank Disaster Risk Management Specialists Ross Eisenberg, Marie-Flore Michel, and Pierre Chrzanowski, along with Tanner Lewis, Program Officer at the Gates Foundation, we uncovered how open-source tools, nature-based solutions, and data-driven strategies can help cities scale their resilience impact.
Ross Eisenberg
Disaster Risk Management Specialist, City Resilience Program, The World Bank
“The key question is: how can we kickstart different kinds of resilient urban planning and investment planning initiatives quickly and cheaply from a very common foundation, where we’re all on the same page?”
Marie-Flore Michel
Disaster Risk Management Specialist, Global Program for Nature Based Solutions, The World Bank
“The NBS Opportunity Scan really helps us engage with governments, and it helps inform feasibility studies, design and implementation. But it’s not the end of the story, it’s the starting point.”
Pierre Chrzanowski
Disaster Risk Management Specialist, Digital Earth Partnership, The World Bank
“We’ll always need local participation, not only because we need local institute data sets, but also because we need local knowledge. The decision making process is done by local governments, by the communities, so they need to be in charge.“
Tanner Lewis (Co-Host)
Program Officer, Gates Foundation
“Instead of each city commissioning its own urban risk assessment report from scratch. What if any city anywhere could understand its climate vulnerabilities for free?”
