RNI is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to support the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge. Initially we will provide services to 5 cities chosen from the first 32 cities that are part of the challenge. RNI can provide services to cities outside of the 100 Resilient Cities program on a case-by-case basis.
RNI works either directly with Chief Resilience Officers to build tools on behalf of city governments or directly with community based organizations to increase their capacity to engage with local government. Because RNI uses open-source tools, all of the tools we build and methodologies we develop will be made freely available to the public. In this way, all cities benefit from each project as outputs can be re-used, scaled, or further iterated upon to meet specific resilience challenges. At present we are using the full suite of Ushahidi tools and services.
Working with Chief Resilience Officers
RNI works with Platform Services group of 100 Resilient Cities who help pair partnership opportunities to member cities as they create and implement their resilience strategies. Interested cities or service providers are welcome to contact RNI directly to discuss ideas, potential collaboration, or needs for further details. All formal engagement will be conducted via the Platform Services group. RNI welcomes inquiries from any city in the network regarding how RNI services could respond to their resilience challenges.
RNI will prioritize its outreach based on an analysis of variables that suggest a successful engagement leading to greater citizen engagement: Da Nang (Vietnam), Semarang (Indonesia), Mandalay (Myanmar), Medellin (Colombia), Boulder and New Orleans (USA), and Surat (India). This analysis is not definitive and is only meant as a way to prioritize outreach for cities whose observable characteristics appear to be a good match for RNI or whose specific resilience challenges would be a good test case. All data, methodology, and visualization for the analysis can be found here.
Working with Community-Based Organizations
RNI leverages the extensive network of community-based organizations (CBO) that use Ushahidi products to identify local stakeholders that represent resilience capacity or challenges of vulnerable or marginalized groups. RNI can work directly with these CBO and provide technology and capacity building to bring their data and stories to city governments in an understandable and actionable format. We coordinate with each city’s Chief Resilience Officer to ensure that participating CBOs have a voice in the resilience programming of their city.
Working with Cities outside the 100 Resilient Cities network
RNI services and tools are available to cities outside of the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge and interested cities are invited to inquire directly to discuss their needs and pricing.
