San Carlos City in Negros Occidental committed to reduce disaster and climate risk and continue to improve sustainability by taking actions to enhance resilience as it joined the Making Cities Resilient (MCR) 2030 under the Stage C category.

MCR2030 is a unique cross-stakeholder initiative for improving local resilience through advocacy, sharing knowledge and experiences, establishing mutually reinforcing city-to-city learning networks, injecting technical expertise, connecting multiple layers of government and building partnerships.

It was conceptualized and developed by the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and adopted or supported by the Office of the Civil Defense and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and launched on October 29, 2021.

Local DRRM Officer Joe Recalex Alingasa Jr. said San Carlos together with Iloilo and Passi are the only cities in Western Visayas among 59 cities in the Philippines and 278 cities worldwide which joined the said initiative.

Alingasa noted that joining the global platform will give the city an access to MCR2030 dashboard, an online interactive tool, where they can track their progress and access support from participating entities, resiliency resources, tools and services, as well as the ability to connect to thousands of other cities.

He added that based on their orientation, trainings and collaborations with UNDR and participating countries which will highlight the sharing of good practices on making cities resilient will be implemented./WDJ