MCR2030 (Making Cities Resilient 2030)

A global city partnership led by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) that aims to strengthen urban resilience by 2030.

MCR2030 (Making Cities Resilient 2030)

Overview

MCR2030 (Making Cities Resilient 2030) is a global urban resilience partnership officially launched by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in November 2020. It aims to provide a phased roadmap, diagnostic tools, and a city-to-city learning network so that cities around the world can diagnose and reduce disaster and climate risks in advance by 2030. As the successor to the "Making Cities Resilient" campaign that ran from 2010 to 2020, it is directly linked to the Sendai Framework (2015–2030), the Paris Agreement, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Main Content

Background

More than half of the world's population lives in cities, and this share is projected to reach about 68% by 2050. Because cities concentrate people, assets, and infrastructure, they are especially vulnerable to compound disasters such as floods, heat waves, earthquakes, and pandemics. MCR2030 was launched out of the recognition that many local governments nonetheless lack sufficient disaster risk data, budgets, and planning capacity. Multilateral organizations and city networks—including UNDRR, UN-Habitat, the World Bank, ICLEI, UCLG, and C40—participate as joint partners.

The Three-Stage Resilience Roadmap

At the core of MCR2030 is the "Resilience Roadmap," in which a city diagnoses where it stands and then advances step by step.

Stage A (Awareness and Diagnosis): The stage in which a city recognizes the need for disaster resilience and uses self-assessment tools to identify its vulnerabilities.
Stage B (Planning and Implementation): Based on the diagnosis, the city establishes a resilience strategy and action plan, connects budgets and stakeholders, and begins actual projects.
Stage C (Scaling Up and Investment): The stage in which the city expands the results of implementation, attracts investment, and spreads best practices to other cities.

Key Tools and Support System

The most widely used tool is the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. It is a self-assessment tool through which a city scores its own level of resilience against the Sendai Framework's 10 Essentials, and it is used by local governments to set policy priorities.

The 10 Essentials are as follows: ① Organize for disaster risk reduction and coordination ② Allocate budgets and provide incentives ③ Maintain and update risk information ④ Pursue infrastructure resilience ⑤ Protect vulnerable groups ⑥ Strengthen financial capacity ⑦ Plan for urban resilience ⑧ Conserve natural ecosystems ⑨ Establish early warning and emergency management ⑩ Ensure resilient recovery and reconstruction.

Alongside this, Resilience Hubs operate by region. Hub institutions provide coaching, training, and technical support to cities, and broker City-to-City Learning and connections to international networks. Local governments in a number of countries, including South Korea, serve as hubs or are registered as participating cities.

Participants and Benefits

While local governments are the primary targets for joining, national governments, international organizations, academia, private companies, and civil society also participate as partners. Participating cities gain benefits such as greater international recognition, free use of diagnostic tools, connections with international financial institutions, experience-sharing among cities, and opportunities to present at international conferences.

Latest Trends

Developments in 2024–2025 can be summarized under three main headings. First is the expansion of early warning. As the UN's "Early Warnings for All" initiative (2023–2027) combines with MCR2030, there is a growing number of cases in which weather observations and risk information are directly linked to urban planning. Second is linkage with climate adaptation finance. Attempts to connect international funding sources—such as the Loss and Damage Fund and the Green Climate Fund—with urban resilience projects have become active.

Third is digital and AI-based risk diagnosis. A growing number of cities are using satellite imagery, digital twins, and machine learning to estimate flood-prone areas or heat wave-exposed populations in real time. In addition, as the check on progress toward the 2030 goals has gained momentum following the midterm review of the Sendai Framework, the number of MCR2030 participating cities and the record of scorecard use have become internationally reported indicators.

In South Korea, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the National Disaster Management Research Institute, and various metropolitan and basic-level local governments are participating in resilience diagnosis and international cooperation, and institutional reforms are under way to integrate climate crisis adaptation measures with urban planning. As 2030 approaches, MCR2030 is increasingly regarded as a platform that positions cities as key actors in international disaster governance.