In an announcement at the Rio+20 Resilient Cities event, the UN’s Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, announced that San Francisco had become the first U.S. city to join the Making Cities Resilient Campaign. In doing so, San Francisco becomes the 1000^th city to join the campaign. The city will be also be used as a role model by the campaign.

In making the announcement, Ms. Wahlström said: “We welcome Mayor Edwin Lee on behalf of the people of San Francisco as the 1000^th city to join the UNISDR’s making Cities Resilient campaign. San Francisco’s participation further signifies that cities of all sizes and economic strength are prepared to take the lead on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaption. We are also particularly pleased to designate San Francisco as a role model for ‘Advancing Resilience through the Whole Community Approach’ given the City’s efforts to engage its citizens at neighborhood level in building resilience.”

Mayor Edwin Lee said: “San Francisco has worked tirelessly to increase our overall resilience by investing in our physical infrastructure, such as our water system, and increasing the capacity of our residents and communities to respond to and rapidly recover from disasters