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Role of Chief Resilience Officer

Chief resilience officer (CRO) is the person who coordinates the resilience efforts of a
city. The holder of this position typically reports to the highest decision-making authority in
the city, such as mayor (Myrivili, Argueta, & Tantikom, 2018). Creating this position for a
city significantly improves its emergency services management for various reasons.
First, the chief resilience officer improves coordination among various city
government departments by improving inter-departmental communication. Such coordination
not only improves synergy among various disaster mitigation activities and projects
spearheaded by the departments but also reduces the likelihood of duplication of work
(Myrivili et al., 2018). Improvement of synergy and reduction of duplication of work not only
increases the effectiveness of the city’s resilience efforts but also reduces the cost of such
efforts.
Secondly, the CRO leads the city’s resilience strategy. The holder identifies all the
resilience challenges that the city faces, the capabilities that the city has to address them, and
if there is a gap between the city’s resilience challenges and its capabilities, the plan to
address the gap (Myrivili et al., 2018). Like all other efforts, a city’s resilience efforts cannot
achieve much if there is no one leading them. Thus, through providing overall leadership for
the city’s risk management efforts and improving coordination among the various city
government departments, the CRO significantly improves its risk management activities.
To be effective the CRO needs to closely work with other departments that play a key
role in a city’s risk management efforts. These departments include the police, fire fighters,
planning department, and public works departments. By working with the heads of these
departments, the CRO increases their coordination and as a result, the city is able to have a
more efficient and effective risk management.

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In conclusion, it is important that cities have chief resilience officers to develop and
implement the city’s resilience efforts in coordination with other key stakeholders. Such
leadership helps a city to have more effective and efficient resilience efforts through reducing
duplication of works aimed at improving the city’s resilience.

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References

Myrivili, E., Argueta, V. & Tantikom, S. (2018). What a Chief Resilience Officer Does. 100
Resilient Cities. Retrieved on 5 th May, 2020 from http://100resilientcities.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/100RC-Press-Kit-What-a-Chief-Resilience-Officer-Does.pdf