Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report
Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report
1. Introduction
This report provides a summary of the
outcomes from the Wellington Agenda Setting
Workshop, hosted by 100 Resilient Cities
(100RC) in partnership with the Wellington City
Council on 28 September 2015. The workshop
brought together 180 stakeholders from a wide
range of sectors to discuss the critical issues
to be considered in preparing a resilience
strategy for Wellington City.
100 Resilient Cities
100 Resilient Cities - Pioneered by The
Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) helps cities
around the world become more resilient to the
physical, social, and economic challenges that
are a growing part of the 21st century.
In December 2014, Wellington was selected
as a member city within the 100 Resilient
Cities network.
The Agenda Setting Workshop is the first
official engagement between the city and
100RC. There will be three key stages in the
100RC Programme going forward:



Appointing a Chief Resilience Officer
(CRO) for Wellington;
Developing Wellington’s Resilience
Strategy, and
Implementing the Resilience Strategy.
Wade-Brown welcomed participants to the
Agenda Setting Workshop and outlined
resilience-building work currently underway in
the city.
Nicola Thomson, Associate Director with 100
Resilient Cities, outlined the 100RC
programme and its objectives. As a member of
the 100RC network, Wellington will receive:

Funding for the city to establish a Chief
Resilience Officer (CRO), who will lead the
resilience strategy for Wellington City,

Technical support for the CRO in leading the
development of a resilience strategy,

Access to a platform of innovative
organisations, from the private, public and
non-for profit sectors, which donate services
and tools to help design and implement the
resilience strategy,

Inclusion in the 100RC Network and sharing of
information between cities to foster best
practice solutions and address problems
collectively.
AECOM was the workshop partner for this
event, assisting the Wellington City Council in
organising and running the workshop and
preparing workshop reports.
Wellington Agenda Setting Workshop
The Wellington Agenda Setting Workshop was
the first step towards creating a Wellington
City Resilience Strategy.
Workshop objectives:

Establish a shared understanding of resilience
and the 100RC initiative,

Discuss Wellington’s resilience challenges and
existing strengths and weaknesses, and

Identify key stakeholders from the Wellington
Region who need to be involved in the
development of the Wellington City Resilience
Strategy.
“I don’t think we’re a resilient city yet…
but I think I can say we’re on our way”
(Workshop participant)
Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report
2. Stakeholder Participation
The success of the workshop was in large part
due to the calibre and wide range of attendees
and the quality of input they provided. These
inputs reflected a strong understanding
amoungst the attendees of the complexity of
urban systems and awareness of the critical
roles of different players in addressing the
future resilience of Wellington City.
180 stakeholders from 90 organisations
attended, including:

Councils, infrastructure providers and health
boards from across Wellington Region

National Government agencies

Private sector companies including
infrastructure, finance and insurance

Front line emergency, health, social housing,
and community services

Academic and research institutions

Local iwi and non-profit organisations including
environmental and community groups

A full list of attendees can be found on page 8.
“Resilience means a public that has
realistic expectations of their roles and
others in the face of emergency”
(Workshop participant)
“Resilience is the ability to change
when the conditions change and to
bounce back fast.”
(Workshop participant)
“Resilience is living with the risk,
being confident, but not complacent”
(Workshop participant)
Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report
3. Key Outcomes
The workshop generated wide ranging
discussion about the current state of
Wellington, existing resilience efforts, and
where future resilience efforts should focus.
This information will form the foundation of the
Wellington Resilience Strategy. Important
overarching comments made during the
workshop included:



Identifying shocks and stresses
Workshop participants were asked to consider
which acute shocks and chronic stresses they
considered to be the most significant for
Wellington.
Key Shocks and Stresses for Wellington:
Shocks
Stresses
There was an agreement that the
resilience strategy must cover multiple
dimensions and be inclusive of all
stakeholders especially vulnerable
groups.
Earthquake
Sea level rise
Severe storms
Infrastructure stress/ aging
infrastructure
Severe flooding (from
storm events)
Climate change (severity and
frequency of events)
Participants recognised that by focusing
only on areas perceived as weak, the city
could risk complacency in areas that are
now regarded as strengths.
Tsunami
Aging population
Economic crash (local
and global)
Depressed macroeconomic
conditions
Infrastructure failure
Poverty and inequality in
income
Pandemic/disease
outbreak
Focus on a single sector for
employment (Govt.)
Building collapse
Disconnected communities
The workshop generated a lot of
enthusiasm for the work ahead,
acknowledging that it will need to build on
existing initiatives, programmes and
research.
The following sections include more detail
about the outputs of each workshop session.
Short political cycles
Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report
Assessing Wellington’s Strengths and
Weaknesses
Mapping stakeholders and current
initiatives
Using the 100RC City Resilience Framework,
participants considered Wellington’s strengths
and areas for improvement against the four
dimensions and 12 drivers of the framework.
Throughout the workshop participants added
to the pre-workshop survey lists of resilience
stakeholders and resilience work already
underway. The strategy development process
will engage with these stakeholders and
bodies of work to seek their input and avoid
duplication.
The detailed information from these sessions
will be used as a foundation for the broad
stakeholder consultation that will be carried out
as part of the development of the Resilience
Strategy. Overarching comments made by
participants during this session included:




Generally there was agreement that
Wellington was doing well in the Health
and Wellbeing and the Economy and
Society dimensions, and needed to
increase resilience capacity in the
dimensions of Leadership and Strategy
and Infrastructure and Environment.
It was generally felt that the city was doing well
in regards to social stability, security and
justice. Wellington has an engaged community
whose basic needs and public health
requirements are in the main provided for.
There was recognition of the amount of work
done in relation to long-term and integrated
planning. However this was considered an
area of weakness mostly due to poor
implementation.
Communication and mobility was considered
an area of vulnerability, especially due to
bottlenecks in both passenger and freight
transport.
4. Panel discussion
Wallace Chapman (Radio New Zealand)
hosted a panel discussion with leaders from
the Wellington region. Comments included:
Kevin Lavery (CEO, Wellington City Council)
stressed the importance of the economy for city
resilience. He suggested that our know-how
associated with hazard research and engineering
could in itself form an economic opportunity
alongside other areas.
Justin Lester (Deputy Mayor, Wellington City)
focused on Wellington’s strengths in community
resilience, which he felt was a critical factor in a
face of the many challenges faced by the “potential
disaster capital”.
Bruce Pepperell, (CEO, WREMO) talked about the
challenges with operationalising resilience and the
need for pre-disaster recovery planning. He
highlighted the role of empowered and connected
communities as well as the importance of solutions
that meet the needs of the whole region.
Nicola Thomson, (Associate Director, 100RC)
shared lessons from other 100RC cities such as
New Orleans and Melbourne stressing that
resilience should be seen as an ability for the city to
not just survive but thrive in the face of disaster.
Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report

5. Next steps
A large amount of valuable qualitative data has
been collected from the Wellington Agenda
Setting Workshop. As the first step in
preparing a resilience strategy for Wellington,
this information will be synthesised into a
report to be provided to the future Chief
Resilience Officer (CRO).
Once the CRO has been engaged by
Wellington City, the development of the
Wellington Resilience Strategy will commence.
The strategy development process takes
roughly nine months and has two phases:

Phase I is an accelerated two to three
month process to assess the city’s
resilience status quo, it includes extensive
stakeholder consultation, it concludes
with a set of Focus Areas for the city;
Phase II explores the identified focus
areas in more detail through engagement
of local and international stakeholders
and experts. It concludes with an actionorientated Resilience Strategy.
Ongoing stakeholder consultation will form a
key part of developing the Wellington
Resilience Strategy. Participants from the
Agenda Setting Workshop, those unable to
attend and newly identified stakeholders, will
be invited to participate in these future phases.
Further information
www.100resilientcities.org
www.wellington.govt.nz/resilient
Agenda Setting Workshop
Summary Report
With thanks to all participants:
100 Resilient Cities
IAG New Zealand Ltd.
Palantir
Accessibility Advisory Group
Inland Revenue
Parliamentary Services
AECOM
Inner City Association
Philanthropy NZ
Blaschke and Rutherford
Isthmus
Stratum
Boffa Miskell
Joint Centre for Disaster Research
Brooklyn Community Association
Kaibosh Food Rescue
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery
Authority
Cardno
Kāpiti Coast District Council
The Institution of Professional
Engineers New Zealand
The Nikau Foundation
CBRE New Zealand
Centreport
Christchurch City Council
City of Melbourne
Kiwi Community Assistance
Kiwibank
Lifehack
Massey University
Ministry of Education
Think Tank
Timebank
Trimble
University of Auckland
Viclink
Victoria University
Common Unity Project
Ministry of Civil Defence and
Emergency Management
Ministry of Social Development
Commonsense Organics
Ministry of Health
Warren and Mahoney Architects
Department of Conservation
Miramar BID
Wellington Cable Car
Department of Prime Minister and
Cabinet
Morphum
Wellington City Council
Wellington City Mission
First Retail
NIWA
Natural Hazards Research
Platform
New Zealand Centre for
Sustainable Cities
New Zealand Institute of
Architects
New Zealand Planning Institute
Generosity NZ
New Zealand Police
GNS Science
New Zealand Post Group
Wellington Youth Council
Weltec
Work and Age Trust NZ
Greater Wellington Regional
Council
New Zealand Red Cross
WREMO
Hack Miramar
Opus
Hutt Valley District Health Board
Our Space
Hydra Environmental Consulting
Pacific Advisory Group
City of Sydney
Eco Landscapes
Enspiral Foundation
Storymaker Research Institute
Environmental Reference Group
Earthquake Commission
New Zealand Transport Agency
Volunteer Wellington
Volunteering NZ
Wellington City Youth Council
Wellington Civic Trust Inc
Wellington Community Trust
Wellington Tenths Trust
Wellington Water