Mayor Jozias van Aartsen kicked off the day by expressing his vision for The Hague’s resilience journey and recognizing explicitly that in an interconnected world, we need a collaborative approach – a way of working that The Hague is already renowned for as the ‘City of Peace, Justice and Diplomacy’ as well as for being the seat of the Dutch national government.

After the Mayor’s remarks, emcee Roy Tomeij took the stage and, together with Ben Smith from AECOM, energetically talked the audience through the objectives of the day. Braulio E. Morera and Asma Jhina jointly delivered an introduction to 100RC and urban resilience, after which the group went straight into the 100RC Agenda Setting Workshop modules.

In an effort to capture names of sectors and organisations that could not attend the workshop, participants were asked to map these on wall posters. In addition, there was a traditional Idea Box going around to harvest more input and feedback, which resulted in constructive suggestions on next steps. Many addressed the need for more diversity in the room, to better reflect the wide-ranging backgrounds of The Hague’s citizens.

The afternoon saw a new take on 100RC’s Understanding Interdependencies module. The City had asked a representative from a project to enhance social cohesion to give a short presentation. Participants were then asked to discuss the project and suggest tactical actions to enhance its impact.

The final part of the Workshop featured Rotterdam’s CRO Arnoud Molenaar, who discussed Rotterdam’s resilience journey and asked the audience to define characteristics a CRO for The Hague should embody. This created a sense of buy-in and ownership among the workshop attendees and opened the floor for discussion on next steps.

City Director Koen de Snoo closed the day with remarks that outlined the opportunities for The Hague to learn from Rotterdam’s experience and collaborate more extensively in the future as a metropolitan region. Drinks were hosted in the atrium of the venue to close the day with a networking opportunity.

The 100RC team is excited to keep the momentum going and continue to build the partnership with The Hague as a high appetite, high potential city.