Foundations for change: Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance Phase II

The goal of the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance (the Alliance) is to deliver resilience programming that achieves lasting, systems-level change. Our hypothesis is that to do this, you need a flexible collaborative working together across a diversity of sectors and scales over time periods long enough to develop a nuanced understanding of opportunities and entry points.

This report focuses on the establishment, structure, process, and overarching objectives of the Alliance, how it has been designed to deliver resilience outcomes, the early successes this is already enabling, and the implications for resilience funding and practice. The information included in this report, which we plan to update and publish on an annual basis, has been gathered through interviews with 24 Alliance members at both country and global levels, from workstream and organisational reports, and from the first year of outcomes-based monitoring and reporting by all Alliance organisations and country teams.

Section 1 describes who the Alliance is and what is different about how we’re approaching resilience and collaboration. Section 2 describes the structure and approach of the Alliance. Section 3 explores the Alliance internal systems, processes, and ways of working that enable collective action and integrative programming. Section 4 describes the impact and influence we are already having as a result of our work together. Section 5 lays out implications of this learning for resilience programming, both for long term collaborations and for shorter term, discrete projects and engagements. Section 6 concludes with a call to action, based on the lessons the Alliance has learned to date.