Mr. Otto-Zimmermann holds a Masters’ Degree in Architecture and Urban Planning (Techn. University of Hannover/Germany) and a Master in Public Administration (University for Public Administration, Speyer/Germany).

He is Chairman, ICLEI Urban Agendas and former Secretary General of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the world’s leading association of cities and local governments dedicated to sustainable development with a network of 12 megacities, 100 super-cities and urban region, 450 large cities as well as 450 small and medium-sized cities and towns in 84 countries.

He is also the Founding Director of ICLEI’s East Asia Secretariat and in charge of coordinating ICLEI’s relations to Chinese municipal governments and partner organizations.

Previously Mr. Otto-Zimmermann served as division head for Environmental Planning at the City of Freiburg/Germany and at the Federal Environmental Agency in Berlin/Germany as well as Project Leader "Black Forest Environmental Management".

Mr. Otto-Zimmermann is a Member of the Global Agenda Council on Urbanization of the World Economic Forum; and Initiator and Chair of the ‘Resilient Cities’ annual global forum on urban resilience and cities’ adaptation to climate change.

Resilience has become a feature of future responsible urban development, as widely acknowledged by the international expert community.

Resilience is the capacity of a city or community to survive, adapt and bounce back from a crisis or disaster. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines Resilience as „The ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change.

 

In the urban context, most emphasis is laid on reducing vulnerability of a city to disaster and the looming effects of climatic changes.
The rationale for urban resilience is simple: What is the value of an investment in even the greenest buildings and most advanced, smart infrastructures if the city collapses physically after an earthquake, economically after a financial crisis, socio-economically after an industrial emergency, or ecologically after an environmental disaster? Designing an eco-city with the most ambitious and advanced features may turn out to be a mis-investment if the city is not built as a resilient city at the same time.
Resilience deserves to be acknowledged as a key feature in the concept of “new type of urbanization” as called out by the Chinese government.

The presentation will set out the key criteria of urban resilience, and the concepts, methodologies, guidelines and case studies of international best practice available to date.