BATON ROUGE, La. (July 9, 2024) – The product of more than a year of working with a network of people and groups dedicated to making communities along the Gulf Coast more resilient in the face of environmental and social challenges, the Community Resilience Center at The Water Institute has released its Strategic Plan 2024-2027.
“We’re so proud of this document that is the direct result of input from groups around the northern Gulf to determine what is already being done to help and where gaps still exist in order to support and advance, not duplicate, great work being done around community resilience,” said Renee Collini, director of the Center. “Through this process, we have identified four areas that serve as the foundation of our mission moving forward and have developed the framework to support and advance work in areas seen as gaps of effort by the Gulf resilience community.”
The four pillars are:
Thanks to stakeholder input and research, the strategic plan also outlines specific focus areas the Center will be pursuing. These areas include:
Fundamentals for equitable climate resilience: Foster effective community-led resilience planning and action by addressing gaps in necessary capacity and knowledge.
Insurance affordability and availability: Address decreasing insurance affordability and availability by enhancing the current system while bridging to more flexible and responsive insurance products.
Community-led migration legal frameworks and approaches: Identify and address gaps in inclusive decision-making processes that guide climate migration coordination, planning, and implementation.
Equitable flood risk planning and policies: Develop and implement flood risk management practices and inclusive policy making processes that acknowledge cultural connectedness and historical inequities.
“The strategies to increase resilience must be as diverse and unique as the communities they serve,” Collini said. “The Strategic Plan 2024-2027 will be the roadmap for our continued work alongside communities, organizations, and individuals in order to equitably advance climate resilience in the Gulf.”
Read more about the center and the Strategic Plan 2024-2027 here.