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86 | RESILIENT COASTS

Susana Sousa Gonçalves
Head of Civil Protection Department
from the City of Matosinhos (Portugal)

How does the city of Matosinhos stand in this Has this network changed your city’s relationship
network, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Cli- with the ocean?
mate and Energy? The ocean is an integral part of Matosinhos’s DNA. We
Matosinhos joined this network in 2017. Our city is live on the edge of the ocean and wouldn’t know how
extremely committed to the resilience pathway and to live far from it! Working with cities that also have a
to natural risk mitigation. Moreover, it has reached an very strong connection with the ocean has been fan-
extremely high level on this United Nations platform of tastic because we feel much less isolated and have the
resilient cities, where many cities encountering coas- opportunity to grow and to learn from all these different
tal risks can connect. Since 2017, the year we joined approaches to address changes related to rising sea
this programme, we have been sharing our experience levels.
with other cities that sometimes face the same pro-
blems as ours and which become partners. What are your highest expectations, for this year
for example?
Do the other cities in the network inspire you? This is going to be an extremely intense year. We have
Without this network it would be impossible to acquire just emerged from a two-year global health crisis
different risk approaches, different solutions in terms of which has led to an economic crisis, and we cannot
resilience. The cities in the network have been a source ignore that. On top of that there is the war in Ukraine.
of great inspiration in raising public risk awareness. Our expectations need to be revised upwards because
Because our main goal is to keep our population safe we are entering difficult times. And at critical times, re-
from risk and be capable of taking action to prevent risk silience is more important than ever before, it can really
and protect them from danger. This is a crucial point make a difference to people’s lives. Consequently we
and an area where we have learnt a great deal from are extremely committed to improving our capacity for
other cities, we have been inspired by the great diver- resilience over the next year.
sity of approaches. We have improved our messages
and the way in which we address the population. “If we want to become more

With this type of network, coastal communities can resilient, we need to start by
also take part in the programmes implemented by working on cities.”
other communities, and even find funding, which is
essential in the resilience approach, particularly in the
technological field.