Resilience Fund 2025/26 recipients will make New Zealand safer
Eleven projects that will help New Zealand communities stay safer and more resilient in emergencies have been chosen to receive Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Resilience Fund grants.
The Resilience Fund is administered by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and aims to fund projects that will help communities prepare, reduce risk, respond to and recover from emergencies.
NEMA’s director of Civil Defence Emergency Management John Price says the selected projects will benefit the whole country.
“Emergency management is everyone’s responsibility – and communities hold a huge amount of knowledge, skills and experience,” John Price says.
“They’re also a huge source of great ideas and innovation, and the Resilience Fund helps those ideas become a reality.
“The Fund works in with our National Disaster Resilience Strategy. It looks for ideas that can be developed for use by other CDEM Groups.
“This way, the Fund helps everyone to be safe and keep safe.”
John Price says this year’s applications were very strong and the selected recipients come from across the country, with a broad variety of applicants from regional and local CDEM Groups, iwi and the private sector.
The fund has allocated $688,263 to ten projects, as well as $200,000 to the AF8 Alpine fault earthquake readiness and response plan as the final part of an ongoing funding arrangement.
“I am delighted at the range and depth of this year’s recipients, and their focus on community readiness and response,” John Price says.
“As we know, New Zealanders live alongside many hazards, and we need to boost individual and community responses at the same time as we strengthen the system at the national level.
“Projects like these get communities working together to build their own resilience – creating stronger bonds and generating great ideas that can benefit others around the country.
“New Zealand will be safer as a result of the work these projects will deliver – because we are all in this together.”
The successful applications are:
- Toolbox for Resilience Education including “Your Farm Emergency Plan” (Taranaki Catchment Communities, $42,500)
- Whakatāne District Council Tsunami Evacuation Planning (Whakatāne District Council with support from Emergency Management Bay of Plenty, $47,000)
- Milford Sound/Piopiotahi Tsunami, Landslide and Inundation Modelling (Emergency Management Southland, $206,000)
- Manawatū-Whanganui Tsunami Evacuation Zone Signage and Public Education Project (Manawatū-Whanganui Emergency Management Group, $41,273)
- Napier Hill (Mataruahou) Community Emergency Hub Resilience Project (Napier Hill (Mataruahou) Community Emergency Response Society Inc, $60,000)
- A Pilot Federated Electricity Power Outage Map (Digital Built Aotearoa Foundation, $117,740)
- Strengthening Community Emergency Response through targeted CIMS Training and dedicated Iwi Partnerships (Hono (Māori Emergency Management Network), $50,000)
- Porirua Flood Monitoring and Community Warning Project (Porirua City Council, $34,900)
- Whakakīa te kete rokiroki - Marae Preparedness & Resilience (National Flood Warning Steering Group c/o Regional Software Holdings Ltd, $60,000)
- Access and retrieval of fuel in ground tanks (West Coast Emergency Management Group, $28,400)
About the CDEM Resilience Fund
The CDEM Resilience Fund is a contestable fund to enhance New Zealand’s hazard risk resilience. CDEM Groups, other organisations and individuals are eligible to apply.
Applications were considered by NEMA’s Subject Matter Experts against criteria with emphasis on improved collaboration, improved resilience locally and regionally, and consistent approaches.
The Resilience Fund is distributed on an annual basis. Find full details on the successful applicants.
Published: Jun 11, 2025, 11:44 AM
