The New York-based Rockefeller Foundation has set up the 100 Resilient Cities program to help cities to become more resilient to physical, social and economic challenges.

The project assesses cities ability to not only deal with major shocks such as fires and floods but also stresses that weaken the fabric of the city such as unemployment, endemic violence, alcohol abuse and water shortages.

"By addressing both the shocks and the stresses, a city becomes more able to respond to adverse events and is overall better able to deliver basic functions in both good times and bad, to all populations," the program says.

Seven hundred cities applied to join the program with Melbourne in the initial intake of 32.

Just this week Melbourne was rated the fourth most liveable city in the world by global affairs magazine Monocle and at a New York meeting on Wednesday with Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett and emergency management commissioner Craig Lapsley, Melbourne was rated as a world leader in resilience.

Mr Lapsley said Melbourne's resilience challenge had been defined as being vulnerable to extreme weather events.

"This is a game changer in emergency management that now focuses on acute shock and chronic long-term stresses,'' Mr Lapsley said.

"We are leading the world in the way we approach the community involvement in an emergency."

An example of Melbourne's resilience measures includes annual tree planting in the city which helps improve shade and reduces the city's temperature on hot days.

The network of community groups who swing into action during bushfires and other emergencies are also world class, Mr Lapsley said.

Ms Garrett said the lessons of Black Saturday and the heatwave of 2009 had redefined the state's responses to crises.

"We are recognised as a world leader as resilience because we focus on the community."