Author: erik

The Case for a Green and Just Recovery

Posted on by erik

To provide decision-makers with more information on how stimulus packages may affect cities, this report compares how urban greenhouse gas emissions, health and jobs could fare under a green and just recovery compared to a return to a pre-COVID business-as-usual scenario, or a scenario where the world opts to spend stimulus funding on a high-carbon recovery.

The research finds that:

  • Stimulus funding that supports a green and just recovery offers a means to keep global heating below 1.5°C, and could reduce air pollution by as much as 29% between 2020-2030 compared to a return to business-as-usual. In contrast, investing an equivalent amount of stimulus funding in a high-carbon recovery would undoubtedly accelerate global heating.
  • Across the nearly 100 cities in the C40 network and their supply chains, a green and just recovery could also create over 50 million good, sustainable jobs by 2025 – over a third more than would be created by investing equivalent funds into a high-carbon recovery.

This research also shows that the timing of a green and just recovery matters, and presents a clear case for early investment. Modelling of the impacts of an ‘accelerated green recovery’ where faster capital investment enables accelerated climate action over the next five years, compared to a ‘slow green recovery’ where action happens at a slower pace over 15 years, shows that:

  • An ‘accelerated green recovery’ could lead to half the per capita greenhouse gas emissions of a ‘slow green recovery’ by 2030, meaning that an ‘accelerated green recovery’ provides C40 cities with a greater chance of meeting their climate commitments and limiting global heating to 1.5°C.
  • An ‘accelerated green recovery’ could avert almost twice as many premature deaths (1.8 times as many) due to air pollution between 2020 and 2030, compared to a ‘slow green recovery’.
  • Capital investments that are made early on under an ‘accelerated green recovery’ could create over 80 million good, sustainable jobs by 2023, across the nearly 100 cities in the C40 network and their supply chains – more than double a ‘slow green recovery’. At a time of mass unemployment and economic hardship in many parts of the world, generating jobs now will benefit millions of families.

Municipal Response to COVID-19: Crisis Management

Posted on by erik

On 28th of April a virtual workshop on Crisis Management amid Covid-19 was held as part of the Connective Cities Series on Municipal Response to COVID-19. The event focused on the importance of multi-sectoral cooperation and fast communication strategies in unpredictable circumstances.

Approximately 15 participants from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine took part in the workshop.

The event focused on

  • Presenting crisis communication strategies/approaches
  • Introducing community-based disaster risk reduction methodology
  • Providing recommendations about possible next steps

After the event all attendees were given certificates of completion of the workshop.

Program

This virtual event was opened by welcoming remarks made by Dr. Piotr Żuber. Dr. Żuber provided background information of the workshop and briefly overviewed the agenda. Following the introduction, Mr. Edmunds Akitis, International Consultant, advanced into leading the core sessions.

The workshop revolved around the following three main topics:

  • Crisis Communication
  • Building back better in the pandemic period / recovery
  • Community based disaster risk management

Each segment was followed by a session of questions and answers, allowing participants to grasp the content more thoroughly. Attendees were also given floor to present practices and challenges of crisis management from their respective municipalities.

Presentations

  1. General Presentation of Crisis Management – Mr. Edmunds Akitis, International Consultant
  2. Evaluation of good municipal practices in the pandemic period – Mr. Edmunds Akitis, International Consultant
  3. Methodology of community-based disaster risk management planning – Mr. Edmunds Akitis, International Consultant

Results

During this online workshop representatives from multitudes of municipalities exchanged their experiences and insights of crisis and its communication in their communities. Moreover, they were introduced to some successful practices as well as generally acclaimed structures of communication approaches. Identification of fake news and establishment of early warning systems were some of the highlighted topics discussed during the event.

Sustainable urban energy planning in Southeast Europe (SEE)

Posted on by erik

The energy sector influences the vibrancy and sustainability of the entire economy – from job creation to resource efficiency and the environment. Significant shifts in the sector can have a strong ripple effect throughout the economy. Making the energy supply more cost-effective, reliable, secure, and environmentally sustainable thus contributes to the long-term resilience of economic development.

This concept paper describes the current context and importance of sustainable energy in SEE; current trends and scenarios in SEE; how SDG 7 and 13 as well as the Paris agreement affects the energy response in SEE; critical challenges for SEE to be energy responsive; some key steps needed for the future in SEE; energy financing – a key strategy for going forward; and finally the agenda for action for the dialogue event: sustainable urban energy planning in SEE.

Innovative solar energy system in the Navahrudak district hospital

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A combined system of thermal panels (SWH) with heat pumps (HP) and photovoltaic panels (PV) was installed on the site of Navahrudak district hospital. It was the first time that such a combined project using SWH, HP and PV was implemented in Belarus. Now two buildings of the district hospital have independent heating, electricity system and hot water supply.

Crisis Management

Posted on by erik

Crisis management tools support staff in the public health services to ensure that the authorities are able to continue functioning in biological emergencies. As a rule, normal administrative structures cannot cope with the challenges that arise in a crisis. Information and communications management for example must be adapted if it is to cope with increased demands. If sufficient specialist personnel are not available, competences have to be pooled and provided from a more central point. This textbook is designed to provide employees of public health offices, as well as other public health institutions, with pointers on how to systematically prepare themselves for preventing hazards in case of crisis, and familiarise them with the basics of crisis management. As well as covering specialised aspects, the textbook also provides recommendations in particular on operational planning and working in teams. It is supplemented with checklists designed and established in practise to serve as practical tools.

Multidimensional: The COVID-19 urban restoration programme “Lviv tomorrow”

Posted on by erik

Ukraine, like most countries around the world, is strongly affected by Corona since March 2020. Individual cities experience little government support and are largely left to their own devices to combat and deal with COVID-19. Despite this challenge and only limited financial resources within the city budget, the city of Lviv managed to take quick and effective action.

The city, which is in northwestern Ukraine and has a population of about 750,000, established the “Lviv tomorrow” program to mitigate the negative consequences of COVID-19 and create the preconditions for improving the social, economic and cultural situation in the city. The program consists of 80 different projects, of which more than 50 already have been implemented.

An important pillar of the program is safety and health. The city of Lviv doubled the number of hospital beds available and set up its own COVID-19 testing laboratory. This allowed the number of COVID-19 tests to increase from 200-400 to over 3000 per day, speeding up the tracking of infected individuals and thus simplifying pandemic response.

The city also established new digital solutions that make it easier for the population to stay at and work from home. For example, a portal was created where the population can pay digitally for city services.

Especially the cultural sector was hit hard by the restrictions necessary to combat the pandemic. The city of Lviv is countering this by promoting open-air events and smaller cultural events, for example on balconies. This way, not only jobs in the cultural industry can be preserved, but also part of the life quality in the city can remain. In the uncertain times of the pandemic, cultural events are also a important psychological support for the population.

Another component of the “Lviv tomorrow” program is economic development. One project, for example, supports local food producers. In cooperation with supermarkets, food produced in Lviv is promoted and labeled with “made in Lviv” stickers.

With its extensive “Lviv tomorrow” program, the city of Lviv is taking action on many different levels to combat the pandemic and its effects. Not only the immediate aspects of the pandemic, such as the number of hospital beds, but also other areas of coexistence, such as cultural life, are included. Thus, not only acutely fighting the spread of Corona, but also creating a long-term perspective for the post COVID-19 city.

Contact:

Mr. Oleksandr Kobzarev
Director of the City Institute. Center of strategic planning in Lviv, Ukraine
o.kobzarev@city-institute.org

More Information:

LVIV TOMORROW. RESTORATION PROGRAM [pdf 11 pp.]

Interaktive Präsentation über Lviv (Only for those registered on the Connective Cities Platform)

Local Economic Development (LED) and Job Creation in Middle East and North Africa

Posted on by erik

Six municipalities from the MENA region have participated in the Local Projects Workshop, which was a 2-days virtual workshop held on the 19th-20th January 2021. The workshop consisted of a series of virtual discussions among the participating municipal representatives and technical and financial experts. The workshop was followed by two virtual sessions on proposal writing for funding and financing of municipal projects held on the 21st and 25th of January 2021 respectively.

The Local Projects Workshop was designed such that the activities are following a normal growth curve of what has been established during the LED Virtual Dialogue taking place in 2020. The harmony established among participants and the understanding of the rationale of the Connective Cities methodology was expanded on to foster peer-to-peer learning with more attention given this time to individual municipalities needs and visions. The Local Projects Workshop approach leveraged the progress made to date by the 6 participating municipalities while addressing further actions including:

  • The interlinkages between LED projects and other areas like education, health, gender, environment, etc.
  • Adapting the LED projects to national and global objectives and priorities
  • Adapting the LED projects to available resources and existing expertise
  • Establishing Strategic and impactful partnerships for the projects
  • Risk forecasting and mitigation measures planning
  • Best approaches to fund projects with different financing mechanisms and tools.
     

COVID-19 implications in the Mediterranean

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The brief cites regional examples from the South Mediterranean, sub-Saharan Africa and Germany on how governments and municipalities developed data dashboards and platforms and employed them in the pandemic response.

The policy brief concludes with an elaborate discussion on the implications and recommendations on how the current crisis can be turned into an opportunity for regional collaboration and promoting data-driven processes in the recovery from the pandemic.

Recommended policy actions include mapping the population that is in urgent need for vaccination, strengthening public health preparedness through bilateral and multilateral cooperation and creating Communities of Practice that contribute to promoting health equity.

Recommendations to promote data sets and data analytics in municipalities are also proposed, including the suggestion to integrate User-Friendly GIS software that is customized specifically for municipal use and written in the country’s native language, which could allow unlocking the geospatial system’s full potential.

Psychosocial support is more important than ever during the pandemic

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Corona lockdown can heighten the psychosocial problems many people are facing, for example in their family or partnership. Where this is the case, municipal psychosocial services need to respond flexibly. In Munich, for example, counselling for clients with smaller children was spontaneously relocated to playgrounds.