Author: erik

Covid-19: The local implementation of vaccination strategies and related communication in municipalities

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Since December 2020, municipalities around the world have been organising the vaccination of their citizens against Covid-19. Not only do they need to ensure that vaccinations run smoothly, but they also need to use innovative communication strategies to gain people’s trust and reach vulnerable groups such as older people and refugees.

On 22 and 25 March 2021, Connective Cities hosted a virtual response dialogue on Covid-19 vaccination and communication strategies, attended by eight municipalities and two municipal associations from Germany, Israel, Colombia, Serbia and Togo. The municipal representatives shared their experiences, gave each other tips and worked out solutions together for the best possible vaccination management.

They found that transparent, fast and trustworthy communication is a central component of a successful vaccination strategy. On the one hand, this applies to the internal communication between all actors involved in the vaccination campaign. Some participants wanted to use the idea of bringing together all relevant actors at a municipal round table directly in their own city. External communication with the population also plays an important role, especially with vulnerable groups.

Amman – strengthening social responsibility

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With a prudent vision, the Greater Amman Municipality implemented several hard and soft measures to curb the impact of the pandemic on the local community using a three-pillars response approach: health, community, and environment. With the special focus on ‘community health and wellbeing’, the social development division fulfilled its role during the pandemic by implementing a myriad of measures under the umbrella of social services to the local community.

Cooperation in the MENA network picks up speed

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A proposal for knowledge-exchange initiative between the municipalities of Abasan Al-Kabira, Palestine, and Hazmieh, Lebanon, was submitted to the Arab Land Initiative by the UN-Habitat. According to the proposal, Hazmieh will support Abasan in all joint actions that may foster mutual improvement in the domains that fall within their competencies particularly with regards to youth participation in the decision-making process and the integration of GIS in municipal administration processes.  The representatives of the municipalities of Abasan and Hazmieh had their first encounter as part of the Connective Cities Network.
 

Within the framework of municipal peer learning and knowledge-transfer and in coordination with ESFD, Hazmieh municipality and Al-Buhaira union of municipalities have shared their best practices during a peer learning visit at Hazmieh premises on March 18, 2021. During the study visit, Hazmieh’s advanced GIS dashboard was presented which supports planning, monitoring and executing municipal operations.  The existing GIS dashboard has contributed to optimising local governance in various sectors including finance, economy, investments, and emergency response. In line with Connective Cities goal, Hazmieh municipality continues to be a champion of promoting knowledge-exchange among the network members thus reinforcing the role of municipalities as a main driver of positive change at the local level.

Municipal Response to COVID-19 in the Area of Governance

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Approximately 50 participants from Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Czech Republic, Estonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Argentina, Bolivia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Albania and Germany (16 countries) participated in the virtual event of the knowledge-exchange series on Municipal Response to COVID-19 in the area of governance.

The event focused on exploring the role of e-governance in combating COVID-19. It reviewed how municipalities manage to ensure the supply of essential municipal services with the help of efficient e-governance systems. During the event various topics were discussed, such as:

  • Crisis management experiences and existing challenges
  • Exploration of how we can enhance or scale-up strategies to meet current crisis-induced demands.

The web-seminar explored the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on municipal plans/strategies and municipal services, the actions and communication strategies deployed in response, and the cooperation of municipalities with national governments as well as international organizations.  

Program

 In this virtual event, Dr. Giorgi Khishtovani presented the methodology and results of the research on COVID-19 governance responses within the Connective Cities network. Thereafter, two good practices were shared from Tartu (Estonia) and La Paz (Bolivia). The moderated panel discussion covered the topics of e-governance and the effectiveness of ICT solutions at municipal levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were then encouraged to continue with the exchange on the virtual platform Connective Cities where other resources were shared in addition to the session outputs.

Presentations of good practices

Municipal Business and Governance Response to COVID-19: Tartu Case
Raimond Tamm, Deputy Mayor of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.

Public Services and I-Government in COVID-19 Era
Roberto Zambrana Flores, La Paz, Bolivia.

Results

During this online exchange representatives from multitudes of municipalities exchanged their experiences and insights in the fields of municipal response in health, business, and governance. This virtual exchange brought together city leaders and field experts in health, business, and governance to discuss prevalent trends, opportunities, and challenges emerging, along with the development and reinvention of municipal responses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Renewables in Cities

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The report gives an overview of the status, trends and developments of renewable energy in cities, using the most up-todate information and data available. The REC’s neutral, fact-based approach documents in detail the annual developments in policies, markets, investments and citizen action, with a particular focus on renewables in public, residential and commercial buildings as well as public and private urban transport. The REC complements REN21’s Renewables Global Status Report, which covers renewable energy market, industry and policy trends. Jointly, these reports contribute to making renewable energy visible in the global debate, drawing decision makers’ attention to renewables and continuously providing better data and tracking to inform energy decisions worldwide.

REC 2021 is the result of a collaborative effort, building on REN21’s unique data and reporting culture (p see Data Collection and Validation section), with more than 330 data contributors and peer reviewers and over 30 individual interviews from around the world.

Crisis teams: A successful crisis management tool

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Better preparedness enables municipalities to cope better with crises like the corona pandemic. But what makes for good emergency preparedness? Berlin’s Senate Department for Health makes a case for a 24-hour crisis team. But a vitally important team like this is not formed overnight.

Being prepared in times of crisis

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“We have distributed soap everywhere,” says Mishi Rama Mbete. The 48-year-old is sitting on a cardboard box in front of her mud hut, her hands folded in her lap. She wears the face mask correctly over her mouth and nose. “Corona is a terrible disease that has no cure yet. We are the medicine, our behaviour is, like when we wash our hands many times a day.” Mbete is one of 30 Community Health Volunteers from the informal settlements of Majengo and Mzambarauni who, on behalf of Participatory Slum Upgrading Project (PSUP) and its collaborative partner, the Community-based Organization Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO), tackled the initial stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, going door-to-door for weeks in awareness campaigns. She, among others, distributed hand sanitizers and soap, explaining the importance of washing hands properly, wearing a facemask, keeping social distance when possible, and recognising the symptoms of COVID-19 in time. Suspected cases of infections were referred to government facilities for further tests and follow-ups.

The awareness campaign is part of an emergency response package that PSUP and SHOFCO launched at the onset of the Corona outbreak in Kenya in March 2020. The aim, from the very beginning, was to prevent a looming disaster in the slums. No one was to be left behind during the pandemic. Together with the County Government of Kilifi and the communities in the PSUP project region, both partners set up 20 handwashing stations, maintained by men and women from the communities for a small additional income, to protect local people from the virus. The Community Health Volunteers were trained by the County Government’s Department of Health to use their expertise to conduct education and provide up-to-date emergency assistance.

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City Practitioners Handbook: Circular Food Systems

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This handbook provides local governments with concrete tools their peers are using to facilitate the transition to circular food systems, from stakeholder engagement to designing effective policies. It draws on experiences from the ICLEI network and its Circular Development pathway, learnings from the ICLEI-RUAF CITYFOOD Network and best practices from the Milan Pact Awards. This publication features experiences from 50 local governments and was designed by ICLEI experts in collaboration with champion cities for the benefit of city practitioners.

Are we on track for a green recovery? Not Yet

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One year from the onset of the pandemic, recovery spending has fallen short of nations’ commitments to build back more sustainably. An analysis of spending by leading economies, led by Oxford’s Economic Recovery Project and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), finds only 18.0% of announced recovery spending can be considered ‘green.’. The report “Are We Building Back Better? Evidence from 2020 and Pathways for Inclusive Green Recovery Spending” was supported by  the International Monetary Fund and GIZ through the Green Fiscal Policy Network (GFPN).  

It calls for governments to invest more sustainably and tackle inequalities as they stimulate growth in the wake of the devastation wrought by the pandemic.

The most comprehensive analysis of COVID-19-related fiscal rescue and recovery efforts by 50 leading economies so far, the report reveals that only $368bn of $14.6tn COVID-induced spending (rescue and recovery) in 2020 was green.

More: Are we on track for a green recovery? Not Yet – UNEP

Creating sustainable cities through low-carbon freight

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Freight transport demand is expected to triple and its associated emissions to more than double by 2050 compared to the 2015 levels, if left unchecked.To reverse this trend, cities and companies need to turn promises into actions.

The purpose of this report is to review existing urban freight movement characteristics across the nine project cities in Argentina, Colombia and India, provide an account of baseline GHG emissions (2019) from urban freight and identify possible interventions to minimize its negative impacts.  The emissions have been established using the EcoLogistics Self-monitoring Tool.

Drawing on the analysis, policy recommendations and interventions are also presented in this report and will be used as part of the Low Carbon Action Plan for Urban Freight (LCAP-UF) in the cities.