Author: erik

Local Economic Development and Job Creation in the Middle East and North Africa

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More than 40 local urban practitioners from 22 municipalities and 10 countries from the MENA region and Germany took part of the virtual dialogue event organized by the Connective Cities project. The dialogue event consisted of five virtual sessions held between the Sep 29th – Oct 7th focusing on facilitating the exchange of know-how and experiences through peer-to-peer learning among municipal representatives and urban practitioners. Moreover, the dialogue event aimed at enriching the analysis and planning capacity of the participating municipal representatives to address existing challenges of implementing LED and job creation programs. The discussion also led to identifying the gaps in resources and the support needed to implement future LED projects.

Local economic development (LED) remains a top priority for cities in MENA and a driver for economic stability and job creation for a region with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. A wide spectrum of stakeholders are engaged in fostering LED including governments, NGOs, the private sector, and development actors. Nevertheless, there remains the need to intensify exchange of practice-oriented experience and good practice among municipal representatives and urban practitioners  on related topics  such as strategizing for LED and creating partnerships with the private sector, sustainable livelihood programs and decent job creation, as well as green economic transformation.

The facilitation approach focused on designing, planning, and conducting a series of virtual knowledge-exchange activities in which several steps were taken:

  1. Clustering: of partners according to their regional distribution, municipal needs, and vision for future development for their cities;
  2. Defining: the subtopics for dialogue that are in harmony with their current ambitions and future objectives;
  3. Inviting: partners to virtual dialogue sessions after outlining the goal of this dialogue and defining roles and responsibilities agreed upon by all partners, as well as the anticipated outcome;
  4. Facilitating: the virtual exchange sessions in a manner that will ensure maximum interaction and knowledge exchange;
  5. Evaluation and Follow up:  with all partners after all sessions are completed to share the outputs of the dialogue to maintain ongoing knowledge exchange for future collaboration in between the different municipalities;
  6. Reporting: on all conducted activities and the overall summary of the dialogue.

The project has built a Network, an exchange platform for municipal representatives and urban practitioners, which provides a systematic access to practice-oriented solutions for sustainable urban development by facilitating change and providing mutual support.

Dialogue event introductory video: English version | Arabic version

115 good practice examples for municipal responses to COVID-19

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Some of the good practice examples were presented at the Connective Cities international dialogue event on lessons learned during the coronavirus crisis. These inspired the roughly 800 participants from 250 municipalities worldwide to see how they could improve their responses to COVID-19.

Municipalities the world over are on the front line of the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Above all, they have to maintain basic public services. Public health officers must organise tests and vaccinations, and public order offices need to monitor contact restrictions. Child day-care centres and schools must be largely kept running; public transport companies have to adapt to changed user behaviour, waste management utilities to different quantities of waste, and so on and so forth.

As a result, municipalities have been facing huge challenges for months. Many are overstretched, and often lack not just human resources and modern digital equipment, but also points of reference for how they might tackle the problems. On the other hand, since March municipalities have been generating countless ideas on how to cope with the pandemic as best they can. Some are falling back on crisis plans which they drew up years ago for disaster preparedness. Others are pursuing innovative paths, such as the Municipality of Hazmieh in Lebanon, which is relying amongst other things on geographic information systems to contain the pandemic, or Batnah in Algeria, where coronavirus-related medical products are being manufactured using 3D printers.

Sharing lessons learned internationally

To enable these examples to be replicated rather than remaining one-off solutions, from June 2020 onwards, and on behalf of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Connective Cities gave local actors an opportunity to share their experiences with the pandemic in a simple and flexible way. This led to the ‘Municipal Responses to COVID-19’ series of events.

Just as the pandemic does not stop at borders, the expert dialogue on COVID-19 was designed to be international too. 256 municipalities from eleven countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America took part in 51 online events. All participants wanted to learn from and with each other, and improve their responses to the pandemic and their resilience – entirely in line with the ‘build back better’ principle

Improving Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Provision of Water, Wastewater & Urban Mobility Services in Sub Saharan Africa

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Between the 7th and 18th of September, 2020 in intermittent virtual sessions, about 43 participants from 24 cities and representing 7 African countries and Germany, congregated to share best practices and develop project ideas in the afore-mentioned areas

With the ever-increasing population and urbanization in most countries in Sub Saharan Africa, the demand for basic services also increases yet the municipalities and cities have not been able to match the supply to demand. A lot of challenges ail these sectors but there are efforts to sustainably sustain service provision.

The objectives of the dialogue event were to:
1. Facilitate exchange of experiences based on good practices of public service delivery among urban practitioners from municipalities in Sub-Saharan Africa and Germany,
2. Facilitate peer-to-peer advisory services to address the current challenges of public service delivery in the cities of the participants and create new knowledge,
3. Develop the capacity of the participants to analyse existing strategies and to formulate project ideas and envisaged solutions for efficient and effective public service delivery, and
4. Define future support measures to strengthen project development and implementation skills as well as ongoing exchange through the community of practice, Connective Cities.

The countries involved in this dialogue event were; Ethiopia, Ghana, Germany, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The event was a starting point for action planning for project ideas to be developed.

This report is the documentation of the virtual event.

Municipal services in the pandemic

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Numerous German and international experts from 11 different countries met on 04.11.2020 at our virtual event “Municipal services in the pandemic”. The central topic was how municipal administration and municipal companies can act to improve the response to the current crisis.

Their practical experience was at the forefront. The cities of Rostock and Bremen (Germany) presented good practice examples of waste and water companies, and the Secretary for International Relations of Sao Paulo presented good practices from Brazil’s largest city. The other participants from Tunisia, Indonesia, Morocco, Somalia, Nepal, Iraq, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Palestine and the United States also shared their approach to the pandemic in the municipal services sector and discussed possible lessons learnt from the crisis.

Through our peer-to-peer consultation, the exchange was intensified and all participants had the opportunity to discuss among their peers, in order to support each other. In the end, new project ideas for further cooperation could be discussed and next steps suggested.

Communication in the crisis: citizens, passengers & customers

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As part of the series “International exchange of experiences: lessons learnt in the Covid-19 crisis”, a virtual meeting between various municipal actors took place on 28.10.2020. This time, the focus was on the question of how reliable and adequate information can be provided on time during a pandemic to all citizens, to public transport passengers or to customers of municipal service providers.

Good practices from Stuttgart (Germany), Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Hebron (Palestine) were presented. These good practices provided impulses for an intensive exchange of expertise and development of new ideas. Other participants from Lebanon, Brazil, Kenya and Palestine also shared their experiences in dealing with the current Covid-19 crisis.

Our peer-to-peer consultation approach enabled to initiate discussions that provided an added value for all participants. In the end, new project ideas for further cooperation could be discussed and next steps suggested.

The role of innovation in curbing the impacts of the pandemic

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More than 15 municipal representatives from around 15 cities in MENA and sub-Sharan Africa participated in the virtual event of the knowledge-exchange series on Municipal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which took place on the 14th October 2020.

Municipal representatives from both political and technical levels were invited and they engaged in knowledge-exchange to analyse and discuss practical examples on how innovation contributes to curbing the impacts of the pandemic.

Program

As part of the virtual event, four good practices from Aachen (Germany), Biskra and Batna (Algeria), and Mosul (Iraq) were showcased. The virtual event aimed at facilitating the sharing of experiences of interventions undertaken from a production, innovation, and scientific point of view to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on cities in MENA and Germany.

Moreover, the following set of questions were addressed:

  1. How did the local actors implement innovative initiatives to curb the impacts of the pandemic?
  2. What have been the core challenges in developing the innovative solutions?
  3. How can partnerships initiate strategic and operational response to the short-term challenges resulting from Covid-19, as well as the long-term planning recovery?
  4. What are the lessons learned from the perspective of local and national entities, research institutions and the private sector in developing these initiatives?

Presentations

Fight Corona.AC initiative in RWTH Aachen university, Germany
Prof. Jan Borchers, RWTH Aachen university, Germany
English   Arabic

COV-Fight Project in Biskra, Algeria
Mr. Imad Tibermacine, Biskra, Algeria
English   Arabic

3D printing technology for the production of medical supplies in Batnah, Algeria
Mr. Belcasem Islam, Batnah, Algeria
English   Arabic

Mosul Space in Mosul, Iraq
Ms. Susan Long, Innovation Lead for Middle East at Field Ready
Mr. Salih Mahmod, Mosul Space
English   Arabic

Results

The showcasing of good practices resulted in an opportunity for cooperation between the innovation hub in Mosul, Iraq and Algerian good practices. Connective Cities will facilitate this cooperation.

How ‘school streets’ could create safer, healthier cities

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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, communities living in cities need cleaner air to breathe and outdoor public space to be social yet physically distanced.

Recognition of these issues has led public health experts, architects and urban planners to discuss how to design cities to respond to the pandemic.

One idea put forward has been the establishment of “school streets”: closing roads outside schools to motor traffic during school drop-offs and pick-ups.

School streets often involve other local action, too. This includes promoting active travel, such as walking and cycling, to get to school, getting local people involved in citizen science projects to monitor air quality and putting on events to celebrate the road closure.

Our research focuses on public health and air pollution. We recently worked with Holt House Infant and Carterknowle Junior schools in Sheffield, as well as with Sheffield City Council, to pilot the first school street in the city. The Sheffield pilot provides an excellent example of the valuable role that school streets could play in our cities, especially during a pandemic.

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Call for participants: Municipal services in the pandemic

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This event is part of our series International exchange of experiences: lessons learned in the Covid-19 crisis, and brings German municipal experts together with international actors to discuss how municipal administration and municipal companies can act to improve the response to the current crisis. Among other issues, this dialog will discuss good practices of response to the challenge of providing municipal services of water and waste management in the pandemic. Practical examples will be presented by experts from Rostock-Germany and abroad on the topics of waste management and water provision. The overall aim of the event is to achieve a joint exchange of experiences and to develop ideas for cooperation.

Event Registration

If you have any queries about the event and the participation process, we encourage you to contact:

Alexander Wagner
alexander.wagner@engagement-global.de
Telefon +49 (0)228-20717-455

Thiago Garcia
thiago.garcia(@)engagement-global.de
Telefon +49 (0)228-20717-633

The Value of Sustainable Urbanization

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“The world we live in has been transformed in a manner not witnessed in recent times. In a rapidly urbanizing and globalized world, cities have been the epicentres of COVID-19. The virus has spread to virtually all parts of the world; first, among globally connected cities, and now, through community transmission and from the city to the countryside.
The World Cities Report 2020 shows that the intrinsic value of sustainable urbanization can and should be harnessed for the wellbeing of all. The report provides evidence and policy analysis of the value of urbanization from an economic, social and environmental perspective, including the unquantifiable value that gives cities their unique character; and also explores the role of innovation and technology, local governments, targeted investments and the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda in fostering the value of sustainable urbanization.”

Municipal expert exchange to COVID-19- compact

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Topics: Public Health & Crisis Management / Economy, Housing & Education / Digitalisation & Communication / Innovation

Time: 23 November – 3 December 2020

Cities worldwide are severely affected by the impacts of COVID-19. Unlike national governments, municipalities are in close contact with their citizens and are responsible for the implementation of measures decided by governments to reduce the spread of Corona infections.

Cities worldwide also have collected important experiences, which will be of immense relevance in the global fight against the virus. The crisis has shown how important the resilience of municipalities is: this directly applies to local crisis management and disaster preparedness as well as to the need for constantly adaptive urban planning. The current crisis has shown and proven once again that resilience is an essential capacity of municipalities.

To continue tackling the challenges of the pandemic in the future and to find suitable solutions to minimise its negative impact, it is now necessary to learn from and share experiences that will support the joint development of further measures. In the framework of its COVID-19 Municipal response dialogue, Connective Cities is organising a virtual global exchange series on “Municipal Response to COVID-19” from 23 November to 3 December 2020 and kindly invites you to be part of this series of events. This international exchange effort takes place in cooperation with engaged urban practitioners, municipal experts as well as local experts from academia, civil society and business.

More information