Getting updated, sharing insights into the topics that are relevant on the local level, and fostering exchange—that is what the annual Connective Cities network meeting for active German stakeholders is all about. This year, around 30 participants made their way to Bonn to discuss achievements and visions for the future.

The group of participants was very diverse. Among them were Connective Cities veterans such as Lidia Perico, head of the Education for Sustainable Development staff unit in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, who arrived with a very specific idea for a thematic focus. There was also Michael Leischner from Dortmund, who participated as a member of the steering committee with an eye on the entire program. “I’ve been with Connective Cities for what feels like 100 years and am now on the steering committee. For me, it’s important to see what’s happening in the municipalities and what the situation is like with regard to international cooperation” – that was his motivation for investing two days shortly before the end of the year. Others came to the network meeting to familiarize themselves with what Connective Cities has to offer.

A broad program was designed to address these diverse expectations:

The initial focus was on exploring and introducing topics, giving participants the opportunity to highlight issues that are relevant to their local government work.

To this end, the teams of Engagement Global/the Service Agency Communities in One World and GIZ first presented their plans for the coming year, which were already well advanced: On the part of GIZ, the renaturation of urban spaces and the strengthening of local economic development are among the important thematic priorities being pursued in the partner regions, alongside other areas of content.  For the focus region of Sub-Sahara Africa, the focus is on nature-based solutions and the economic potential of green hydrogen. Work is being done with municipalities in the Southeast Europe and South Caucasus region on urban resilience and securing critical infrastructure, as well as on business-friendly regional development. In the Middle East and North Africa focus region, green corridors between cities and their surrounding areas and the topic of building back better – especially with regard to Syria and Gaza – are on the agenda. In addition, topics from past learning processes are being continued in alumni groups in order to anchor the knowledge generated in the network and maintain a sustainable exchange of expertise. The alumni groups are working on topics such as heat in cities, risk-informed urban development, energy efficiency, and renewable energies. For its part, Engagement Global will focus on sustainable mobility and water resilience, among other topics, for learning processes in Germany. Suggestions for topics for two additional learning processes in Germany can be submitted in the upcoming weeks.

Some of the corresponding calls for participation have already been published, while others will appear in the newsletter, on the website, and on LinkedIn and Facebook in early 2026. The learning formats will remain the same: one-year learning processes with dialogue events as a kick-off, expert exchange trips, and digital exchange; deep dives in small groups over two years; and various agile formats open to all and tailored to acute needs (ad hoc sessions, insight sessions).

In a second step, topics on which the municipalities and municipal companies would like further exchange were collected, and the topics from Connective Cities’ current topic pool were also weighted. The resulting pinboard makes for exciting and varied reading: disaster preparedness, (cyber) security and resilience, (legal) migration and integration, urban development and new urban districts, energy parks, energy from biomass, drainage, sustainability reporting, sustainability concepts for major events, start-ups and local economic development, education and educational materials on sustainable development, demographic change, inclusive cities, environmental protection in cities, digital public services, attractive city centers, and other topics were also discussed there. Lidia Perico’s idea can also be read there. Whether this will become a topic for Connective Cities is, of course, not clear at this point in time. But: “We wanted to take advantage of the opportunity shortly before the end of the year to get our planning for 2026 on track, regardless of whether it works out in the Connective Cities format or not. When you talk about your own ideas, you develop them further in your mind, and that’s always an added value,” Perico sums up.

Two examples from past Connective Cities learning cycles showed what learning processes within the framework of Connective Cities can look like in concrete terms.

Angelika Schweimnitz from the Institute for Protection and Rescue of the Cologne Fire Department presented the learning cycle of fire departments on the topics of “Accommodation for evacuees and the deployment of volunteers.” For the Cologne Fire Department, this led to a more intensive exchange with the fire departments in Makati and Quezon City in the Philippines, which, according to Schweimnitz, have a much higher frequency of operations due to the large number of climatic events there. Schweimnitz’s assessment was thoroughly positive: she was impressed by the proximity between the city hall and the population, as well as the overview of the city provided by camera surveillance. The Philippine partners were particularly interested in the model of the volunteer fire department, which makes up a significant proportion of the emergency services in Germany. The exchange also produced a wealth of concrete ideas for high-quality accommodation for evacuees – from pop-up tents to privacy rooms. “It was simply a matter of speaking the language of the tools,” she described. And: “We have brought international and networked thinking in disaster preparedness to our fire department.”

Sven Robert Ganschow from Stadtreinigung Hamburg painted a similarly positive picture of a Connective Cities exchange. Despite hurdles such as the coronavirus pandemic, personnel changes, and fundamentally changed conditions such as the start of the war in Ukraine, the international exchange on the topics of integrated waste management and plastics recycling was highly beneficial and valued. He also noted that he always felt political support from his own city: “I always felt that there was an understanding that the problems do not end in our own country, but that it is important for us to pass on our knowledge,” he said, reflecting on his experience.

A third focus of the network meeting was peer consultation – on the one hand, to present this core method of Connective Cities, and on the other hand, to take advantage of the luxury of the assembled expertise. Some participants brainstormed on the question of how colleagues in their own municipalities or municipal companies could be persuaded to participate in Connective Cities activities. A second group looked at how a project can be successfully implemented even if the framework conditions have changed dramatically since approval. The Connective Cities team itself also took the opportunity to ask about strategies for successfully approaching municipal experts for the project’s activities. All groups proved to be extremely productive and made the idea of Connective Cities tangible: bringing expertise together – leveraging the diversity of perspectives – generating solutions together. Or, in the words of one participant: “It’s good to see that other municipalities face similar challenges and that solutions often already exist. You don’t have to start everything from scratch.”

Ultimately, the networking event was about what the title suggests: establishing contacts, discussing joint topics of interest —in other words, networking. The lively discussions from the first coffee break onwards indicated that this goal had been satisfactorily achieved. “My impulse for the way home is definitely to participate in such networking meetings more often in 2026. Get out of Berlin and engage in exchange,” said Lidia Perico from Berlin once again.

“I’m really excited about the network meeting because I gained a deeper understanding of the whole system behind Connective Cities, even though we’ve already worked together. And I think it’s great that you can contribute your own topics to the program so strongly.”

(Daniela Wiedenhaupt, Senate Department for Urban Development, Construction, and Housing, Berlin)