Interview with Leila Ben Gacem: Social Innovation

Beni Khalled, Tunisia, a city famous for its citrus farms, is home of Leila Ben Gacem, social entrepreneur and as elected city councillor head of the Finance Committee. The brave woman worked late hours throughout the first lockdown in order to coordinate volunteers, health companies and municipal activities through social entrepreneurship skills.

More: https://youtu.be/w4ihfI_Gg00

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Podcast with Nadia Odjo: “Smart Schooling”

 “We learned to use what we have.”

Listen to Nadia Odjo, a SmartSchooling natural from Jacmel, Haiti, and founder of the B.R.I.T.E Initiative. She implemented distance learning at her school by her own besides a disconnected community that even had problems setting up e-mail accounts.

More: https://youtu.be/YKV8qFFVbEs

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Podcast with Magnolia Vega: Crisis Communication

Learn through Magnolia Vega, communication officer in a district of Bogotá, how to keep informed 7 million citizens during the pandemics and how to orchestrate between 60 communication officers – in a very personal effort – to unify their message under one brand.

More: https://youtu.be/CPOgSxQkRYs

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Podcast with Armin Berger: Digital Innovation

Welcome to Berlin, where thousands of artists lost their stages because of lockdown. Learn how Armin Berger got support from the senator of culture and how good ideas emerged during breakfast to fill Berlin with new life: Berlin(a)Live

More: https://youtu.be/UwqjbiMlIGE

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Podcasts with Salih Mahmod on Public Health Innovation

Meet Salih Mahmod, a young Iraqi that rebuilt his maker space entirely after ISIS left Mosul and knew what to do after the hospitals in his city lost their medical supplies in the middle of the pandemic.

More: https://youtu.be/JkgV4-eN9Ww

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Kiel: Entrepreneurship and Digitalisation

We traveled to Kiel, where we captured deep insights from a city that, as a digital champion, had to adapt quickly. How do you keep your StartUp community alive if people cannot meet personally?

More: https://youtu.be/-QxhW-Gx-3M

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Weimar: Economic response to COVID-19

Weimar, a city that attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world every year. Watch how did the local city guides, hoteliers and small shop owners react to the lockdown? And what did the local authorities do?

Mehr: https://youtu.be/SxLgSY2aW6g

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Virtual Global Exchange

The exchange was designed to bring together urban practitioners from all over the globe. The goal was to ignite creativity, innovation, solidarity and motivation, while creating and enhancing this global community of practice around the common purpose of combating the global COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences with smart local solutions and strategies.

During the first week, urban practitioners and experts from different municipalities, the civil society, business and academia, presented a total of 56 Good Practices in 18 sessions and gave insights into their experienced challenges and local solutions to deal with the pandemic. The exchange were centered around the nine topics were Public Health, Crisis Management, Economic Response, Housing, Education, Digitalisation, Crisis Communication, Innovation, and Green Urban Recovery.

The second week was about receiving practical “How To” workshops with practical exercises on topics that came up repeatedly during the exchange events such as: social media usage, digital tools, and how to plan for virtual meetings. Finally, the newly learned mindsets and tools could be applied in a 4-hour solution design workshop.

Download documentation

Municipal expert exchange to COVID-19- compact

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

Announcement: Prize of the Carl and Anneliese Goerdeler Foundation 2021

Topic: Exemplary measures to overcome the corona induced crisis

In memory of Carl Goerdeler’s communal political activities as Lord Mayor of the City of Leipzig and his resistance against the Nazi regime, the Carl and Anneliese Goerdeler Foundation awards a Communal Political Prize to honour outstanding achievements in communal administration practice. The award is intended to serve the peaceful cooperation of municipalities and municipal alliances that brings people together, especially in Europe (as defined by the Council of Europe) and abroad. At the same time, mutual learning for the benefit of the inhabitants is to be promoted.

The call for proposals is also in the context of the activities of the Connective Cities project, which is a cooperation between the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Engagement Global gGmbH / Servicestelle Kommunen in der Einen Welt and the German Association of Cities. Implementation partners include selected regional and national city associations in Africa, America, Europe and Asia and their member cities. The project is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Description of content and target group

The prize serves to honour outstanding achievements (“best practices”) in local government or regional communities of responsibility, if necessary also involving civil society forces. The award is intended to honour cooperation between municipalities or municipal alliances with the participation of a German municipality or municipal alliances. The cooperation should have taken place in areas relevant to the management of the pandemic (e.g. health, civil protection, security, urban services, mobility, schools/education, economic development or similar). This should have sustainable positive effects in the following areas: strengthening civil society and/or social cohesion, improving services of general interest, modernising public administration, strengthening economic power, promoting European and global integration.

Funding

Euro 2,000 (in the case of two or more equivalent applications, the prize money can also be split) and publicity award.

The application must be accompanied by documents (in German or English) which observe the following points (max. 10 pages)

  1.  Contact person/contact of the applying municipality or region
  2.  Information about the submitting municipality or region/presentation of the partner municipality or region
  3.  Presentation of the solution approach as “best practice”, if necessary also in virtual form (showcase)
  4.  Actors (who were involved)
  5.  Achieved benefits for citizens
  6.  Transfer potentials

Applications to be submitted by 16 November 2020 (extended)

The winner or winners will be selected by a jury of representatives of the participating institutions. The jury’s decision is made in accordance with the principles of strict party political neutrality.  The award ceremony takes place annually at the beginning of February to commemorate the anniversary of Carl Goerdeler’s death on February 2, 1945. The award is presented in close cooperation with the City of Leipzig and is performed by the Lord Mayor of the City of Leipzig at a ceremony.

Jury

  • Ellen Kramer, German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ), Chairwoman
  • Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brieler, City of Leipzig
  • Marianne Goerdeler, Carl and Anneliese Goerdeler Foundation
  • Lina Furch, Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), German Section
  • Dr. Ferdinand Schuster, Institute for the Public Sector

Contact

Ricarda Meissner, ricarda.meissner@giz.de,  Tel. 0049(0)228 4460 1138

Klaudia Sonntag, klaudia.Sonntag@giz.de , Tel: 0049 (0) 228 4460 1587

More information about the price:

Kommunalpolitischer Preis der Carl und Anneliese Goerdeler-Stiftung 2021
[pdf, 190 kb]
 

www.publicgovernance.de/goerdelerpreis