In times of multiple crises, cities must become increasingly resilient. This currently applies to Ukrainian municipalities in particular: they need to prepare for and respond to stressors such as acts of war, the effects of climate change and economic developments. Connective Cities hosted the expert forum “Resilient cities in times of multiple crises – strategies for resilient municipalities” at the seventh German-Ukrainian partnership conference in Münster (16 – 18.06.2025). The cooperation partners GIZ and Engagement Global with its SKEW welcomed a panel with numerous good practices from Ukrainian and German municipalities, some of which are already involved in Connective Cities’ project activities on urban resilience.
A resilient city is a city that deals with risks and takes precautions, but also a city that is able to learn and adapt. Resilience is a much-used term today – Christian Rauch, head of the “Digital City, Risk Prevention and Transport” department at the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), therefore defined the concept of resilience in a city in his introductory keynote speech. A resilient city is robust, but also adaptable. It is able to react to a variety of stressors, such as social polarization, thermal stress, demographic developments or energy crises. Areas of action for greater urban resilience include integrated and forward-looking urban development, strengthening and adapting critical infrastructure, risk and crisis management, climate resilience and sustainable solutions, community participation and governance, monitoring, review and learning processes, as well as the use of digital tools. Christian Rauch also referred to international strategy documents with guidelines for strengthening urban resilience: “The New Leipzig Charter” and “Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030“.
Individual efforts for more urban resilience were illustrated by the examples of the 7 panelists, who presented their strategies by way of introduction with images of their projects:
- From the district of Euskirchen, which was affected by the flood disaster in 2021, project manager of the KRITIS dialog Sarah zur Linden reported on her experiences of improving communication between local and regional actors in crises.
- Valeriia Levchyshyna from the Lviv City Institute is involved in setting up the Lviv Resilience Hub, which aims to bundle the networking of Ukrainian cities on the topic of resilience and continue the topics of the “Ukrainian Resilience Week” at municipal level.
- Project coordinator Monika Hanemann reported on the WiReSt project from the Steinfurt district. As part of the project, an open-source app was developed to inform small and medium-sized companies in the region about potential bottlenecks within relevant supply chains.
- The Head of the International Cooperation Department, Sasha Kirian, presented an example of greater social resilience from Kharkiv, a municipality affected by Russian bombing: Underground schools. Thanks to foreign investment, a total of 16% of pupils already have the opportunity to attend a safe institution. Measures like these allow the population to stay in the city.
- The mayor of the city of Trosyanets, Yuri Bova, explained how important the will of the population is for this and showed pictures of a hospital that had been bombed and then rebuilt. He repeatedly and impressively emphasized the unbroken will of the citizens – including the hospital staff – to stay. This also has an impact on economic resilience: No company has left its town, some have even invested in the reconstruction of destroyed production facilities.
- Patrick Dufour, Head of the Heilbronn Economic Development Agency, also spoke of strategies to retain companies. To this end, he is already working intensively with Ukrainian municipalities.
- Tetyana Shulichenko, Director of the Economic Development Department of Mykolaiv City Council, showed pictures of the reconstruction of the port, for example. According to her, the increased international interest and willingness to invest is an opportunity. New places for a better quality of stay and life have also been created in the port.
On the one hand, the audience was able to take away from the expert forum the basics of urban resilience and the realization that diverse and mostly innovative approaches and projects can strengthen the resilience of their cities. The examples of the Ukrainian panelists regarding the effects of the Russian war of aggression impressively showed the audience what it means for the population of a city to stand up to acute crises and how important the will of citizens and entrepreneurs is to do so. The examples and speeches also clearly showed that lively cooperation between a wide range of actors, both nationally and internationally, is essential for resilient cities. Under certain circumstances, the increased interest in investment is also an opportunity for Ukrainian municipalities to actively shape reconstruction in line with the model of the resilient city.
