Category: Good practices

Establishing a Primary Healthcare Center

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In Northern Lebanon, the municipality of Al Mohammara confronts conflict, economic hardship, and a persistent refugee crisis. In the framework of the partnership with the German town of Opfenbach that started in 2018, Al Mohammara decided to address the urgent need for accessible healthcare.

Amid Lebanon’s economic crisis and an extremely high inflation rate, Al Mohammara’s annual budget is insufficient to cover basic services provided by the municipality. Recognized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) as among Lebanon’s most vulnerable municipalities. The implementation of the Primary Healthcare Center project faced significant economic difficulties, primarily in the form of financial challenges during the construction phase.

However, the ongoing partnership between Al Mohammara and Opfenbach is yielding remarkable outcomes for the diverse local population. Despite facing economic challenges and regional tensions, the establishment of the Primary Healthcare Center has evolved from a simple idea into a two-floor, 1000-square-meter facility. Once, the center is operational, it will become a crucial provider of basic healthcare in the Akkar region.

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Further information:

Securing medical care in Lebanon

Interview: Building a primary healthcare centre in challenging times

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Eredvi Municipality (Georgia) grants renewable energy solutions for IDP settlements

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Eredvi Municipality, located just five kilometers from Tskhinvali, has been navigating the challenges stemming from the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, remaining under the de facto control of the breakaway Republic of South Ossetia. Despite these challenges, the local government, operating from Tbilisi, has dedicated efforts to aid internally displaced families dispersed throughout Georgia.

The Eredvi Municipality’s Good Practices center on implementing sustainable solar power projects in internally displaced persons (IDP) settlements in eastern Georgia. Through a collaborative initiative with Lithuanian companies and financing, the municipality aims to address energy needs, providing free electricity to 692 families and municipal facilities while drawing inspiration from Lithuania’s successful experience in renewable energy solutions.

Banepa preserves traditional construction methods using bio-based materials

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The historic town centre of Banepa in Nepal extends along a road for a distance of around 1.2 kilometres. Many of the houses have been in poor condition, making the town less attractive.

This good practice describes how the town of Banepa is restoring its historic centre and a retirement home using traditional construction methods. Bio-based building materials such as wood, bamboo, brick and clay are significantly more sustainable and earthquake-resistant than cement or concrete.

In order to allay the concerns of the local population, the municipality is first refurbishing one building to provide an example of the methods that will be applied to the others. It is working together with the Nepalese RP Foundation, which has over 25 years of experience in the renovation of historical buildings.

This good practice was presented at the Connective Cities dialogue event on climate-friendly construction with organic and recycled materials in Potsdam.

Involvement of civil society actors on both sides is crucial

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Yarinacocha is located in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. The city of around 100,000 inhabitants is close to the regional capital Pucallpa. 26% of Yarinacocha’s population live in poverty, 3.6% in extreme poverty. A large proportion of the urban population has no access to clean drinking water. All the district’s wastewater is discharged into the Ucayali River and the Yarinacocha Lagoon untreated. This has a negative impact on the environment, health, tourism, and economic development in the region.

To meet the increasing challenges of climate protection and climate change adaptation, the Yarinacocha district administration has developed an action program in collaboration with their German Partner City Cologne. This program includes the planning and implementation of improvement measures in areas such as the provision of municipal, climate and environmentally relevant basic services, the use of renewable energies, the preservation of biodiversity and local economic development through value chains. The district administration is working on building appropriate planning and project management capacities in the administration and establishing mechanisms to increase the participation of relevant interest groups from civil society, in particular indigenous actors, and universities, in local planning and decision-making processes. To support these objectives, an expert is supporting the district administration and the climate partnership between Yarinacocha and Cologne in the framework of the program “Experts fund for Municipal Partnerships Wordwide”, which is implemented by GIZ and SKEW.

In this good practice partnership-based cooperation with indigenous communities and their organizations as well as the commitment of political decision-makers are important success factors, e.g. to set up a center for indigenous medicine in Yarinacocha or to implement projects benefitting the indigenous population in the areas of local governance, biodiversity, and autonomous indigenous energy supply.

Developing a climate change strategy in-house

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External consultants often develop climate protection strategies for municipalities, which then end up in the shelf because their implementation does not match the capabilities of the municipality, the measures are too costly or there is little ownership in the departments of the municipality. Kouga municipality was able to successfully conduct the in-house development of a climate strategy. They followed a cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approach, including various departments of the municipal administration. This was supported by a development advisor funded by the “Experts fund for Municipal Partnerships worldwide” between 2021 and 2023. It was a challenge to bring together and activate all these players and at the same time gain political support, but eventually this approach enabled an integrated and therefore feasible strategy.

The climate change strategy consists of three implementation lines. The first line focuses on mainstreaming climate change into the municipal management, the second line talks to responses to main climate change vulnerabilities and the third line lists short-term measures that were identified through the process. Several of these are already being implemented now such as tree planting and dune rehabilitation.

Toolbox citizen engagement for sustainable mobility planning and implementation

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The success of sustainable mobility plans and projects often depends on the commitment and acceptance by citizens. Therefore, citizen engagement in planning and implementation of sustainable mobility in municipalities turns out to be a key success factor not only for impactful implementation of new concepts, but also for co-creating smart sustainable mobility measures. This happens when solutions are developed together with stakeholders.

Due to the consequences of the pandemic citizen engagement is limited or impossible. This can endanger the success and/or slowing down necessary sustainable mobility projects. For this reason, the Connective Cities working group «Sustainable Mobility after COVID-19» created a prototype for «Toolbox citizen engagement for sustainable mobility planning and implementation».

The toolbox covers different levels and degrees of participation. It is a collection of successful tools and roadmaps that can be used in different phases of sustainable mobility planning and implementation in and after the pandemic.

Urban Gardening Guidebook

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From July to December 2020, an initial intensive global programme on ‘municipal response to the pandemic’ was conducted by Connective Cities that has been augmented with the programme ‘municipal recovery from the pandemic’ starting August 2021. The working group “Biodiversity and Environmental Protection” was the first group to be established as part of this programme.

This Guidebook is one result of an extensive exhange. It explains,  why Urban Gardening Matters? and guides the reader through all steps of an urban gardening project – from the first situational analysis, over the preparatory and implementation phase up to a final monitoring and evaluation.

Sustainable Urban Mobility and COVID-19

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The Covid-19 pandemic has led to fundamental changes in urban mobility worldwide. Some impacts are short-term, especially during lockdowns. Others are long-term changes in the way urban mobility and traffic will operate in the future. Sustainable urban mobility and Covid-19 was the focus of the Connective Cities Virtual Dialogue Event in partnership with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and UN-Habitat and hosted by the City of Wiesbaden – Germany that took place on 19, 20 and 22 July 2021. This peer-learning note summarizes good practices of participating cities with a focus on local public transport, bicycle traffic and sustainable urban logistics.

In addition to the English version, there is also a German and Spanish version.

Additional information: a summary of the event including all presentations is available here.

Research of good practices on the subject of health, business, and governance at municipal level during the COVID-19 pandemic

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The report aims to explore municipal initiatives and measures taken to address health, governance, and business sector challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report is structured as follows:
The first part reviews the methodology of country identification for further investigation of good practices at national and city level.
The second, third, and fourth parts consist of good practices in the areas of health, governance, and business during the COVID-19 pandemic, including data analysis in selected countries and a brief overview of municipal practices in response to COVID-19. Good practices were selected from low and medium income countries from Africa, Asia and Southeast Europe.
In the final section, the cities’ challenges and recommendations for Connective Cities are reviewed and conclusions regarding the research findings are also presented.

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.