Category: Cities and climate change

Climate Resilient Urban Development in South East Europe

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More than 40 local urban practitioners from 24 municipalities and 8 countries, fitting under the EU’s regional dimension of Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans, intensively exchanged their experiences/municipal expertise within 2 weeks of digital experience on the topic of “climate resilient urban development” and jointly developed solutions and project ideas. They followed the invitation of Connective Cities to an unprecedented and unique experience: Virtual Dialogue Event: “Climate Resilient Urban Development” on 8-19 June 2020.

It has been increasingly understood that rapid urbanization and climate risks mean greater vulnerability to urban development. Many cities worldwide face significant challenges arising from natural hazards. The Southeast European region is no exception, whereas the climate resilient urban development becomes a central pillar of local sustainability policies. Most of the countries in the region continue to face environmental and climate change challenges.

This event offered a virtual platform to discuss these challenges and supported municipalities in developing locally adapted solutions for climate challenges; in exchanging cities’ significant experience of developing successful possible options and good practises; in transforming innovative urban project ideas into digital solutions especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, as this latter continues to impact heavily the lifestyle at all levels including the sustainable urban development workers and it’s needed to adapt to more innovative and agile ways of working for future crises responses.

During the 2 weeks asynchronous and synchronous digital experience participants listened to inspiring Keynote presentations from leading European scientists and shared insights with peers in carefully curated Peer2Peer collaboration and exchange formats. They learned how to collaborate digitally and got acquainted with some tools, methods and the overall mindset Design Thinking.

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

Call for participants: Local Economic Development and Job Creation in MENA

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Beyond the Immediate Response to the Economic Impacts of the Pandemic

The international cities platform, Connective Cities and its initiators, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the German Association of Cities (Deutscher Städtetag) and Engagement Global GmbH with its Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW), invite urban practitioners from the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) and Germany to take part in the virtual dialogue event “Local Economic Development and Job Creation” from 29th September to 07th October 2020.

Thematic focus of the virtual dialogue event:

The Connective Cities virtual dialogue event on will focus on the following subtopics:

  1. Strategic planning for LED: guiding a participatory LED process that encourages partnership arrangements and inclusive representation; mobilizing strategic partnerships with the private sector and investors to access alternative financing mechanisms; enabling the joint design and implementation of a common development strategy; using local resources and competitive advantages to create a resilient locality.
  2. Promoting sustainable livelihood opportunities and social enterprise: implementing livelihood programs to enhance entrepreneurship skills and support the establishment of microbusinesses; contributing to social cohesiveness and conflict prevention through decent job creation for local communities.
  3. Public investments in green infrastructure and circular economies: creating decent jobs and revenues for localities through the investment in green infrastructure and circular economy; transformation towards green economy.

Objectives and Methodology

This virtual dialogue event is the first component of the Connective Cities learning process on LED and job creation and it aims at promoting the exchange of expertise on good practices for planning and implementing LED and job creation programs in cities in MENA. It thus facilitates practice-oriented exchange and peer-to-peer consultations among municipal actors on effective solutions to address challenges related to LED and job creation in their local realities. Through its virtual format, the dialogue event enables sharing of a broad variety of information synchronously as well as asynchronously, while ensuring the ease of communication between the participants. Interaction will take place using a variety of tools and the discussions will be recorded for future reference.
The objectives of the dialogue event include:

  • Facilitating exchange of know-how and experience on good practices through peer-to-peer consultation among urban practitioners from MENA and Germany;
  • Developing the capacity of participants to analyse and overcome challenges of implementing LED and job creation programs;
  • Determining future support needed for projects, which includes support from the Connective Cities International Community of Practice for Sustainable Urban Development.

Participation and Contact

Prospective participants are expected to provide a good practice example from a project they implemented or are currently implementing fitting the thematic focus of the event. We particularly encourage showcasing of good practices that incorporate gender- and/or climate-sensitive solutions.
The deadline for application is 11st September 2020.

For further details see: Call for participants [pdf 4 pages]

For applications and queries from interested experts from the MENA region, please contact: Dr. Muna Shalan, GIZ Regional Network Coordinator Connective Cities – MENA region (muna.shalan@giz.de).
Interested German experts should contact Ms. Alice Balbo, Connective Cities Project Manager at the German Association of Cities (alice.balbo@staedtetag.de).

Towards the Localization of the SDGs – 4th Report

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LOCAL AND REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS’ REPORT TO THE 2020 HLPF 4th REPORT

The fourth report of the local and regional governments (LRGs) to the HLPF: Towards the Localization of the SDGs (2020) has been produced at a difficult time, when the world is suffering the effects of a global pandemic. The impact of this crisis on the social and economic fabric of our communities is, however, still difficult to measure. Within this context, the words “solidarity” and “cooperation” take on an even more relevant meaning. This was the message of the UN Secretary-General in his report to the HLPF and it reflects the feelings of our constituency, based on the experiences of numerous cities and territories.

The transformative framework of the universal development agendas remains essential for a more sustainable future. Local and regional governments from all over the world are reinstating their strong commitment to achieve the transformation that their societies call for after the pandemic through the potential of the SDGs and the universal development agendas.

In this context, the report analyses the evolution of the process of SDG localization in cities and territories throughout the world, particularly focusing on the 47 countries reporting this year. In doing this, it builds upon the information presented in the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and on the views expressed by LRGs through their own reports (more than 40 Voluntary Local Reviews from cities and regions and six reports from LGAs which provide a wider, subnational view of the localization process in the countries reporting this year). It also collects together the answers to the GTF survey, with the visions of LRGs from 75 countries. This report will be presented during the Local and Regional Governments’ Day at the 2020 High-Level Political Forum.
Political Forum.

Niteroi Resilience Plan

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Niteroi is a Brazilian coastal city surrounded by hills just outside Rio de Janeiro. With its approximately 500,000 inhabitants, Niteroi’s economy focuses mainly on commerce and services. In 2010, the city had the highest Human Development Index in the state of Rio de Janeiro and the seventh largest among Brazilian municipalities. Also, it is the first of the state concerning sanitation performance.

As a coastal city, Niteroi has at the same time, many tourism possibilities with extraordinary beaches, but also, problems related to sea level rising and eventual rough seas. Climate change has also contributed to an increase in droughts and wildfires.

The city is located between the sea and the hills and in the past decades, with the increasing of the city combined with a non-structured urbanistic plan, most of the hillsides were irregularly occupied by low-income families in a massive way. As the result of this situation, Niteroi has areas occupied by vulnerable people where there are significant risks of land sliding.

In April 2010, more than 240 people died in landslides, most of which occurred on the hills surrounding the city. After that, many preventive actions were made, aiming to reduce the number of accidents and deaths, what generated excellent results.

Finally, the municipal government has developed a Resilience Plan aiming to strengthen the direct and indirect actions of the Niteroi Civil Defense. It has had a great importance and a strong impact in the city. The plan was finalized and launched in December 2019 and its implementation has already started.

Series of virtual events on local climate leadership in times of COVID-19

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The GIZ project “Climate Policy Meets Urban Development” is organizing a series of three online-seminars on local climate action in times of #COVID19. The series will kick off with its first online-seminar on 7 July 2020, 3-4 pm (CEST/UTC+2). The session will introduce Germany’s multi-level governance framework with a focus on the German National Climate Initiative (NCI) and its mechanisms to foster local climate projects.

Session 2 on maintstreaming climate projects into city governance frameworks and session 3 on steering local climate leadership trough collaborative action will take place on 1 September and 5 October. 

More Info

Climate Resilient Urban Development in Southeast Europe

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The virtual event was the first component of the learning process conducted by Connective Cities in Southeast Europe. The aim of the virtual event was to support knowledge exchange and networking by increasing the visibility of good practices from municipalities in SEE region on one hand, and on the other hand by facilitating the needed virtual space and tools to create innovative solutions for local challenges through knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer consultations.

The virtual event, thus, supported transforming dialogue and exchange possibilities into a digital and remote format especially during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak affecting heavily the lifestyle of urban dwellers and planers. As this will include effects on sustainable urban development, municipal urban practitioners need to develop more innovative and agile processes to improve future crises responses. Here, the interest was mainly in pragmatic solutions and approaches that can be applied or adapted to the different regional/local contexts. Furthermore, the event offered a virtual platform to discuss the challenges around the theme of climate resilient urban development and supported municipalities in developing new project ideas among peers that can be further implemented in the respective home communities or in the framework of existing or new thematic municipal partnerships.

Call for participants: Climate Resilient Urban Development in South East Europe and the Caucasus region

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Responding to climate change plays a crucial role today in sustainable urban development policies worldwide. The Southeast European region is no way exception being heavily impacted by growing trend of urbanisation. This is now coupled with the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 affecting the lifestyles of cities and municipalities, which need to adapt to more innovative and agile ways of working for future crises responses. Against this background, the international cities platform – Connective Cities cordially invites municipalities & urban practitioners to take part in the unprecedented and unique experience: Connective Cities Virtual Event: “Climate Resilient Urban Development” on 8-19 June 2020.

Bring your initial urban project idea and we will incubate it within 2 weeks of digital experience where you can expect to listen to inspiring keynote presentations from leading European scientists and share insights with your peers in carefully curated Peer2Peer collaboration and exchange formats. During asynchronous and synchronous workshops, you will learn how to collaborate digitally and get acquainted with tools, methods and the overall mindset Design Thinking that helps you to be more innovative and successful.

Check out our Call for Participants for more details and apply by 17 May 2020. The invite is predominantly open for the countries fitting under the EU’s reginal dimension of Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans

More information in the Call for Participants [pdf, 1,89mb].

Concerning the questions from international applicants on the event and the participation process, please contact: Mr. Irakli Samkharadze, GIZ Regional Network Coordinator Connective Cities – Southeast Europe. Tbilisi, Georgia (irakli.samkharadze@giz.de)

Interested German experts should contact Ms. Alice Balbo, Connective Cities Project Manager at the German Association of Cities (Alice.Balbo@staedtetag.de)

Climate Proofing Urban Development

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The impacts of climate change include extreme weather events such as heavy rainfalls, severe thunderstorms, prolonged droughts and heat waves. These impacts pose major challenges for cities around the world. Although climate change is a global challenge, adapting to its impacts is largely a local process.

Almost 30 local practitioners from 12 cities, 10 countries and four continents accepted the invitation of Connective Cities and the City of Dortmund to a dialogue event on the topic of ‘Climate proofing urban development’, which took place from 3 to 5 September 2019 in Dortmund, Germany. This report documents the discussed good practices, solution approaches and developed project ideas.

Climate Resilience and Urban Development

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Many cities in the Latin American region have been pioneers in the implementation of environmental measures and policies, as well as in resilience building and adaptation of their territories to the incre- asing effects of climate change. Planning for the future is key for the well-being of our communities, and we need to continue working with and for them in order to mitigate and adapt to the impact that climate change will continue to have on our territories in the coming decades.

This peer-learning note summarizes good practices of Latin American cities with a focus on four different thematic areas: risk assessment, comprehensive planning, finance, and citizen engagement. The practices were discussed during our ConnectiveCities peer-learning event hosted by the city of Niteroi, Brazil between November 26-28, 2019.

More information: 

• Read the Peer Learning Note 26 about Climate Resilience and Urban Development in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.
• Short documentation with all presentations and pictures of the events

Climate just and climate proof urban development

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As a prelude to the new learning process of Connective Cities in Latin America, the dialogue event “Climate just and climate proof urban development” took place in Niterói, Brazil, from 26-28 November 2019. Cooperation partners of the event were the city of Niterói and UCLG Learning.

The 32 participants in the event, mainly local practitioners, came from 17 cities in six countries: Brazil, Germany, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico. All participants work in their cities or projects on the topic of climate resilience/climate adaptation in the context of sustainable urban development. The aim of the event was to exchange experience and knowledge among local practitioners on the subject, to get to know good practices and to give mutual advice to colleagues, as well as to develop project ideas for further processing in subsequent events.

During an excursion, the group first got to know some of the current and completed projects of the Niterói Municipality in situ, and then gained further insights during a meeting with the Mayor Rodrigo Neves.