Energy efficiency and renewable energy

Towards Affordable and Sustainable Housing

Posted on June 20, 2025June 23, 2025 by erik

As urban populations grow and climate risks intensify, cities across regions face increasing pressure to provide housing that is both affordable and sustainable. In response to these intersecting challenges, Connective Cities launched a thematic dialogue on 28 May 2025, bringing together city officials, technical experts and urban practitioners from Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.

Participants from Windhoek, Kitengela, Kisumu, Nairobi, Lusaka, Mazabuka, Huye, Bloemfontein, Zanzibar, Nelson Mandela Bay, Hebron, Tbilisi and Berlin engaged in a structured exchange of ideas and approaches, exploring practical solutions for inclusive and resilient urban housing systems. The event marked the beginning of a broader exchange process, which will continue with topic-specific deep-dive sessions beginning on 17 July 2025.

Shared Challenges, Context-Specific Solutions

The discussion underscored that while urban housing challenges are shared across many cities, solutions must be context-sensitive. High construction costs, limited access to finance, and land scarcity were common constraints. However, cities are responding with innovative strategies:

Huye presented its experience with a revolving housing fund, which supports incremental housing development and actively involves local communities.
Nairobi stressed the importance of improving the quality and availability of housing data to support evidence-based planning and investment decisions.
Berlin offered insights on the role of public land management and social rental models to maintain long-term housing affordability.

These inputs highlighted the importance of designing housing policies that reflect both local governance realities and broader social priorities.

Circular Materials and Building Reuse as Cost-Saving and Climate Strategies

The reuse of existing buildings and the application of circular construction principles were central to the discussion. Participants shared examples of how:

Traditional building materials such as mud and straw can offer significant cost and environmental advantages when combined with engineering improvements and clear construction standards
Adaptive reuse of buildings contributes to both resource efficiency and urban revitalisation
Circular strategies also open new opportunities for local employment and innovation in the housing sector

The discussion emphasised that promoting material reuse requires an enabling policy environment and technical support at city level. Circularity is not only a technical approach but also a governance challenge, tied to regulation, planning practices, and land use policies.

Making Housing Finance More Inclusive

Financing remains a significant barrier to the delivery of affordable housing. Participants explored how to improve access to housing finance through:

Microcredit schemes and community savings models, adapted to informal or low-income contexts
More inclusive rent-to-own mechanisms and cooperatives
Capacity building for local governments to structure and manage housing finance, including pre-feasibility support and institutional partnerships

Throughout the discussion, participants underlined the need for financing models that are inclusive and flexible, particularly for groups who are often excluded from formal housing markets—such as women, tenants, and people in informal settlements.

Next Steps: Deep-Dive Tracks Starting 17 July 2025

To build on the outcomes of the initial exchange, Connective Cities will facilitate a series of thematic deep-dive sessions launching on 17 July 2025, offering a space for collaborative learning, peer support and project development. These tracks will focus on:

Finance & Microcredit for Housing
Reuse & Circular Materials
City Partnerships & Pilot Platforms

Participants will be invited to work in smaller groups, explore tailored solutions, and develop practical ideas for implementation, replication, or upscaling.

Moving from Dialogue to Action

The exchange clearly demonstrated that affordable housing is not just a construction issue. It is a multidimensional challenge that touches on urban resilience, social equity, and environmental sustainability. While no one-size-fits-all solution exists, platforms like Connective Cities can help accelerate progress by connecting cities, facilitating technical exchange, and supporting municipal capacity.

The discussion also reaffirmed that locally grounded innovation—backed by peer learning and international cooperation—can unlock new pathways for action. By drawing on shared experiences and contextual knowledge, cities can co-develop housing models that are inclusive, financially viable, and climate-responsive.

Next session: 17 July 2025

For further information or to join a thematic track, please contact:
jelena.karamatijevic@giz.de

Renewable energy options at the local level

Posted on June 16, 2025June 26, 2025 by erik

From 16 to 18 June 2025, Connective Cities is inviting municipal experts, specialists from administration, science and business to Podgorica, Montenegro. Together, we will take a practical look at specific project ideas from the Southeast Europe/Caucasus region, discuss success factors for their implementation and promote the international exchange of experience.

Experts with expertise in the following areas in particular are invited to attend:

Renewable energies and municipal energy planning
Energy-efficient refurbishment and building management
Financing municipal infrastructure
Development and implementation of sustainable urban projects

The aim of the event is to strengthen the dialogue between municipalities, financial institutions and experts, to make good practice visible and to further develop concrete, implementable project ideas.

You can find more information in the Call for Participation. If you are interested in participating, please send a brief expression of interest by e-mail to the relevant contact person by 26 May 2025:

For Southeast Europe / Caucasus:
Ketevan Papashvili
✉️ ketevan.papashvili@giz.de

For Germany and other international participants:
Paulina Koschmieder
✉️ paulina.koschmieder@giz.de

Green Hydrogen for Local Development

Posted on May 15, 2025November 7, 2025 by erik

Naivasha, Kenya | 14–17 April 2025 – Green hydrogen is gaining global attention as a key energy carrier for the future. While much of the discussion centres on export potential, green hydrogen production also holds significant potential for local development—boosting municipal infrastructure and stimulating local economies, especially in Africa, where the continent’s high potential for solar and wind energy brings African cities in a unique position to become innovation hubs and key drivers in the global energy transition.

To foster exchange of experiences and best practices between African and German cities, Connective Cities organised the workshop “Exploring the Potential of Green Transition for Local Economic Development”, bringing together over 30 municipal professionals from both regions.

The role of cities in promoting green hydrogen

The workshop, which focused on the role of cities in advancing green hydrogen as a lever for sustainable economic growth, facilitated a peer-to-peer learning space for municipal actors to exchange experiences, address challenges, and explore pathways for green hydrogen adoption at the local level.

Municipal strategies and shared challenges

Konferenzraum: Teilnehmende sitzen gruppiert an runden Tischen. Auf dem Plenum sitzen fünf Personen und diskutieren. — Photo: Connective Cities

A central focus of the exchange was how technological innovation can align with local development needs. Discussions ranged from decentralised hydrogen production systems and seawater electrolysis to the use of organic waste as a renewable source. Especially for coastal or water-scarce cities in Africa, such technologies were seen as promising solutions to local resource constraints.

However, participants agreed that technology alone is not enough. Effective local hydrogen strategies require strategic urban planning, transparent land management, and strong community engagement. Several municipalities shared examples of inclusive planning processes, involving traditional authorities and local universities in shaping future-oriented land use plans and infrastructure projects.

Eine Gruppe von zehn Personen sitzen um einen runden tisch und diskutieren intensiv. Im Hintergrund steht eine Metaplan-Tafel. — Peer Learning Session | Photo: Connective Cities

Participants from countries including Namibia, South Africa, Mauritania, Kenya, and Germany presented concrete initiatives demonstrating how hydrogen projects can generate local value. The example of Arandis (Namibia) illustrated how targeted investment and strategic partnerships are enabling the town to position itself as a production hub for green hydrogen. In contrast, the Heilbronn region (Germany) focuses on the application and industrial use of hydrogen, building a regional value chain by attracting user industries and technology providers.

Furthermore, Karlsruhe (Germany) showcased a successful ecosystem for start-ups working in hydrogen technologies, supported by research institutions and public-private partnerships. Across all cases, one message became clear: municipal masterplans and coordinated strategic planning are essential for cities to fully benefit from the emerging hydrogen economy.
The discussions underscored the growing role of cities not only as implementers of national energy goals, but as active shapers of the green transition. The workshop aimed to empower municipalities to position themselves as testing grounds, innovation platforms, and investment destinations within a future green hydrogen economy.

Outlook and next steps

The workshop concluded with a strong call for municipal leadership in developing local hydrogen strategies that reflect both environmental ambitions and socio-economic priorities. Participants identified three key areas for action:

Local value creation: Prioritising domestic use of hydrogen for local industries – such as fertiliser or building materials – rather than relying solely on export models.
Education and skills development: Aligning vocational training and higher education programmes with future labour market needs in the hydrogen sector.
Partnerships and knowledge exchange: Strengthening peer-to-peer learning and cooperation among municipalities through platforms such as Connective Cities.

Participants also highlighted that green hydrogen offers more than energy solutions – it can help create future-oriented jobs, stimulate innovation, and improve urban living conditions. By linking clean energy production with economic development, municipalities can promote both resilience and inclusivity.
The workshop in Naivasha confirmed that green hydrogen can become a key pillar of sustainable urban development – provided that cities take a proactive role. Where political commitment, technical capacity and community participation come together, green hydrogen has the potential to drive long-term prosperity and shared growth.

Gruppenbild mit sechs Teilnehmenden aus Deutschland und Kenia — Photo: Export-Akademie Baden-Württemberg

“Whether peer learning sessions, inspiring impulses or practical insights into hydrogen strategies, sustainable mobility and local project development – the variety of formats impressively demonstrated how much potential there is in partnership-based cooperation.“
– Felix Sossalla, Wirtschaftsförderung Raum Heilbronn GmbH (LinkedIn, translated)

“We’re looking forward to partnering with more cities, industries, and changemakers who share our vision for a greener, more inclusive future. Let’s create the green cities of tomorrow — together.”
– Export-Akademie Baden-Württemberg (LinkedIn)

The Voluntary Local Review (VLR) of Amman: Accelerating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

Posted on March 7, 2025 by erik

With four million inhabitants, the Jordanian capital is home to around 40 per cent of the country’s total population. In 2021, Amman’s city administration, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), decided to create a VLR – the first in the Arab region. In the summer of 2022, the VLR was finalised and presented together with the Voluntary National Review (VNR) at the UN High-Level Political Forum in New York.

The VLR has proven to be a complete success – both as an analytical tool and as a process:

An ‘ecosystem’ for collecting validated data has been developed.
Sustainability goals (SDGs) were integrated into various areas of policy, strategy development and administrative action.
New formats for citizen participation were trialled.
New projects and partnerships were initiated and ongoing ones strategically interlinked;
The digitalisation of the administration is very advanced.

The simultaneous creation of VNR and VLR ensured policy coherence and mutual support between the two levels.

Expert exchange on the interim use of public buildings

Posted on March 4, 2025June 23, 2025 by erik

Are you an expert in the interim use of buildings? If so, we would be delighted to welcome you to a Connective Cities expert meeting, where participants in the Connective Cities learning process ‘2nd Hands on Public Buildings’ will learn about the work of ZwischenZeitZentrale Bremen and Transiträume Berlin e.V. and discuss examples of their projects with experts in this field. The exchange of expertise will take place online on March 12, 2025, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. via WebEx (alternative date as the meeting in February was cancelled).

For ecological and, increasingly, economic reasons, the reuse or conversion of buildings from the 1960s and 1970s is of interest to municipalities and their building stock. The Connective Cities dialogue event in cooperation with the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing from 24 to 27 September 2024 was dedicated to this paradigm shift. Around 30 municipal experts from Germany, Kenya, Montenegro, the Palestinian Territories, Zambia and Ukraine exchanged views on solutions and challenges for the sustainable reuse of public buildings and jointly developed project ideas. The ongoing one-year learning process of Connective Cities on the reuse and repurposing of modernist buildings offers further insights into the topics discussed in Berlin and the opportunity to develop concrete solutions through exchange and study tours. On March 12, 2025, we will focus on the topic of ‘interim use’, which arose during the event, particularly for participants from Nairobi. All objects and project examples provided by the participants can be found in this publication.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested: marcella.sobisch@engagement-global.de.

Hebron City Hall – reinvented time and again

Posted on January 22, 2025 by erik

Built in 1965, the current City Hall of Hebron in the Palestinian Territories has been remodelled and repurposed time and again to meet the increasing demands of a growing city and its administration. The focus was on resource efficiency, technical modernisation and the requirements of work organisation.

Towards a more sustainable building sector

Posted on January 14, 2025June 23, 2025 by erik

The building sector must become more sustainable: It is responsible for up to 40 per cent of all CO2 emissions worldwide. The construction industry also consumes many resources, as valuable building materials are rarely recycled. Moreover, it’s not just about the construction phase: the way a building is constructed plays a decisive role in how much energy is used for heating or cooling throughout the entire life cycle of the building.

In order to fight climate change and protect the environment, the construction sector urgently needs to be decarbonized. There are many innovative ways to do this, for example with bio-based materials such as wood, clay and bricks or by recycling used materials.

Local authorities play a key role in making the construction sector more sustainable: as innovation drivers in their own buildings and in the design of building regulations.

As part of a yearlong learning process organized by Connective Cities, representatives from local authorities and research institutions as well as planners and architects shared their experiences and knowledge of climate-friendly constructions and inspired each other’s work.

Dialogue event: What must be done and what can we do?

The learning process began with a dialogue event in Potsdam from 13 to 15 November 2023, at which participants from Bhutan, Indonesia, Nepal, South Africa, Berlin, Heidelberg, Lörrach, Munich, Stuttgart and Potsdam reported on how they are shaping the green transformation in the building sector. In Heidelberg and Munich, the aim is to reuse as much existing building material as possible when constructing new urban neighborhoods on former military sites. Architect Nyoman Popo Priyatna Danes explained how traditional and modern technologies were combined in the construction of a hotel complex in Bali. It was important to sensitize the population to the fragility of the landscape and to ecological economic activity.

According to Dr. Susanne Winter from the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) Germany and Peter Heuer, Chairman of the Potsdam City Council, it is important to find a sustainable balance between the protection and use of forests when building with wood. Wood for the construction industry must come from sustainably managed forests. Prof Dr. Jürgen Kropp from Bauhaus Erde and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) pointed out that bio-based building materials could mitigate the dangerous heating of cities and that, contrary to some opinions, wood is a stable and durable building material.

The dialogue took place in cooperation with the City of Potsdam, Bauhaus Erde and PIK.

-> Good practice I: Lörrach plans Germany’s first industrial estate in timber construction
-> Good practice II: Banepa preserves traditional building methods using bio-based materials

Projects for the expansion of renewable energies

Posted on December 17, 2024June 13, 2025 by erik

Version française

The Regional Renewable Energy for Cities Workshop, held from October 23-25, 2024, in Tunis, Tunisia, was organized by Connective Cities, RoAid, the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM), and the City Climate Finance Gap Fund (Gap Fund). The event was part of the Renforcement de la Gouvernance Locale et Modernisation des Service Locaux (REMO) project by GIZ Tunisia due to its close collaboration with Tunisian municipalities, key partners in the project, as well as its partnership with the Ministry of the Interior.

The regional conference aimed to strengthen renewable energy initiatives in urban areas, provide technical expertise, and promote peer-to-peer learning among cities in North and West Africa.

Tunisian cities participating in the workshop demonstrate a strong commitment to improving citizens’ quality of life, enhancing safety, and reducing energy costs through investments in green energy solutions. Their priorities include public lighting using photovoltaic panels and sustainable energy operations for public buildings (e.g., health, education, recreation).

The goal of these cities, regardless of their size or character, is to become more attractive for residents, investors, and tourists by fostering sustainable development and creating a healthy environment.

Tunisian cities face several challenges in their transition to green energy systems. Key obstacles include:

limited access to non-reimbursable funding,
modest technical and financial preparation,
political-administrative constraints, and
a shortage of technical expertise in the environmental sector.

Despite these hurdles, opportunities exist for cities to access support through initiatives like The Gap Fund, which provides assistance for feasibility studies, cost-benefit analyses, and securing international financing. International development banks prioritize projects that emphasize environmental health, community well-being, and the adoption of green technologies, adding significant value to local populations.

With immense solar potential and a favorable modernization context, Tunisian cities must focus on collaboration with other municipalities or regions to secure larger-scale funding. Leveraging the expertise of institutions such as GIZ, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and other development banks is essential. Additionally, adopting proven, cost-effective solutions from successful global projects can help tailor efforts to their specific needs. By aligning their initiatives with international standards, Tunisian cities can accelerate their transition to sustainable green energy systems and ensure a healthier, more attractive environment for citizens, investors, and tourists alike.

Day 1: Focus on project preparation, financing, and expert presentations

The workshop began with a welcome address by Madame Samira Abidi, President of the Instance Générale de Prospective et d’Appui à la Décentralisation, Ministry of Interior, Tunisia. She emphasized the importance of supporting cities in their renewable energy efforts, highlighting that the Ministry has available funds to support projects. Madame Abidi stressed the need for combined funding opportunities to maximize impact and welcomed all participants to collaborate towards sustainable solutions.

Jelena Karamatijević (Connective Cities) introduced the objectives of the workshop, stressing the organization’s commitment to peer learning and knowledge exchange among cities. She also introduced Connective Cities as a global network facilitating collaboration and capacity-building to tackle sustainability challenges through urban innovation and energy efficiency projects.

Romanian city expertise and good practices

The technical sessions began with a presentation by RoAid, focusing on the experiences of Romanian cities and how they have overcome challenges similar to those faced by cities in Tunisia and other African countries. Romanian experts discussed specific examples of solar energy integration, smart grid technologies, and energy-efficient infrastructure. These insights were particularly relevant, as Romania’s urban energy projects closely align with those of the participating cities. Romanian cities demonstrated innovative urban solutions in solar street lighting, community-driven energy models, and energy-efficient public infrastructure.

Transforming primary school “Lovćenski Partizanski Odred”

Posted on November 19, 2024 by erik

Revitalizing an essential community hub

The Primary School “Lovćenski Partizanski Odred” in Cetinje, Montenegro, has been a cornerstone of education in the community since 2004. Serving 600 students, the school building was constructed as part of a larger plan, which, due to budget limitations, was only partially completed. While the main building was in use, the absence of a sports hall and outdoor facilities, combined with outdated infrastructure, hindered the learning experience.

In 2018, a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Education, Science, and Innovation and the Old Royal Capital Cetinje set out to change this. The joint venture aimed to upgrade the school with a new sports hall, enhanced outdoor spaces, and significant energy efficiency improvements, ensuring a safer, more sustainable environment. This transformation, strengthened by Connective Cities’ knowledge-sharing platform, showcases the power of international collaboration in advancing sustainable urban development.

Connective Cities learning process and knowledge exchange

The Connective Cities network, which fosters sustainable urban practices through peer learning and collaboration, has been an invaluable resource in the transformation of Cetinje’s schools. In October 2023, representatives from Cetinje—Marija Mrvaljević, the City Chief Architect, and Marija Proročić, Secretary for Spatial Planning and Environmental Protection—participated in the Connective Cities Learning Process on Renewable Energy Options at the Municipal Level, in Tbilisi, Georgia. During this event, they presented the school renovation project, gaining valuable insights and technical expertise from other European and German cities facing similar urban challenges. This exchange has been essential in adapting the project to international standards of energy efficiency and sustainable design.

Through the Connective Cities platform, Cetinje has successfully integrated key renewable energy solutions into the renovation of local schools. The municipality installed solar energy systems on school buildings, significantly improving energy efficiency and reducing electricity costs. Additionally, energy-efficient lighting and enhanced insulation were implemented to further decrease energy consumption. These initiatives not only advance Cetinje’s sustainability objectives but also serve as a model for other municipalities seeking to implement similar solutions.