Category: Integrated urban development

Action for Cool Cities: Pathways for carbon reduction in buildings and improvement of outdoor thermal comfort

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As the first step of the learning process ‘Action for Cool Cities – Pathways for carbon reduction in buildings and improvement of outdoor thermal comfort’, the virtual kickoff event was held on 30 Nov – 1 Dec 2022. During this event, good practices were showcased on the reduction of carbon emissions in building stock and improving outdoor thermal comfort as well as examples of faltering implementation in these key spheres of action.

As a second module of the learning process, Connective Cities workshop on ideation and prototyping took place in Amman, Jordan on the 7th-9th March 2023. The workshop focused on ideation and prototyping of solutions by the participating municipalities within the following thematic fields:

  1. Designing climate-responsive outdoor public spaces and promoting engagement of citizens
  2. Steering Structure: Interdepartmental Communication framework/platform in municipalities
  3. Optimizing existing building and urban design regulations by introducing key performance indicators and improving in-house capacity to drive change
  4. The role of municipality as a regulator and implementer: budget analysis and strategies for cost recovery of climate action measures

Participation in the second module of the learning process enabled the municipalities to share experiences, develop their capacities, and develop ideas for prototyping in their municipalities. The next stage or third module of the learning process gave a chance to these municipalities to test and optimize the envisioned prototypes in an iterative process that included conducting participatory sessions with stakeholders (including citizens, decision makers, and experts). The process revealed the significance of producing quantitative and qualitative evidence to back up the proposed seven solutions.

Cooperative Urban Development – Open Society and Normativity in Urban Development

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Close cooperation between municipalities and civil society leads to improvements in the quality of the procedures used for planning urban projects and the subsequent outcomes, too. Demonstration areas and model projects create opportunities for further exploring new forms of cooperation in the field of urban development and for making headway in terms of co-designing inclusive and liveable cities.

An international event by Connective Cities and the City of Mannheim has enabled professionals with expertise in bottom-up planning approaches to meet with municipal representatives to discuss matters of cooperative urban development. This exchange was embedded in an urban development symposium dedicated to analysing the demands of a contemporary urban planning culture – an event hosted by the City of Mannheim on the site currently occupied by Germany’s National Garden Show (Bundesgartenschau).

The participants brought with them a wealth of expertise and manifold examples of practical experience from 15 cities worldwide. Municipalities from Central and Latin America, North and West Africa as well as all of Europe sent their representatives along. Presentations by Berlin and Amsterdam raised awareness of the importance of a bottom-up approach. Other issues addressed included the requisite modalities for safeguarding projects for pioneer users in the long term and ways of ensuring socially equitable usage given the backdrop of speculation and gentrification. Examples from projects in Aachen, Freetown and Juárez also conveyed the importance of being sensitive to local conditions and of acknowledging the local population’s concerns.

An E-Mobility HUB in Lviv – Climate Innovations from Ukraine

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The ECCA is a biennial Conference aiming to inspire climate consultants, climate services developers, and policy deliverers at transnational, national, regional, municipal, and community levels to confidently implement effective measures to adapt to the changing climate, especially in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as flooding, heatwaves, and wildfire.

The 6th ECCA 2023 was organized by a European-wide collaboration led by influential actors JPI Climate and Climate project, MAGICA, supported by the European Commission. The Conference has been convened by projects that have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Program.

The conference Program

The ECCA conference took place in Dublin, Ireland from 19-21 June covering the following thematic areas:

  1. Stepping Up Climate Action: Support Through Climate Platforms and Services.
  2. Adaptation Responses to Sea Level Rise and Coastal Change.
  3. Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation.
  4. Preparing for More Frequent and Severe Climate Extremes.
  5. Reframing Societal Transformation by Challenging Underlying Assumptions.
  6. Climate and Social Resilience of Future Energy Infrastructure and Systems.

Win-win: municipalities and the academic community benefit from more collaboration

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The report documents the most important results of a virtual networking event with participants from Germany, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia, Indonesia, Tanzania, France, Congo (DRC) and Ukraine on 28 March 2023, with the aim of identifying the potential for cooperation between municipalities and scientific institutions and developing recommendations for action. The event was hosted by the City of Heidelberg in cooperation with Connective Cities.

Closer cooperation between municipalities and academic institutions offers both sides plenty of potential that has often not yet been fully exploited. Scholars can help municipalities find ways to adapt to new challenges – such as the impacts of climate change. It also creates many high-quality jobs. At the same time, academic institutions depend on the cities in which they are located to provide good research and working conditions, and an attractive environment for their employees to live in.

Tree trenches for quality of life in Hagen

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The German City of Hagen lies on the edge of the Sauerland low mountain range and has a hilly topography. Four rivers – the Ruhr, the Volme, the Lenne and the Ennepe – run through the city. As a result, large parts of the city are at risk of flooding, especially during heavy rainfall events. As part of a pilot project, specially developed innovative tree trenches (or tree drains) are now being planted. These are designed to make the city safer, more climate-resilient and thus more liveable.

Bairro Maravilha – marvellous neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro

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The Bairro Maravilha programme, which translates as ‘Wonderful Neighbourhood’, has been implemented in more than 90 locations in Brazil’s second largest city, Rio de Janeiro. It is providing urbanisation and infrastructure systems in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city, especially in the suburbs. The programme includes the asphalting of streets, the creation of safe sidewalks, and the restoration of public lighting with LEDs and the installation of a sewerage and drainage network to prevent flooding. In places where there is no space for orderly urbanization, the program builds new housing to reorder the urban space. It has already urbanised over six million square metres across the city, which has improved drainage and living conditions in all the areas concerned.

Peer-to-peer learning and networking – in the focus of municipal development cooperation

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The OECD report “Reshaping Decentralised Development Co-operation in Germany” was presented at the “6th OECD Roundtable on Cities and Regions for the SDGs” in Brussels on 20 April 2023. It assesses decentralised development cooperation (DDC) policies, strategies, programmes and financing in Germany, as well as the challenges they face, and provides concrete recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness and impact of DDC policies and programmes.

It is the result of an 18-month policy dialogue with more than 100 stakeholders from all levels of government in Germany. The OECD conducted two surveys: one with the federal states and one with the municipalities. The OECD survey of the federal states, conducted between November 2021 and January 2022, was targeted to the development cooperation focal points in the 16 German federal states. The survey was answered by the departments responsible for development cooperation in the state ministries of 14 of the 16 federal states, as well as by representatives of the Federal Government (BMZ) and the implementing organisations. A similar survey was extended to the German municipalities and addressed to the respective persons responsible for development cooperation on the ground. This second survey was conducted between April and June 2022.

Since the 1950s, the DDC has become increasingly important within German development cooperation. Compared to other members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, German municipalities and regions provide by far the highest Official Development Assistance (ODA) in absolute terms, totalling approximately €1538 million in 2020 followed by Spain with €369 million. Most federal states and municipalities focus their development cooperation on technical cooperation, advisory services and peer-to-peer learning as well as networking, especially in the policy areas of education, environment and health.

Results at the municipal level

At the municipal level, building and promoting networks and peer-to-peer learning are the two most used types of technical assistance for municipal DDC activities. About 75% of municipalities responding to the OECD survey engaged in building and promoting networks in 2018, 2020, or both. Peer-to-peer learning is the second most important type of technical assistance for municipalities’ DDC projects. About two-thirds of municipalities used collegial advice in their DDC programs. Roundtables and platforms that bring together actors from different sectors are tools used by municipalities that can improve communication and knowledge sharing, especially during crises and emergencies.

In this context, the cooperation of the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW) of Engagement Global and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) was explicitly mentioned: “There are several forms of collaboration between Engagement Global and GIZ when it comes to international development co-operation. This encompasses SKEW projects with GIZ offices in certain partner countries such as in the Maghreb region, Ukraine and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as projects such as the Connective Cities programme that promotes the global exchange of municipal expertise and supports learning and peer-to-peer exchange between German and international urban practitioners geared toward the needs of municipalities.”

Technology and know-how transfer plays a similarly important role as peer-to-peer learning: around 60% of municipalities used it as part of their DDC activities in 2018 and/or 2020. Other relevant types of technical assistance that are important for municipalities’ DDC activities include, in particular, vocational training, advisory services, organisational development and change management.

Other important policy areas for German municipalities are governance and democracy. Nearly 30 % have been active in the areas of local governance, democracy and decentralisation in the last five years. Around 27 % have focused on social inclusion in their development cooperation activities in both 2018 and 2020. Other relevant areas of municipalities participating in the survey include urban development (20%), health, especially since the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic (22% active municipalities under SDC), and economic development, water, gender and culture. In general, it is important to find a common understanding of the objective of an DDC project in order to avoid a mismatch in priorities.

Criticism and recommendations

However, the report also sees weaknesses in the German DDC system: most of the states would coordinate their policies with the federal government through the federal-state programme. However, there is hardly any policy coordination between the states and the municipalities. This could lead to scattered small projects, unused synergy potential in the partner countries and duplication of work. In addition, the DDC still has room for improvement, especially at the country level.

Furthermore, there is no uniform definition of decentralised development cooperation and insufficient data for impact monitoring. Appropriate evidence of impact could increase the overall attractiveness of DDC. Another point of criticism was the bureaucratic hurdles associated with financial support, which is often limited to one financial year.

The resulting policy recommendations are therefore in brief:

  • Strengthening cooperation between federal states and municipalities on DDC.
  • Strengthen DDC at the state level by promoting more direct cooperation with local and regional governments in partner countries.
  • Clarify the definition and boundaries of DDC in Germany to promote action and strengthen existing DDC guidelines.
  • Enhance policy dialogue on the results and mutual benefits of cross-border DDC projects for federal states, municipalities and implementing organisations.
  • Establish a more flexible framework to expand co-financing of DDC projects and address the challenge of one-year funding agreements.
  • Simplify the bureaucratic and application procedures for funding programmes and strengthen the capacity of staff to manage development assistance at the municipal level.
  • Develop a harmonised approach to monitoring and evaluating DDC results in all countries and municipalities.

Despite all the criticism in detail, however, the effectiveness of DDC is not called into question; on the contrary, its potential for implementing the 2030 Agenda is highlighted and further expansion is recommended.

To the study: OECD: Reshaping Decentralised Development Co-operation in Germany

The learning process on flood management for risk-informed urban development has begun

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The Connective Cities learning process on “Flood Management for Risk-Informed Urban Development” has taken off with great success. From 18 to 20 April 2023 practitioners from 16 cities and municipalities gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, for a kick-off event aimed at enhancing their understanding of flood management and promoting resilient urban development.

Jointly organized by Connective Cities the Global Initiative for Disaster Risk Management (GIDRM), the German Association of Cities (DST), and Engagement Global, this event marked the beginning of an intensive exchange of expertise. Let’s delve into the highlights of this initiative.

Promoting resilient urban development

The opening remarks were given by Ms. Judith Middleton from the GIZ project “Inclusive and Sustainable Urban Development” who represented GIZ’s country director Dr. Thomas Kirsch. The host city of Windhoek, represented by the Deputy Mayor of Windhoek Municipality, honourable Ms. Magdalena Lombard indicated that mainstreaming disaster risk management (DRM) means understanding and acting on disaster risks as part of decision-making processes across sectors to protect development progress, reduce losses and support growth. Ms. Hellen Likando from the Directorate Disaster Risk Management at the Office of the Prime Minister highlighted that the government of Namibia is geared towards building resilience towards disasters in line with the global Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). She further encouraged participants to use the event to learn, tap into best practices, and to develop innovative ideas that can provide long-term flood risk management solutions to their respective cities for risk-informed urban development initiatives.

Water Sensitive Urban Planning in times of Climate Change

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Heavy rain and storm water events such as those in the Ahr Valley in Germany in 2021, or in Pakistan, Australia and South Africa in 2022, cause streams to swell to raging torrents, flood roads, destroy houses and bridges and lead to loss of life as well as damage worth billions. They occur suddenly and can only be predicted in the short term. According to a study supported by the World Bank, flood risk already affects 1.81 billion people, more than 20% of the global population, most of them in poor and middle income countries.

In consequence, local governments and municipal leaders, planners and service providers look for more integrated and inclusive solutions to avoid human, environmental and financial losses related to flood.

This Peer Learning Note (PLN) documents the practices and discussions shared between cities and partners during the Connective Cities Dialogue Event “The Role of Rain and Storm Water Management in Water Sensitive Urban Planning”, which took place from December 6-8, 2022 in Cologne, Germany.