Representatives of the Hebron Municipality talk about how they have benefited from the exchange with other experts at the events and workshops organised by Connective Cities. They were able to take away many ideas for their own projects in the field of gender-responsive digitalisation of administrative processes and in the field of energy efficiency and improve their implementation.
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To address environmental challenges related to the loss of native species as well as the increasing CO2 emissions due to urbanisation, Karak municipality in Jordan constructed a nursery that aims at growing trees from native species. Besides demonstrating environmental protection and the transition into renewable energy sources, the project will have an economic impact resulting from the savings in the municipal budget as well as job creation for the local community.
Waste management experts from the Ecuadorian capital Quito and Hamburg (Germany) designed a first pilot composting plant for organic waste. It intends to serve the city of Quito as an introduction to sustainable waste recycling.
As cycling is becoming increasingly popular for leisure and as an alternative to using the car, municipalities have to adapt their cycling infrastructure. However, they should not forget to involve their citizens in the planning process.
The economy of Quelimane is dependent on rain-fed agriculture and fishing. This has led to some families falling into extreme poverty due to the effects of climate change. Children, an important part of the population, have been affected as well. The good practice aims to promote children’s participation in the governance and planning of Quelimane city.
The City of Bizerte (Tunisia) introduced the separation and composting of organic waste, in cooperation with the City of Rostock (Germany). During a dialogue event and two reciprocal delegation trips, the idea for the project was jointly developed by experts from Rostock and Bizerte. With funding from the ‘Partnership Projects for Sustainable Local Development (Nakopa)’ programme of the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW), a composting plant was built and commissioned at the end of 2020.
We spoke to Josephine Miliza, co-founder of TunapandaNET, to find out how the NGO has scaled up its activities to ensure that people in Kibera, an informal settlement in south-west Nairobi, have a reliable internet connection – and thus access to crucial information during the pandemic.
It became apparent that the internet is one of the most important sources of information. Listen in to know how Kibera is keeping online and how this could shape digital literacy and digital municipal service design in a post-COVID-19 future!
Listen to the podcast at YouTube: https://youtu.be/oirb3zEsyXA
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.
Through a crowdfunding platform, the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in the UK is involving the whole of society, including local business, in initiating, implementing and financing social projects. This promotes citizens’ initiative, and ensures a higher quality of life.
Celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8th 2022, Connective Cities was seeking the opportunity to address the issue of safer public spaces for women and girls in cities. The Insight Session “Urban Safety for Women and Girls – Strategies for safer public spaces in Cities” featured three speakers on the topic of participatory planning with women and girls as well as design and policy strategies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of public spaces as places for recreation and community life has noticeably increased. Raising awareness for the voices of women and girls that were often unheard in urban planning in the past, is crucial to ensure public spaces are safe for them to play, meet, walk and work. Urban public spaces as well as public transport were mostly designed by and to accommodate the needs of men. A lot of them are not fit for women’s needs or pose a threat to women’s safety, their design complicates everyday lives and reduces possibilities to engage in community life. Therefore, if possible, a lot of times these urban areas are avoided by women. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated these existing gender inequalities in various aspects. At the same time, this crisis can be an opportunity to make urban planning more equitable and sustainable. Participatory approaches provide great opportunities to include voices and their ideas in urban planning that might have been unheard in the past. A rich community life and democratic urban societies can only thrive if public spaces are safe and functional for all citizens to meet and engage.
The three speakers of the event introduced valuable insights on gender sensitive urban planning tools and shared practical experiences from Latin America, Europe and the MENA Region.
Sara Ortiz Escalante, Barcelona is a sociologist and urban planner. As part of the feminist planning collective Col·lectiu Punt 6 in Barcelona, Spain she has a wide range of experience in gender sensitive urban planning methodology and tools. In her Keynote, she introduced the audience to a feminist perspective on urban safety. She introduced the 6 principles of Women’s safety that were introduced by Anne Michaud in Montreal in the 1980s, yet are still of utmost importance today. In order to create safer public spaces, participatory planning is key. Ortiz Escalante introduced the tools of explanatory walks and safety audits. Her presentation features the examples of Cali, Colombia and Tétouan, Morocco.
The Her City Toolbox was presented by Tove Andréasson Derner, Stockholm. Her City is a joint initative of Global Utmaning, a Swedish Think Tank and UN Habitat that provides municipalities as well as civil activists with a toolbox for participatory planning with Women and Girls. The Toolbox follows a process of 9 blocks that guide the user from Stakeholder Engagement to Implementation of specific projects. The design phase of the toolbox uses the Minecraft Tool which is accessible and fun for both kids and adults. The platform Her Cities – #HerCity (unhabitat.org) is open to the public and free of charge. So far, 315 cities are undertaking the process.
The Minecraft Tool was also used for the design of Al-Gwheirieh Neighbourhood Park in Zarqa, Jordan. Like many other municipalities in Jordan, Zarqa is home to a lot of Syrian refugees. The city is one of the densest cities in the world. Therefore, the establishment of parks was an enormous challenge, yet became even more important regarding the COVID 19 pandemic. Mohammad Zawahreh, former head of the local development unit of the city of Zarqa, shared his experiences on establishing neighbourhood parks in inclusive planning processes in the city. Women and Men of different backgrounds were working together and established functional, safe, and green public spaces.
The presentations were followed by a Q&A Session that addressed common challenges and solutions in urban planning with women and girls worldwide. The speakers noted, that women and girls all over the world were putting an emphasis not only on safe but also green public spaces. Therefore, gender sensitive urban planning often leads to the establishment of sustainable green spaces. Another point of discussion was the inclusion of men in feminist urban planning. Depending on the cultural context, different approaches have proven to be most effective. While the set- up of female only exclusive groups proved to be an important factor in designing gender sensitive urban spaces, it is important to encourage the male population to support the inclusion of women and girls in urban design. Because, safer public spaces for women and girls are safer public spaces for everyone.
Her City Toolbox – From Botkyrka to Johannesburg – YouTube
Rehabilitation of Jana Park : Zarqa/Jordan with AVSI Jordan – YouTube
Urban Safety from a feminist perspective, Sara Ortiz Escalante, Collectiu Punt 6, Barcelona
Her City Toolbox, Tove Andréasson Derner, Her City, Stockholm
The recording of the event can be found here: Insight Session: Urban Safety for Women and Girls – Strategies for safer public spaces in Cities | Connective Cities Network (connective-cities.net)
