Category: Integrated urban development

Insight Sessions: Post-COVID Urban Futures

Posted on by erik

The new event series “Insight Sessions: Post-COVID Urban Futures” is part of this year’s Connective Cities Corona programme and facilitates a regular, open exchange on relevant topics of the post-COVID-19 era for municipal practitioners and relevant experts worldwide. Different topics of sustainable urban development during and after the COVID-19 pandemic will be discussed and innovative approaches in this regard will be shared in brief and concise virtual exchange formats. The aim of these events is to provide impulses that encourage participants to reflect on their progress so far and think about innovative solutions. The open discussion rounds will take place on Wednesdays once every three weeks. 

We are pleased to invite you to the opening event and first discussion of the Insight Sessions series focusing on the topic “COVID-19 Recovery & SDG 11” on Wednesday, 28 July 2021, from 10:00 to 11:45 a.m. CEST. 

The opening event will start with a brief introduction to this year’s Connective Cities Corona programme. Subsequently, a panel discussion will explore the challenges and opportunities of the COVID-19 crisis for achieving SDG 11 towards making cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. During this panel discussion, municipal practitioners and experts from different urban sectors and world regions will share their diverse perspectives and insights on this topic. The panelists (tbc) are:

  • Faola Hodaj, Director of Innovation, Municipality of Tirana, Albania
  • Karim Elgendy, Sustainable City Strategist, London UK / MENA – Recipient of the 2013 Global Green Building Entrepreneurship Award by the World Green Building Council
  • Aditya Kumar, Executive Director, NGO Development Action Group, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Hilmar von Lojewski, Councillor for Urban Planning, Building, Housing and Traffic, Association of German Cities / Cologne, Germany

 A detailed agenda of the opening event can be found here. The preliminary schedule of the series of Insight Sessions will be shared soon.  The event will take place virtually in the Connective Cities Community: 

Insight Session: COVID-19 Recovery and SDG 11 | Connective Cities Network (connective-cities.net)

Date: Wednesday, the 28th of July 2021

Time: 10:00 – 11:45 a.m. CEST 

Event language: English. Translation available in: Russian, French, Arabic. 

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If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:

Contact: paulina.koschmieder@giz.de

New working groups in the MENA network: Municipal recovery from the pandemic

Posted on by erik

Following the intensive knowledge-exchange program on municipal response to the pandemic that was conducted in 2020 to support the Connective Cities network in MENA, several working groups are being established to sustain the results of the peer learning activities. The working groups consist of municipal representatives and partners from the business sector, civil society, and academia. From a thematic standpoint, the topics under focus are:

  • Waste management and circular economy
  • Digitalisation for resilient cities
  • Biodiversity and environmental protection (kick-off event: August 9, 2021)
  • Crisis management in Palestinian municipalities
  • Social entrepreneurship and local economic development (kick-off event: August 12,2021)

Several meetings and preparatory activities have been conducted to formulate the road map of each working group. The core working group on ‘biodiversity and environmental protection’ has developed and submitted a concept note to the EU Call for Proposals on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Protection in Lebanon. In order to be eligible for this call, an effective consortium was established under the umbrella of Connective Cities network. The consortium members included Saint Joseph University (represented by Dr. Jocelyne Gerard and Dr. Zaarour), Green Line environmental NGO (represented by Dr. Ali Darwish), and Menjez municipality (represented by its Mayor Dr. Georges Yousef). Other potential local authorities’ beneficiaries include Beit Meri, Jezzine, Al Buhayra Union of municipalities, which will join at a later stage of the project.  

We are looking forward to include new members to these working groups. If you would like to be an active member of these working groups, please contact us at: muna.shalan@giz.de

Kruševac’s Vision – “A city accessible to all”

Posted on by erik

The Vision of Kruševac’s SUMP is that the urban environment and traffic should contribute to the city’s development. The aim is to make traffic accessible to all, regardless of age, gender, income, physical or mental ability. The target from the Agenda 2030 is „80:20“, namely that citizens will walk, cycle or use public transport to cover 80% of the trips they need to make.

Sustainable, Informed and Participatory Land Management and Land Use Planning in Rapidly Growing Cities

Posted on by erik

On the 11th, 12th & 14th of May 2021, Connective Cities held a dialogue event to address the topics of integrating nature-based solutions in land use planning, land information systems and participatory & inclusive land use planning. The event attracted the participation of 38 participants from municipalities, local government associations, national governments, research institutions and civil society organizations. The countries represented include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Netherlands, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.

The event comprised of input in form of thought-provoking key note speeches and good practices from the cities. It also provided an opportunity for the participants to consult with their peers through collegial learning methodology on challenges they experience in line with the topics of discussion. Out of these, the cities formulated project ideas they would like to pursue in order to solve some of the challenges.

  • Integrating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in land use planning; how have cities planned for, implemented and protected the green infrastructure amidst the ever-increasing development that is characterized by the grey infrastructure?
  • Land information systems; sharing on tools and mechanisms applied by municipalities to ensure that a robust information system contributes to sustainable urban development
  • Participatory and inclusive land use planning; participatory approaches and methodologies applied to ensure active participation of the different sectors in the city including gender aspects, people living with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. Cities should be designed with and for people.

This report documents in detail the dialogue event.

Sustainable Urban Energy Planning in Southeast Europe

Posted on by erik

Approximately 90 experts and urban practitioners from more than 30 municipalities within 9 countries of Southeast Europe, gathered to discuss major opportunities and challenges convoked by the shift towards greener energy consumption around the world. As major countries of the world come out with bod statements of reaching climate neutrality by 2050, all of us need to keep up the pace and start acting on the promised shift. The Dialogue event held during the week of 17-21 May focused on discussions of energy efficient solutions, innovative renewable energy sources as well as on getting some new insights into the EU Green Deal.

This event offered a virtual platform to discuss these challenges and supported municipalities in developing locally adapted solutions for climate challenges, specifically those related to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

During these 5 days of asynchronous and synchronous digital meetings participants listened to inspiring Keynote presentations from leading European scientists and shared insights with peers.

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.

Municipal experts wanted: Dialogue event on Covid-19 and urban mobility

Posted on by erik

Connective Cities is organising a three-day dialogue event in collaboration with the City of Wiesbaden, Germany, and UN-Habitat on 19th, 20th and 22nd July 2021. The online sessions are scheduled for 3.5 hours (including breaks), from 13:00 to 16:30 CEST.

The event is aimed at municipal actors from Germany and other countries (municipal administrations, municipal enterprises, civil society, business and academia) who are working on the impacts of Covid-19 on urban mobility and looking for innovative solutions for a post-pandemic future. The highly interactive event gives municipal practitioners involved in urban planning or municipal transport the opportunity to discuss projects and ideas, which are currently being implemented or planned in their municipality.

Thematic focus:

  • Sustainable urban logistics: Impulses for green logistics solutions during and after the pandemic;
  • Cycling/bicycle traffic: Reassessing urban space and the role of cycling for urban mobility;
  • Local public transport: Rethinking financing models and regaining passengers’ trust.

If your city is currently working on or wishes to work on different aspects of urban mobility and Covid-19 and you would like to actively participate in the event, please do not hesitate to contact us!

Objectives of the three-day event:

  • Day 1: To share and discuss examples and good practices from German and international municipalities;
  • Day 2: To exchange ideas for solutions through peer-to-peer consultation on identified challenges;
  • Day 3: To jointly develop project ideas for further cooperation in response to these challenges.

The working language of the event is English. Translation into other languages may be provided on demand. Participation is free of charge and the deadline for application is 9th June, 2021. For more information on the event please read the full “Call for Participants” [pdf, 440 kb, 4 pp.].

If you are interested in actively participating and contributing to the event or have any questions, please contact us:

Alice Balbo, Alice.balbo@staedtetag.de, +49 (0)221-3771-573

Nikola Krause, Nikola.krause@engagement-global.de, +49 (0)228-20717-2672

Thiago Garcia, Thiago.garcia@engagement-global.de, +49 (0)228-20717-2633

Promoting Energy Efficiency through innovative city-led projects

Posted on by erik

Within the ambit of the learning process on municipal energy efficiency projects in MENA, the virtual dialogue event was held on the 18th – 20th May 2021.  The dialogue event aimed at promoting the exchange of expertise on good practices for planning and implementing energy efficiency projects. As part of the build up towards the dialogue event, several activities were conducted. This included a virtual session conducted on the 23rd March 2021 focusing on developing project proposals for funding of energy efficiency projects as well as a session on energy audits and showcasing of regional good practices (from Hebron and Bizerte) held on the 12th April 2021. Furthermore and as part of the outreach to regional actors, a number of municipalities of Connective Cities network have participated in the workshop of BUILD_ME phase II of the IKI project “Accelerating 0-emission building sector ambitions in the MENA region” held on the 11th of March 2021 to showcase the BEP tool for energy simulation in the building development phase.

Sustainable, Informed and Participatory Land Management and Land Use Planning in Rapidly Growing Cities

Posted on by erik

On the 11th, 12th & 14th of May 2021, Connective Cities held a dialogue event to address the topics of integrating nature-based solutions in land use planning, land information systems and participatory & inclusive land use planning. The event attracted the participation of 38 participants from municipalities, local government associations, national governments, research institutions and civil society organizations. The countries represented include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Netherlands, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.

The statistics as highlighted by Oumar Sylla (UN-Habitat) reminded us that the population in the cities is on the rise and this irreversible urbanization trend we are now faced with the challenge of channeling its effects especially in the area of land governance. Mr. Hilmar von Lojewski (DST) then emphasizes that we need to reduce land uses for building purposes to the utmost necessary amount.

This called for understanding of the impact of the rapidly growing cities to the wellbeing of its residents and acquaintance to the different ways in which cities can integrate Nature-based Solutions in their planning & implementation of city plans including green roofs and walls, permeable pavements and green spaces just to mention a few. This was delivered by Heidi Tuhkanen (SEI) and Emmanuel Letebele (eThekwini) showcased how the cities can integrate climate change in spatial development.

This dialogue event thus provided a platform for the cities to learn and exchange. 10 good practices were shared from both the cities in SSA and Germany, 4 collegial consultations held, and 7 project ideas conceptualized.

Hebron – Promoting a healthy learning environment in public schools

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The “Dr. Hafiz Abd-Nabi” public school was constructed as a green building that is naturally ventilated, heated and cooled. In comparison to regular school buildings in Hebron, this school building exhibits improved indoor air quality in classrooms. Thermal comfort is achieved mainly via passive design thus reducing the need for auxiliary heating and cooling. As a result, students enjoy a healthy learning environment in both heating and cooling seasons.

The project is a fruitful cooperation between the Belgian Development Agency, the Palestinian Ministry of Education, and Hebron Municipality.

Stari Grad – how vaccination campaigns can reach groups at risk

Posted on by erik

As in many other countries, people in Serbia who want to be vaccinated have to book an appointment online and then get their jabs at a vaccination centre. But what about the elderly and people without internet access, or those unable to operate digital devices? And what do people do who can’t travel to the vaccination centres on their own? Stari Grad, in Serbia, shows how municipalities can reach this important target group in their vaccination campaigns.