This good practice describes how the town of Banepa is restoring its historic centre and a retirement home using traditional building methods. Bio-based building materials such as wood, bamboo, brick and clay are much more sustainable and earthquake-resistant than cement or concrete.
Category: Participation and urban planning
Banepa preserves traditional construction methods using bio-based materials
The historic town centre of Banepa in Nepal extends along a road for a distance of around 1.2 kilometres. Many of the houses have been in poor condition, making the town less attractive.
This good practice describes how the town of Banepa is restoring its historic centre and a retirement home using traditional construction methods. Bio-based building materials such as wood, bamboo, brick and clay are significantly more sustainable and earthquake-resistant than cement or concrete.
In order to allay the concerns of the local population, the municipality is first refurbishing one building to provide an example of the methods that will be applied to the others. It is working together with the Nepalese RP Foundation, which has over 25 years of experience in the renovation of historical buildings.
This good practice was presented at the Connective Cities dialogue event on climate-friendly construction with organic and recycled materials in Potsdam.
Involvement of civil society actors on both sides is crucial
Yarinacocha is located in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. The city of around 100,000 inhabitants is close to the regional capital Pucallpa. 26% of Yarinacocha’s population live in poverty, 3.6% in extreme poverty. A large proportion of the urban population has no access to clean drinking water. All the district’s wastewater is discharged into the Ucayali River and the Yarinacocha Lagoon untreated. This has a negative impact on the environment, health, tourism, and economic development in the region.
To meet the increasing challenges of climate protection and climate change adaptation, the Yarinacocha district administration has developed an action program in collaboration with their German Partner City Cologne. This program includes the planning and implementation of improvement measures in areas such as the provision of municipal, climate and environmentally relevant basic services, the use of renewable energies, the preservation of biodiversity and local economic development through value chains. The district administration is working on building appropriate planning and project management capacities in the administration and establishing mechanisms to increase the participation of relevant interest groups from civil society, in particular indigenous actors, and universities, in local planning and decision-making processes. To support these objectives, an expert is supporting the district administration and the climate partnership between Yarinacocha and Cologne in the framework of the program “Experts fund for Municipal Partnerships Wordwide”, which is implemented by GIZ and SKEW.
In this good practice partnership-based cooperation with indigenous communities and their organizations as well as the commitment of political decision-makers are important success factors, e.g. to set up a center for indigenous medicine in Yarinacocha or to implement projects benefitting the indigenous population in the areas of local governance, biodiversity, and autonomous indigenous energy supply.
City-to-city collaboration is key to streamlining climate neutrality and decentralized energy production
Together with the Connective Cities, the Association of German Cities organized a side event in the German Pavilion at the COP28 World Climate Conference in Dubai on the question of “What solutions are there for sustainable and decentralized energy generation and supply at local level”. On 6 December at 2 p.m. local time, representatives from German and African cities (Cologne, Bonn, eThekwini and Abuja) discussed their local innovations for climate-friendly energy solutions.
In her keynote speech, Katja Dörner, Vice-President of the German Association of Cities, Mayor of Bonn, and ICLEI Co-Chair for Climate Action, emphasized the importance of a socially just and participatory approach to a climate and energy transition. She emphasized that the voice of cities in climate negotiations is essential to achieve global goals.
She showed how the city of Bonn can achieve climate neutrality by 2035 and called on the federal level to make swift changes to support the local level. The EU and the German federal level must create the framework for a climate-friendly energy transition. She again emphasized the importance of making climate protection and adaptation a mandatory task for local authorities.
Rebuilding, but better!
From the German participants, the urban planning offices of the cities of Münster and Munich presented current examples of integrated urban development. It became clear that “integrated” encompasses all levels, from spatial planning to the participatory design of a square. To link these levels, Munich relies on the development of specialist guidelines (climate change adaptation/sponge city, avoidance of heat islands, mobility, strong residential districts) and the definition of action areas. Münster relies above all on the instrument of center funds (smaller sums to promote new ideas for redesign, simple application) and, upgrading the city center as a leisure and recreation area.
Action for Cool Cities: Pathways for carbon reduction in buildings and improvement of outdoor thermal comfort
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:
- Designing climate-responsive outdoor public spaces and promoting engagement of citizens
- Steering Structure: Interdepartmental Communication framework/platform in municipalities
- Optimizing existing building and urban design regulations by introducing key performance indicators and improving in-house capacity to drive change
- 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.
Action for Cool Cities: Pathways for carbon reduction in buildings and improvement of outdoor thermal comfort
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:
- Designing climate-responsive outdoor public spaces and promoting engagement of citizens
- Steering Structure: Interdepartmental Communication framework/platform in municipalities
- Optimizing existing building and urban design regulations by introducing key performance indicators and improving in-house capacity to drive change
- 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
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.
Bairro Maravilha – marvellous neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro
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.
Action for Cool Cities- Pathways for carbon reduction in buildings and improvement of outdoor thermal comfort
As a second milestone of the learning process ‘Action for Cool Cities – Pathways for carbon reduction in buildings and improvement of outdoor thermal comfort’, Connective Cities organised the ideation and prototyping workshop that was held in Amman – Jordan on the 7th-9th March 2023. Participating municipalities engaged in peer learning and technical advisory to ideate and envision prototypes for solutions to optimise municipal practices and projects related to mainstreaming climate consideration in municipal urban planning. The following thematic fields were under focus:
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