Category: crisis management and disaster preparedness

Call for Applications: Goerdeler Award 2027

Posted on by burkhard

Connective Cities is pleased to once again support the call for applications for the Municipal Award 2027 of the Carl and Anneliese Goerdeler Foundation Fund (CAG), following its integration into the Leipzig Foundation. The award recognises outstanding achievements in local governance and administration.

The 2027 edition focuses on “Resilient Municipalities: Municipal Partnerships for Civil Protection, Critical Infrastructure and Crisis Preparedness.” It highlights innovative and transferable good practices developed through cooperation between municipalities—particularly in an international context.

A prerequisite for application is the involvement of a German municipality or a municipal alliance.

Across the world, municipalities are facing increasing challenges, from natural disasters and infrastructure disruptions to cyber risks and geopolitical tensions. Strengthening resilience at the local level requires not only technical solutions, but also strong collaboration between administrations, municipal services, civil society, and other local actors.

The award therefore seeks cross-border municipal partnerships that demonstrate practical and innovative approaches in areas such as:

  • civil protection and disaster preparedness
  • protection and development of critical infrastructure
  • digital security
  • crisis communication

 

Special attention is given to inclusive and participatory approaches that address the needs of different population groups, especially women, children, and other vulnerable groups.

The award includes a prize of EUR 2,000 and public recognition.

Application deadline: 18 September 2026

As part of its mission to foster international municipal exchange, Connective Cities encourages municipalities and municipal alliances within its network and beyond to apply and share their experiences.

Find out more about the call and application process here: CAG-Announcement [pdf, 3 pages, in German]

Applications and/or enquiries by email to:

Ricarda Meissner Ricarda.meissner@giz.de

Jelena Karamatijevic Jelena.karamatijevic@giz.de

Municipal Resilience: Safeguarding Critical Infrastructure

Posted on by burkhard

When electricity fails, water pumps stop working. When communication networks are disrupted, emergency response slows down. Critical infrastructure is interconnected—and so are the risks municipalities face.

Across South Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, municipalities are increasingly confronted with complex and interconnected risks. Climate change, ageing infrastructure, cyber threats and geopolitical instability are placing growing pressure on the systems that provide essential public services.

To support municipalities in addressing these challenges, Connective Cities launched the regional learning process Planning for Municipal Resilience: Safeguarding Critical Infrastructure through Risk-Informed Development.

At the kick-off of the regional Connective Cities Learning Process in Tirana, 30 experts from 13 municipalities and nine countries worked together to identify local vulnerabilities and develop practical solutions. The result: eleven municipal action plans – ranging from backup power and digital infrastructure monitoring to flood prevention, crisis communication and new approaches to municipal coordination.

What challenges do municipalities share, what solutions are they developing – and what can other local governments learn from them? Read more in this full documentation.

 

How Can Municipalities Cope with the Heat?

Posted on by burkhard

Heat affects us all. It is one of the world’s fastest-growing and deadliest climate risks.

However, we are not powerless against it. Municipalities around the world are developing and sharing comprehensive strategies. These range from heat action plans and green and blue infrastructure planning to smart rainwater management, the use of AI, and the creation of digital twins for risk-informed crisis management.

Naturally, municipalities have also been tackling this crucial topic within the Connective Cities framework. We’ve put together a selection of examples from the Connective Cities context along with additional resources for you.

Heat in the City – The Connective Cities Deep Dive Learning Process
From 2023-2025, six municipalities joined forces to analyse the impact of heatwaves and heat islands, and developed solutions tailored to local conditions.
Detailed interim report: https://www.connective-cities.net/en/media-center/heat-in-the-city-2/


Cities Leading by Example
This guidebook on risk-informed planning and heat mitigation, developed by the Connective Cities’ Deep Dive, serves as a practical guide for municipal actors, urban planners, policymakers and community leaders who wish to adopt a risk-informed approach and integrate heat adaptation into their planning processes.
https://www.connective-cities.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/cities-leading_guidebook.pdf

The „Walkable Triangle“ in Kisumu, Kenya
The pedestrian-friendly redeveloped commercial district is now a lovely place to linger with its mature trees keeping it pleasantly cool and the air fresh
https://www.connective-cities.net/media-center/das-walkable-triangle-in-kisumu-kenia/

 

Greater climate protection and quality of life: Green corridors in the MENA region lower ambient temperatures in cities and their surroundings
An AI-based visualisation exercise focusing on green corridors and green neighbourhoods, designed to bring together different perspectives on urban planning from the fields of administration, politics and academia. https://www.connective-cities.net/en/media-center/greater-climate-protection-and-quality-of-life-green-corridors-in-the-mena-region/

The Digital Twin Platform of Bağcilar, Türkiye
Read about how a municipality in Istanbul combines citizen services with data-driven urban risk management also in terms of heat assessments.
https://www.connective-cities.net/en/media-center/the-digital-twin-platform-of-bagcilar-turkiye/

Recommended Papers:

Ibero-American Urban Climate Atlas
This project covers 11 cities in Spain and South America. The research aims to analyse the local context of each city with regard to the impact of heat islands. The objective is to assess changes in temperature patterns and their territorial effects within cities.
Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities (UCCI) and ICLEI South America
https://e-library.iclei.org/uploads/IBER_ATLAS_EN_2.pdf

Financing heat resilience
How governments can finance heat resilience through risk-informed investments, innovative financing mechanisms, and resilient infrastructure.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Centre for Disaster Protection, National Disaster Management Authority (India)
https://www.undrr.org/publication/documents-and-publications/financing-heat-resilience

Heat Action Plans in Local Government Practice (in German)
Implementation of the recommendations for drawing up heat action plans in local government practice (Plan°C)
German Institute for Urban Studies (Difu)
https://repository.difu.de/items/c805c6fb-c3c1-4288-b1c9-eff356fb04bd

Smart Sponge Cities and Modern Heavy Rainfall Management (in German)
Ideas on how cities can further strengthen their climate and risk resilience and protect themselves against both heavy rainfall events and droughts
German Association of Cities
https://www.staedtetag.de/positionen/positionspapiere/2026/diskussionspapier-smarte-schwammstadt-modernes-starkregenmanagement

The Digital Twin Platform of Bağcilar, Türkiye

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Bağcılar is one of Istanbul’s most densely populated districts, with approximately 710,000 inhabitants. Located on the coast of the Sea of Marmara, it covers an area of about 22 square kilometers. As a municipality in a region with a high risk of earthquakes, Bağcılar faces the urgent task of taking precautions to protect its population and urban systems in the event of a crisis. To this end, the municipal administration has been driving digital transformation since the 2000s and has conducted a comprehensive inventory of existing building structures – information that has been incorporated as data into a digital 3D model of the municipality.

With this ‘Digital Urban Twin Platform’, the administration aims to enable faster assessment of situations in emergencies and disasters. Digital simulation of risk scenarios – such as tsunamis following earthquakes – allows for improved civil protection measures and necessary adjustments to urban systems. Furthermore, continuous digital monitoring of the building stock enables targeted on-site inspections of building regulations, thereby increasing administrative efficiency. Citizens can access the platform via an app to book various municipal services.

According to Cüneyt Yilmaz, head of the IT Department at Bağcılar, the central criterion for the applicability of the platform is the creation of a sustainable data foundation.

The documentation describes in detail the development process, activities and future application areas of the continuously evolving digital twin platform.

Author: Lennart Kreuzfeld

Copyright: Connective Cities

Kick-off in Tirana: Strengthening Municipal Resilience Together

Posted on by Lennart Kreuzfeld

The new regional learning process for Southeast Europe and the South Caucasus will kick off with a dialogue event in Tirana (16–18 June 2026). The focus will be on: “Planning for Municipal Resilience – Safeguarding Critical Infrastructure through Risk-Informed Development.”

The event brings together professionals from municipalities as well as municipal enterprises from nine countries: Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Germany, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine. Even ahead of the event, the learning process has attracted strong interest from municipal administrations and service providers, highlighting both the relevance of the topic and the growing pressure to act across the region.

Participating municipalities represent a wide range of sizes, structures and fields of municipal service delivery. These include, among others, Gjirokastër, Roskovec and Mat in Albania; Gavar and Noyemberyan in Armenia; Poti and Gori in Georgia; Drenas in Kosovo; Cetinje in Montenegro; Priboj and Kraljevo in Serbia; İznik in Türkiye; as well as Dnipro, Drohobych and in Ukraine. From Germany, participants include municipal representatives from the City of Leipzig as well as experts from Cologne’s municipal wastewater utility.

This diversity enables a highly practice-oriented exchange on different governance contexts, institutional frameworks and challenges in municipal development.

Starting point: Increasing risks to critical infrastructure

Municipalities are facing increasingly complex challenges: climate-related extreme events, rapid urbanisation, as well as technological and hybrid threats are intensifying the vulnerability of critical infrastructure such as energy, water, transport and IT systems.

At the same time, there is often a lack of structured opportunities to systematically exchange and further develop existing experiences and solutions. The learning process addresses this gap by combining municipal practice with a structured, application-oriented exchange.

Dialogue event in Tirana: From exchange to joint prioritisation

The dialogue event marks the starting point of the multi-phase learning process and lays the foundation for continued collaboration. Its objective is to deepen and compare existing risk and vulnerability analyses and to define initial priority areas for action.

The focus will be on:

  • exchanging existing risk and vulnerability assessments across municipalities
  • comparing different approaches through peer-to-peer learning
  • identifying key weaknesses in critical infrastructure systems
  • defining priority intervention areas and first concrete steps

 

In addition, remaining data gaps will be identified and approaches developed to address them throughout the learning process.

A structured learning process with a focus on implementation

The dialogue event is the first building block of a year-long learning process. It combines in-person formats with virtual exchange and aims to move from analysis to concrete implementation.

The methodological framework is based on an integrated approach to risk-informed municipal development, in which risk analysis is systematically embedded into planning and decision-making processes.

Tirana was deliberately chosen as the venue, as it exemplifies dynamic transformation processes in the region. The city provides an ideal setting to discuss challenges and solutions related to resilience and critical infrastructure in a practical and collaborative way.

For questions or expressions of interest in participating in the learning process, please contact Paulina Koschmieder paulina.koschmieder@giz.de or Jimmy Yoedsel jimmy.yoedsel@giz.de

 

Water Resilience – Preparing Municipalities for Drought and Heavy Rainfall

Posted on by burkhard

Water is becoming a key challenge for an growing number  of local authorities worldwide. On the one hand, they are increasingly exposed to heatwaves and drought. But on the other hand, heavy rain and high water levels are leading to more frequent flooding. These risks come together to not only impact public health, but jeopradize private property and public infrastructure. Global water demand could significantly exceed available supplies by 2030. Water is thus becoming a strategic resource. It is therefore critical for municipalities to strengthen their water resilience.

Examining their own challenges regarding water resilience, learning from experiences on other continents and developing the courage to implement innovative ideas – all these were the ingredients of the first in-person meeting as part of the Connective Cities Deep Dive, held from 5 to 7 May 2026 in Wuppertal. The group had already met for a virtual kick-off in March 2026. In early 2026, a total of 16 experts from the German municipalities of Dresden, Wunstorf and Wuppertal, as well as from Akkaraipattu (Sri Lanka), Homa Bay (Kenya), Hyderabad (India), Natitingou (Benin) and Niš (Serbia) have started a two-year long working together to explore and analyse innovative approaches such as sponge city concepts, blue corridors and integrated blue-green-red infrastructure, and the possibilities for their implementation. On this basis, they develop and implement locally adapted solutions to address their specific challenges.

The report describes practical examples from Wuppertal and Leipzig, outlines the planned pilot projects of the six municipalities and summarises the key takeaways from the process so far.

Insight Session – Digital Twins for Risk-Informed Municipal Development

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Date: Tuesday, 9 June 2026

Time: 14:00 – 15:00 CEST

Language: English – Turkish simultaneous translation

How can digital and AI applications help municipalities become more resilient and prepared for future risks? 

 As urban areas face growing climate and infrastructure-related risks, municipalities require digital tools that support rapid emergency response, long-term risk planning, and resilient urban governance. The Insight Session will introduce participants to the concept of “Digital Twins for Risk-Informed Urban Development” through practical applications and international good practices.

Urban Digital Twinning (UDT) refers to digital representations of urban systems connected to real-time data and predictive modelling tools. Increasingly used in urban development, UDT applications support areas such as mobility management, energy monitoring, disaster preparedness, infrastructure planning, and citizen participation. Successful examples can already be found in different countries, among them Japan, Singapore, Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany.

As a practical illustration, the session will present the ongoing work of practitioners, such as from the IT department of Bağcılar Municipality in Turkey, which is currently developing an AI-supported Digital Urban Twin platform focused on disaster resilience and data-driven municipal decision-making. The project integrates LiDAR-based 3D city modelling, IoT sensor infrastructure, GIS/MIS systems, panoramic urban imaging, and AI-supported analytics within a unified municipal data ecosystem.

After the presentations, a room for discussion will allow participants to ask questions and exchange thoughts on how to include digital urban twins into planning strategies and how to further advance the use of artificial intelligence for risk-informed and sustainable municipal development.

Please register for the event on the Connective Cities Community Platform: Insight Session – Digital Twins for Risk-Informed Municipal Development | Connective Cities Network

If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact:
lennart.kreuzfeld@giz.de or paulina.koschmieder@giz.de

We look forward to the discussion!