Category: Decentralisation

Action planning for sustainability reporting

Posted on by erik

The member states of the United Nations (UN) committed to work closely with local and regional governments to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

From 2 to 4 December 2024, Connective Cities organized in collaboration with the Association of German Cities a Dialogue Event in Berlin, in which 37 practitioners from 25 institutions and 15 countries met in order to exchange their experiences in the field of the Voluntary Local and Sub-National Review.
The focus of the dialogue event was on exchanging experiences and providing mutual peer-to-peer advice. The regional diversity, with perspectives and practical examples from South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Germany, Southeast Europe and Asia, invigorated the discussion and contributed to the success of the event.

Short summary and a photo gallery on our microsite ‘Action planning for sustainability reporting‘

The Voice of the Cities

Posted on by erik

As cities become more important, so do their associations: Local Government Associations are more and more recognized nationally and internationally as the “Voice of the Cities”. They articulate the local governments’ interests, exert pressure on the national level to create suitable frame conditions, provide information and support the capacity building of their members.

25 experts from 11 local government associations met in the Cologne Headquarters of the Association of German Cities from 9 to 11 July 2018 to exchange their practical knowhow of the daily associative work. They focused on four concrete areas of LGA action:

  • Structure, processes and financing of LGA
  • Representation of local government interests and influence on law-making
  • Thematic members’ committees and working groups
  • Membership services for training and exchange of municipal knowhow

For each topic, the participants from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ghana, Lebanon, Moldova, Mozambique, Peru, Serbia, South Africa and Tanzania presented their good practices and gave mutual advice on concrete challenges and developed action plans for further cooperation.

The event also included a question-and-answer-session with Vice-Mayor Mr Andreas Wolter and a guided thematic tour on local self-administration.

Multi-Level Climate Governance Supporting Local Action

Posted on by erik

How can different instruments for multi-level climate governance support the realisation of local climate mitigation and adaptation potentials? This study guides through the contemporary discourse, outlines the build-up of governance capacity and presents different applications and relevant stakeholders. Thereby, it strengthens the applicability of multi-level climate governance.

4th Connective Cities Asian Dialogue Event

Posted on by erik

Road transport accounts for over 80% of the total transport emissions in Asia. If no countermeasures are taken, CO2 emissions resulting from the transport sector are projected to rise by 70% by 2050. At the same time, 64.5% of Asia’s population will be urban by 2050. Therefore, the extremely rapid increase of urban population in Asia and the rising CO2 emissions resulting from the transport sector lead to a high demand for climate-friendly means of urban transport.

The 4th Connective Cities Practitioners’ Workshop, which took place from 27 to 29 September 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand, brought together representatives from China, Georgia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Germany to exchange on the varied and complex tasks of sustainable urban mobility and climate change focusing on climate-friendly means of urban transport to reduce air pollution.

City region food systems and food waste management

Posted on by erik

Rapid urban growth; growing food and nutrition insecurity; unbalanced food availability, distribution and access; environmental degradation, resource scarcity and climate change; unsustainable production and consumption patterns, including generation of food waste – all of these have important developmental implications for both urban and rural areas alike. It is increasingly recognised that in order to respond to these challenges, integrated territorial development and balanced urban-rural linkages must be pursued for the benefit of both urban and rural populations. City region food systems (CRFS) offer concrete policy and programme opportunities within which these developmental issues can be addressed and through which rural and urban areas and communities in a given city region can be directly linked. These specifically address Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 11a – to support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas – and are instrumental in linking SDG 11 with SDG 2 (on sustainable agriculture and food and nutrition security) and SDG 12 (on sustainable production and consumption).

This publication documents thirteen case studies from city regions around the world which are developing CRFS projects, programmes, and policies, including those related to the prevention, reduction and management of food waste. Lessons learned from the case studies for sustainable development of CRFS call for local, city regional, and (sub) national governments to institutionalise city region food systems, providing them an institutional setting and budget, linking them to larger city region development plans, and monitoring their developmental impacts across urban and rural areas.

How to make cities safer

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This report presents the key insights, lessons and recommendations of a South African delegation that participated in a study tour on urban safety and violence prevention to Brazil and Colombia in April 2014. The study tour was organised by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), as part of the Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme (VCP), in partnership with the South African Cities Network (SACN) and the Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG). The delegation consisted of representatives from the member cities of the SACN as well as selected national government departments (see annexure A for the list of participants).