Category: Fostering innovation

Transport for under two degrees – the way forward

Posted on by erik

The transport sector is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions at present. It accounts for approximately one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and hence figures prominently in efforts to transform the energy economy and protect the climate. Without a scaled-up global mitigation effort, it will not be possible to reach the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. A low-carbon transformation of the global transport sector is the next necessary step in the global energy transformation.

Germany’s Federal Foreign Office has commissioned the project “T4<2° – Transport for under two degrees”, a global foresight study on the decarbonisation and transformation of the transport sector to identify challenges and opportunities for a sustainable, low-carbon transport sector. The findings provide decision-makers with a clear vision and specific recommendations on how to achieve decarbonisation of the sector and orchestrate international efforts for a global transport system transformation.

Call for participants: The role of innovation in curbing the impacts of the pandemic

Posted on by erik

The crisis inflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered many initiatives around the world to employ innovative solutions that aim at impeding the spread of the virus and curbing its disastrous impacts.
Examples of these impactful innovations include shift labs, remote screening and monitoring of patients, DIY face shields, low-cost ventilators, and the mobilisation of 3-D printing and robotics to manufacture vital medical devices or test kits. Overall, the registered progress at this front has highlighted the underlying and more critical long-term need to better resource and institutionalize strategic innovation in rebuilding local capacities of the health and economic sectors. Some expert opinions advocate for greater investments in developing platforms for diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics as a means to overcome the huge economic toll of this pandemic. Similarly, supporting and funding highly innovative start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs is crucial to the economy’s fast recovery.

Given the urgency for innovative solutions to the pandemic, sharing existing and emerging breakthrough achievements is of utter importance. Sharing and disseminating such knowledge can potentially facilitate the creation of partnerships which in turn are pivotal to initiating strategic and operational response to the short-term challenges resulting from COVID-19, as well as to the long-term planning for recovery.

To this end, this virtual knowledge-exchange event showcases ongoing grassroot initiatives developed collaboratively by local and national entities, research institutions and the private sector. In particular, FIGHTCORONA.AC initiative1 from Aachen (Germany), COV-Fight project2 from Biskra (Algeria), as well as the good practice of using 3D-printing technology for the production of medical supplies3 in Batnah (Algeria) will be presented.

Language: English and Arabic.

Date: 14th October 2020
Time: 13:00 – 14:45 CEST

More Informationen: Programme [pdf]

If you have any queries about the event and the participation process, we encourage you to contact

Muna Shalan, Connective Cities’ regional coordinator for MENA: muna.shalan@giz.de

Call for participants: Covid-19: Economic impact and recovery

Posted on by erik

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a deteriorating impact on the national and local government economic resources. In economies that largely depend on informal labour market, a lot of people have lost their livelihoods. The governments have been torn between life and livelihoods as the interaction of people propels the spread of the virus.

This shift affected the revenue stream for the local government especially in the cities as a result of shrinking businesses and also a mass migration of the urban population to the rural areas. This has a negative impact on effective operations of the municipalities and service provision.

Whilst the impact of this pandemic has been felt worldwide, cities have responded with different measures to avert the spread and cushion against long-term impacts and even future pandemics. It’s against this background that Connective Cities1 is offering a platform in which cities will share the challenges they have experienced and interventions that have either been implemented or are being planned to safeguard against the negative impacts and future pandemics.

In the second series  at10th & 12th November, 2020, 13:00- 15:00 (CET), we look at the economic impact of the pandemic, recovery and resilience of cities.

Conference language is English.

More information:Concept paper [pdf 3 pages]

Participation and contact

If you have further questions or would like to participate, please send an e-mail to Sophia Kamau (sophia.kamau@giz.de), Regional Coordinator for Connective Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Municipal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic III

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More than 30 municipal representatives from around 20 cities in MENA and sub-Sharan Africa  participated in the third virtual event of the knowledge-exchange series on Municipal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Municipal representatives from both political and technical levels were invited and they engaged in knowledge-exchange to analyse and discuss practical examples of municipal response related to cushioning and the recovery from the economic impacts of the pandemic. 

German-Turkish Municipal Partnership Conference

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In cooperation with the German Association of Cities and Towns (Deutscher Städtetag) together with the Association of Turkish Municipalities (Türkiye Belediyeler Birliği, TBB) and with the support of the city of Istanbul (Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, IBB), the German representations in Turkey are planning a two-day German-Turkish municipal partnership conference in Istanbul in the second half of 2020. The municipal partnership conference is intended to identify mutual issues and challenges as well as successful approaches for project cooperation.

As a kick-off to the German-Turkish municipal partnership conference, a virtual pre-conference will take place from 15 to 18 June 2020. Topics of the technical workshops are:

  1. Digital City
  2. Sustainable urban development
  3. The role of municipalities in protecting marginalised groups and refugees in the COVID 19 crisis
  4. Youth exchanges in municipal partnerships

Please refer to the conference announcement (in German) for further information on registration, programme and technical requirements. 

15 Pathways to localise the Sustainable Development Goals

Posted on by erik

This publication illustrates how the 15 pathways of the Basque Declaration can be used by towns and cities to localise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In this publication, the 15 pathways of the Basque Declaration are illustrated with stories taken from the Transformative Action database of the Sustainable Cities Platform. Each of these stories are former applications to the Transformative Action Award 2017-2019 and have been reviewed by a jury of experts, which includes representatives from the European Committee of the Regions, the European Investment Bank, UNESCO Etxea, the City of Aalborg (Denmark) and ICLEI Europe.

The purpose of these stories is to provide local governments and other local stakeholders with inspiration for action, rather than the formulation of yet another action plan. The examples also give insight into how to implement the goals using an integrated approach across sectors and departments. For each story, the most relevant pathway and SDGs are indicated, based on an independent assessment by ICLEI Europe. They show the diversity of approaches across topics, geographical locations and local cultures.

Understanding Infrastructure Interdependencies in Cities

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“Modern urban infrastructure and their systems of operation are highly interdependent. They are formed of multiple connections, feedback and feedforward paths, and intricate branching where services or information are transferred across city sectors. This means that if one system fails, it can have cascading impacts on other systems. Climate change can compound these impacts significantly. Some systems may be directly affected by climate change events – such as roads during flooding. Other systems may be affected indirectly, such as the health sector and the financial sector if there are power outages. The interdependencies of city systems combined with climate impacts can lead to a ripple effect of disruptions. Understanding infrastructure interdependencies and critical failure points is therefore vital to achieving long- term climate resilience across a whole city.”

Solutions for gender fair cities

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"This report is the product of the Womanability research-action project. It reveals the numerous, and sometimes unexpected, obstacles to the equal access and enjoyment of public spaces by women, from a lack of green spaces, accessible public transportation, and public toilets, to persistent harassment and outright violence. Building on these experiences and observations, the report offers a series of recommendations and best practices, many developed by women themselves, for creating the gender equal cities of the future. […]"

Planning Integrated Solid Waste Management at Municipal Level

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Rostock hosted and co-organised the event, and provided conference rooms in Rostock’s city hall. Representatives of the city gave interesting insights into the city’s solid waste management strategy and presented innovative projects on how to organise waste management in an environmentally safe and efficient way. They also organised highly informative site visits to illustrate different aspects of the city’s waste management system.

The Dialogue Event was attended by about 35 urban practitioners from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Italy, France, Austria, Zimbabwe, Albania, and Germany. Two waste management experts respectively from the German Association of Cities (Deutscher Städtetag) and from the German Association of Local Public Utilities (Verband kommunaler Unternehmen e.V.) also contributed to the three-day exchange. Discussions benefited greatly from the vast experience of participants with different regional perspectives.

The publication documents the main results of the event. It contains a brief introduction to major aspects of Integrated Solid Waste Management and summarises local experiences presented at the event. The report also highlights key outcomes of the peer learning and action planning sessions. Action planning resulted in the development of four project ideas to improve waste management in different cities. These ideas are outlined briefly at the end of the publication.

The documentation also seeks to inform readers about the way Connective Cities works. It describes the approach as well as the methodology used at the event and explains how the initiative supports joint learning, knowledge exchange and municipal cooperation across the world.