The German City of Kiel is committed to the Agenda 2030 with its 17 SDGs. The sustainibility price in 2021 helped pave the way. Kiel is a true champion of social entrepreneurship promotion. Many sustainability projects evolved with the support of the city and its people. The video presents four outstanding examples from the local entrepreneur scene.
Watch the video at YouTube:
In Tharaka-Nithi County,, which is east of Mount Kenya, women usually stop working for about six months when they have a baby. Women who trade in the market face problems as they lose customers, sometimes even their stalls are given to other people and they have to start from scratch. In the market of Chuka town, where 90 % of the approximately 3000 traders are women, the municipality has set up a crèche for these women. The care is free of charge for them. This is a good practice that can easily be transferred to other markets, provided the traders are involved in the design of the crèche from the beginning.
Watch video at YouTube: https://youtu.be/O9Y3KdzD9M4
Tourism is one of the most affected economic sectors globally due to COVID-19, with declining numbers of visitors severely impacting local economies. There have been business closures, job losses, a rise in unsustainable alternative income sources, and the loss of government revenue from tourism. However, the dire situation has also led many tourism-dependent countries to explore new opportunities as part of the COVID-19 recovery strategy. These include new products such as eco-tourism, technology-based/ digital tourism, innovative marketing, and domestic tourism. Amidst this challenging situation and potential opportunities, there is a need to look for a strategy and projects to support the tourism industry.
We are pleased to invite you to the first workshop of the virtual series on COVID-19 and Municipal Tourism Recovery: Strengthening the partnership between Local Cities and Tourism Industry on 15th September 2021 at 16:00 – 18:00 CEST.
The event is aimed at international municipal actors from local administrations, civil society, business and academia who are working on the impacts of COVID-19 on the tourism sector and looking for innovative strategies for a post-pandemic future.
Connective Cities’ COVID-19 and Municipal Tourism Recovery will support participating urban practitioners in devising ways to help the tourism industry survive. It will provide a broad knowledge sharing and peer learning platform with like-minded municipal actors and local government policymakers who work on tourism recovery planning. Additionally, the Connective Cities Community provides access to relevant global expertise on tourism to support the planning and recovery process.
The kick-off event on September 15 offers the opportunity for several urban practitioners and the tourism industry to work on COVID-19 tourism recovery through peer learning and preparing potential proposals for soliciting funding. As a starting point, various scenarios from municipalities from five countries – Nepal, Botswana, Cape Verde, Romania, Uganda, and Cambodia – will be introduced.
Further workshops of the series are planned for the 20th of October and 16th of November 2021 (to be confirmed).
To register for the workshop and stay updated on the agenda, the announcement of speakers and further details, please visit our Connective Cities Community.
COVID-19 and Municipal Tourism Recovery Kick-Off Event:
Date: 15th of September 2021
Time: 16:00 – 18:00 CEST (Berlin Time)
Venue: Connective Cities Community (online)
Event Language: English, simultaneous translation: Arabic, Portuguese, (Romanian tbc.)
Contact: Paulina Koschmieder paulina.koschmieder@giz.de
The report aims to explore municipal initiatives and measures taken to address health, governance, and business sector challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report is structured as follows:
The first part reviews the methodology of country identification for further investigation of good practices at national and city level.
The second, third, and fourth parts consist of good practices in the areas of health, governance, and business during the COVID-19 pandemic, including data analysis in selected countries and a brief overview of municipal practices in response to COVID-19. Good practices were selected from low and medium income countries from Africa, Asia and Southeast Europe.
In the final section, the cities’ challenges and recommendations for Connective Cities are reviewed and conclusions regarding the research findings are also presented.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently analysed how cities have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Soo-Jin Kim, Head of the OECD’s Urban Policies and Reviews Unit, calls for locally-adapted solutions now and for the post-COVID era.
Since March 2020, local health authorities have often dominated the headlines. Citizens’ trust in local politicians has significantly increased. Which role have municipalities played so far in responding to the COVID 19 crisis?
Soo-Jin Kim: Since the very beginning of the pandemic, municipalities have not waited for national governments to tell them what to do – they started to act immediately. They have deployed a range of measures to inform the public about necessary measures, ensure that people comply with social distancing and lockdown rules, support the shift to tele-working and take care of the most vulnerable such as the elderly and the poor. They have also worked to keep basic public services running, including the health system, and help the local economy survive the crisis. So I would describe municipalities as ‘essential workers’.
In addition, regardless of the crisis, we should not forget that municipalities are always key public actors. Subnational governments are responsible for an average of 40 per cent of all public spending across OECD countries. In federal states such as Germany or Switzerland, it’s even 50 to 60 per cent!
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:
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
On 27th of May virtual workshop on Municipal Response to COVID-19 in Business Sector took place as part of the ongoing Event series “Municipal Response to COVID-19”. It is commissioned by the GIZ project “Connective Cities – The Community of Practice for Sustainable Urban Development”.
The Workshop was dedicated to exploring municipal initiatives and measures taken to address economic and business sector challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its aim was to review how municipalities have managed to support vulnerable businesses during this period. Moreover, the web-seminar explored innovative private-sector support schemes responding to COVID-19, outlined the actions and strategies deployed by cities to communicate with the private sector, and highlighted the importance of business recovery plans.
Approximately 40 participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Germany, Peru and South Africa took part in the workshop.
This virtual event was opened by welcoming remarks made by Dr. Piotr Żuber. Dr. Żuber provided background information of the workshop and briefly overviewed the agenda. Following the introduction, Mr. Irakli Samkharadze, Regional Coordinator, Connective Cities, GIZ, thanked all attendees for their participation and briefly introduced Connective Cities project and its objectives.
Core part of the workshop was structured according to themes and went as follows:
The main measures for Economic Reactivation
Ms. Patricia Talavera, Head of Economic Development Department, Lima, Peru
Enterprise & Investment, Support for SMME’s during COVID -19
Mr. Lance Greyling, City of Cape Town’s Director for Enterprise and Investment, Cape Town, South Africa
Methodology and Results of the Research on Covid-19 Responses
Mr. Giorgi Khishtovani, Research Director, PMCG
During this online workshop representatives from multitudes of municipalities exchanged their experiences and insights on business recovery possibilities.
Participants were introduced to various already implemented recovery plans or activities from around the world. They were also given insight into some of future business recuperation possibilities and trends from around the world. One such example, in particular plan for business support in Tbilisi, Georgia was delivered by the governmental body representative himself
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.
Located in the Himalayas, the mountainous nation of Nepal, with a population of about 30 million, is one of the poorest countries in Asia. The country has little economic power and relies on foreign currency, which is mainly generated through tourism. The unique mountain scenery in the Himalayas, the historic cities in the Kathmandu Valley and the birthplace of Buddha in Lumbini attract millions of tourists every year. For the year 2020, which was declared the year of tourism by the Nepalese government, Nepal expected more than two million tourists – until the Corona pandemic broke out.
Within just a few weeks, the previously thriving tourism industry collapsed and over 230,000 jobs in the tourism sector were at risk. In a country where only ten percent of employees are members of social security schemes, this has serious impact on the economy and the population.
Patan (Lalitpur Metropolitan City), located in the Kathmandu Valley, whose central Durbar Square is a Unesco World Heritage Site, had to consider new strategies for the hard-hit tourism industry. While currently the country’s borders are still closed and there is no international tourism in Nepal, the city has taken steps to boost tourism in Patan in the long term and at least partially offset the loss of income in the short term.
Among other things, Patan is trying to promote domestic tourism. The historical center is of interest to locals, who can discover the city’s history, which is often unknown even to them, on guided tours.
The city is also bridging the time until international tourists can visit Nepal again with preparatory measures. For example, old, historic buildings are being renovated and local cuisine and home stays are being marketed. A night market will also be held in the center of Patan in the future. By offering a wider range of products, Patan is to become even more attractive to local and international tourists in the future.
The city is working closely with key tourism stakeholders to develop a strategy for this current transition phase.
However, the measures taken in Patan presuppose that the national borders will soon be reopened and that international tourism, especially from India and China, can resume.
Responding to COVID -19 Challenges- How Nepal’s Tourism Sector, in collaboration with the local cities, is finding its way out
Deepak Adhikary, Principal Consultant and CEO, Frontline Development Solutions, USA
Good Practice: Strategies and Actions to get Tourist back to Patan (Nepal)
Prafulla Pradhan, Advisor, Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Nepal
Event Recording (Presentations on Nepal start min. 63): Tourism Sector addressing the Pandemic – Working with Local Municipalities (Only for those registered on the Connective Cities Platform)
Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Nepal info@lmc.gov.np
Together with Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG), Connective Cities hereby invites municipal experts to the international exchange event – Connective Cities virtual exchange in direction of business.
What does post COVID -19 era hold for business? What potential does this have for municipalities, and how can they leverage the change?
The event is designed for the region of Southeast Europe and for international actors from municipalities and local business experts to talk about the effectiveness of business recovery plans on municipal level during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This Connective Cities event will set out to facilitate an international dialogue that compares regional and municipal approaches, solutions and good practices of quick business recovery.
To facilitate discussion of the broad field on a practical level, the Connective Cities dialogue event will be broken down to three specific parts:
Language of the event is English.
Further Information: Agenda [pdf]
If you would like to actively participate in the event, you are cordially invited to apply for a place.
Please send us an email indicating your position and organisation. We welcome participation by up to two experts per municipality who are actively working on business recovery measures.
If you have any questions concerning the event or the process of taking part, please get in touch with us:
Elene Samukashvili, Elene.samukashvili@giz.de
