Category: Local economic development

Urban Gardening

Posted on by erik

The concept of Urban Gardening, which emerged in the seventies in New York, Manhattan, describes a communal garden use of urban green spaces. It therefore differs from the so-called “gardens for the poor” that emerged in Germany as early as the beginning of the 19th century and from which the allotment garden (“Kleingarten”) movement later grew from. Private allotment gardens and community gardens should be seen as complementary to each other and not as competition. In modern practice, there are increasingly mixed forms of private and community gardens. They range from cooperatively managed urban agricultural plots, to community gardens within allotments, botanical gardens or parks, to urban gardening with primarily social goals such as inclusion and environmental education.

Municipal practitioners from 9 countries and 16 cities discussed this new diversity of approaches and experiences in depth and jointly developed solutions and project ideas. They had accepted the invitation of Connective Cities and the Berlin districts of Berlin-Mitte, Pankow, Lichtenberg, Tempelhof-Schönfeld and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to join the virtual dialogue event that took place from 20.04. – 22.04.2021.

‘Digital Shop Window’, Darmstadt

Posted on by erik

The Covid-19 pandemic posed significant challenges for retailers and restaurants. During the lockdown, also small local shops in Germany had to close temporarily. In the south of Hesse, the City Darmstadt responded successfully with the “Digital Shop Window” project. Retailers and restaurateurs can offer their goods and services on the city’s central shopping platform. 

The project was already launched in 2019 with around 25 participating shops and restaurants. After the pandemic began, the German city intensified its efforts to expand the platform because interest increased significantly. Currently, over 500 local restaurants and shops are represented, and the platform registers around 700 hits per day. Interested citizens have access to the businesses’ contact details, opening hours, social media channels, and the online shop on the platform.

What led to the success of the “Digital Shop Window”? A key component was the networking of other city projects with the platform. For example, the so-called “Darmstadt City Voucher” has been integrated online. Moreover, Darmstadt offers free delivery of products.  Local events, such as an art market or the city’s wine festival, are also advertised on the website. Since the traders themselves are responsible for their contributions and data, the “Digital Shop Window” always remains up to date.  

Another success factor was that Darmstadt photographed the traders free of charge to personalise online shopping. The pictures make the “Digital Shop Window” much more personal than other online shopping sites, such as Amazon. The personalisation also increased solidarity with the traders within the population. “Digital Shop Window” will certainly have its raison d’être even after the pandemic and make local shopping attractive. 

Further Information:

Good Practice “Digitales Schaufenster” Digitised shopping windows (pdf)

Event Recording (Presentation on Darmstadt starts min. 83): The role of digitalised public services as reactions to the COVID 19-pandemic (Only for those registered on the Connective Cities Platform)

Digital Shop Window: https://www.darmstadt-citymarketing.de/digitales-schaufenster/

Contact:

Agnes Allig, City and tourism marketing
Wissenschaftsstadt Darmstadt Marketing GmbH
Elisabethenstraße 20-22
64283 Darmstadt
Germany
+49-(0)6151-134510
touristikmarketing@darmstadt.de

Hazmieh in Lebanon: A lighthouse in good urban governance

Posted on by erik

Hazmieh municipality has set a comprehensive and effective strategy for local economic development, in which the public and the private sector’s participation in planning and decision-making are the cornerstones. The municipality has partnered with representatives of the local community and private sector to ensure the formulation of municipal development plans that prioritize the prosperity and common good of the local community and ensure gender equality and youth participation.

The municipality has attracted investments by diversifying local economy in the city. By employing the business model “Everything under one roof”, Hazmieh has succeeded in proving that one doesn’t need to leave the city boundaries to secure supplies, resulting in making the city an essential hub for investment in Lebanon.

The Case for a Green and Just Recovery

Posted on by erik

To provide decision-makers with more information on how stimulus packages may affect cities, this report compares how urban greenhouse gas emissions, health and jobs could fare under a green and just recovery compared to a return to a pre-COVID business-as-usual scenario, or a scenario where the world opts to spend stimulus funding on a high-carbon recovery.

The research finds that:

  • Stimulus funding that supports a green and just recovery offers a means to keep global heating below 1.5°C, and could reduce air pollution by as much as 29% between 2020-2030 compared to a return to business-as-usual. In contrast, investing an equivalent amount of stimulus funding in a high-carbon recovery would undoubtedly accelerate global heating.
  • Across the nearly 100 cities in the C40 network and their supply chains, a green and just recovery could also create over 50 million good, sustainable jobs by 2025 – over a third more than would be created by investing equivalent funds into a high-carbon recovery.

This research also shows that the timing of a green and just recovery matters, and presents a clear case for early investment. Modelling of the impacts of an ‘accelerated green recovery’ where faster capital investment enables accelerated climate action over the next five years, compared to a ‘slow green recovery’ where action happens at a slower pace over 15 years, shows that:

  • An ‘accelerated green recovery’ could lead to half the per capita greenhouse gas emissions of a ‘slow green recovery’ by 2030, meaning that an ‘accelerated green recovery’ provides C40 cities with a greater chance of meeting their climate commitments and limiting global heating to 1.5°C.
  • An ‘accelerated green recovery’ could avert almost twice as many premature deaths (1.8 times as many) due to air pollution between 2020 and 2030, compared to a ‘slow green recovery’.
  • Capital investments that are made early on under an ‘accelerated green recovery’ could create over 80 million good, sustainable jobs by 2023, across the nearly 100 cities in the C40 network and their supply chains – more than double a ‘slow green recovery’. At a time of mass unemployment and economic hardship in many parts of the world, generating jobs now will benefit millions of families.

Multidimensional: The COVID-19 urban restoration programme “Lviv tomorrow”

Posted on by erik

Ukraine, like most countries around the world, is strongly affected by Corona since March 2020. Individual cities experience little government support and are largely left to their own devices to combat and deal with COVID-19. Despite this challenge and only limited financial resources within the city budget, the city of Lviv managed to take quick and effective action.

The city, which is in northwestern Ukraine and has a population of about 750,000, established the “Lviv tomorrow” program to mitigate the negative consequences of COVID-19 and create the preconditions for improving the social, economic and cultural situation in the city. The program consists of 80 different projects, of which more than 50 already have been implemented.

An important pillar of the program is safety and health. The city of Lviv doubled the number of hospital beds available and set up its own COVID-19 testing laboratory. This allowed the number of COVID-19 tests to increase from 200-400 to over 3000 per day, speeding up the tracking of infected individuals and thus simplifying pandemic response.

The city also established new digital solutions that make it easier for the population to stay at and work from home. For example, a portal was created where the population can pay digitally for city services.

Especially the cultural sector was hit hard by the restrictions necessary to combat the pandemic. The city of Lviv is countering this by promoting open-air events and smaller cultural events, for example on balconies. This way, not only jobs in the cultural industry can be preserved, but also part of the life quality in the city can remain. In the uncertain times of the pandemic, cultural events are also a important psychological support for the population.

Another component of the “Lviv tomorrow” program is economic development. One project, for example, supports local food producers. In cooperation with supermarkets, food produced in Lviv is promoted and labeled with “made in Lviv” stickers.

With its extensive “Lviv tomorrow” program, the city of Lviv is taking action on many different levels to combat the pandemic and its effects. Not only the immediate aspects of the pandemic, such as the number of hospital beds, but also other areas of coexistence, such as cultural life, are included. Thus, not only acutely fighting the spread of Corona, but also creating a long-term perspective for the post COVID-19 city.

Contact:

Mr. Oleksandr Kobzarev
Director of the City Institute. Center of strategic planning in Lviv, Ukraine
o.kobzarev@city-institute.org

More Information:

LVIV TOMORROW. RESTORATION PROGRAM [pdf 11 pp.]

Interaktive Präsentation über Lviv (Only for those registered on the Connective Cities Platform)

Local Economic Development (LED) and Job Creation in Middle East and North Africa

Posted on by erik

Six municipalities from the MENA region have participated in the Local Projects Workshop, which was a 2-days virtual workshop held on the 19th-20th January 2021. The workshop consisted of a series of virtual discussions among the participating municipal representatives and technical and financial experts. The workshop was followed by two virtual sessions on proposal writing for funding and financing of municipal projects held on the 21st and 25th of January 2021 respectively.

The Local Projects Workshop was designed such that the activities are following a normal growth curve of what has been established during the LED Virtual Dialogue taking place in 2020. The harmony established among participants and the understanding of the rationale of the Connective Cities methodology was expanded on to foster peer-to-peer learning with more attention given this time to individual municipalities needs and visions. The Local Projects Workshop approach leveraged the progress made to date by the 6 participating municipalities while addressing further actions including:

  • The interlinkages between LED projects and other areas like education, health, gender, environment, etc.
  • Adapting the LED projects to national and global objectives and priorities
  • Adapting the LED projects to available resources and existing expertise
  • Establishing Strategic and impactful partnerships for the projects
  • Risk forecasting and mitigation measures planning
  • Best approaches to fund projects with different financing mechanisms and tools.
     

Renewables in Cities

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The report gives an overview of the status, trends and developments of renewable energy in cities, using the most up-todate information and data available. The REC’s neutral, fact-based approach documents in detail the annual developments in policies, markets, investments and citizen action, with a particular focus on renewables in public, residential and commercial buildings as well as public and private urban transport. The REC complements REN21’s Renewables Global Status Report, which covers renewable energy market, industry and policy trends. Jointly, these reports contribute to making renewable energy visible in the global debate, drawing decision makers’ attention to renewables and continuously providing better data and tracking to inform energy decisions worldwide.

REC 2021 is the result of a collaborative effort, building on REN21’s unique data and reporting culture (p see Data Collection and Validation section), with more than 330 data contributors and peer reviewers and over 30 individual interviews from around the world.

Are we on track for a green recovery? Not Yet

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One year from the onset of the pandemic, recovery spending has fallen short of nations’ commitments to build back more sustainably. An analysis of spending by leading economies, led by Oxford’s Economic Recovery Project and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), finds only 18.0% of announced recovery spending can be considered ‘green.’. The report “Are We Building Back Better? Evidence from 2020 and Pathways for Inclusive Green Recovery Spending” was supported by  the International Monetary Fund and GIZ through the Green Fiscal Policy Network (GFPN).  

It calls for governments to invest more sustainably and tackle inequalities as they stimulate growth in the wake of the devastation wrought by the pandemic.

The most comprehensive analysis of COVID-19-related fiscal rescue and recovery efforts by 50 leading economies so far, the report reveals that only $368bn of $14.6tn COVID-induced spending (rescue and recovery) in 2020 was green.

More: Are we on track for a green recovery? Not Yet – UNEP

Interview with Harinjaka Ratozamanana: Innovation Ecosystems

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In our Grand Season Finale, Harinjaka from Anatananarivo, Madagascar,  tells us how the wisdom of his ancestors made sense during this pandemic.

More: https://youtu.be/7zJOBM0I6pw

Join us and watch a special series of videos and podcasts that will show how to overcome a crisis from many different points of view. More videos, podcasts and interviews on our COVID-19 page.