Category: Local economic development

Impact of Covid-19 on the tourism sector

Posted on by erik

The tourism sector has been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. This ranges from the from SMEs to the international sector players including the airlines, the hotel industry, travel agencies and other associated players. Many African countries are tourist destinations thus must have been dented by the lock downs and closure of airspaces. Upon opening though, a lot of domestic tourism has been promoted.

Connective Cities sought to understand the nature of the impact on the sector players and some of the measures being put in place to cushion against the negative impacts and future pandemics.

Program

With the knowledge that a lot of the players in this sector come from the private sector, little wonder it is that the 11 participants were drawn from the private sector. This was a moderated session and the examples from Mpumalanga in South Africa, those from Asia and the global perspective on response to the pandemic gave a clear picture of the impacts and response measures. In this session we sought to answer these questions:

  1. What have been the core challenges for the sector players?
  2. What measures have you put in place?
  3. Have there been any lessons learned already for long term strategies to improve the sector’s resilience (i.e. preparedness for pandemics or similar events in the future)?

Presentations

Tourism recovery process- the case for Mpumalanga Province, South Africa
Mr. Oupa Pilane

Covid-19 and the tourism crisis: how some municipal authorities around the world are supporting tourism sector recovery
Ms. Jennifer Bartlett

Responding to Covid-19 challenges- how Nepal’s tourism sector is finding its way out
Deepak Adhikary

Results

  • Tourism in Mpumalanga province was on a positive trajectory until Covid-19 struck and the sector was adversely affected like in many other countries where tourism is a major economic activity
  • Massive job losses experienced in many countries as well
  • Mpumalanga thus collaborated with the private sector to develop the tourism recovery plan that will protect & rejuvenate supply, re-ignite demand and strengthen enabling capability.
  • From a global lense, a lot is going on with expected post-crisis growth in market demand for nature-based & wellness travel.

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. When most governments directed a shift in the normal way of life where businesses thrived, and goods and services exchanged, many businesses were affected. 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.

Against this concern, Connective Cities organized a virtual exchange on the 10th of November, 2020 for cities to share on how their revenue stream has been affected and the measures they are putting in place to cushion against the current and possible future pandemics. 7 participants from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa with a representation of Tshwane, Kumasi, Nelson Mandela Bay, Rustenburg and some local government associations were present to exchange and discuss.

Program

This was a moderated session with two main presentations from the City of Tshwane shedding light on their economic recovery plan and the Kenya Private Sector Association highlighted the different ways in the Government of Kenya is supporting the key economic sectors to cushion against the negative impacts. The discussions were enriching to the participants as many cities/municipalities run out of resources to run their operations including provision of services. The questions that were being answered in this session included?

  1. What have been the core challenges for the municipalities?
  2. What measures have municipalities put in place?
  3. How do the municipalities deal with vulnerable groups which were most affected by the pandemic?
  4. Have there been any lessons learned already for long term strategies to improve cities’ resilience (i.e. preparedness for pandemics or similar events in the future)?

Presentations

City of Tshwane’s proposal on economic recovery
Dr. Lardo Stander

SME economic impact of Covid-19, recovery and resilience of cities- Nairobi and Towns in Kenya
Mr. Mairura Omwenga

Results

The City of Tshwane’s economic recovery plan confirmed how fragile the local economies of most African cities are. The quick response to cushion the SMEs & the citizens while safeguarding the City’s purse is a good call.

Access to funds by SMEs & informal businesses will propel the bouncing back of the economic lifeline. The special focus on vulnerable groups is commendable.

The case from Kenya highlighted the impact of Covid-19 on different economic sectors including housing, manufacturing/ SMEs, road transport, community service and professional services. In all these sectors, massive job losses have been experienced but the national government has put in measures to cushion eg establishing SME credit guarantee scheme with local banks and giving tax rebates. The Telcom company offering mobile money services was required to reduce transaction costs up to certain amounts.

Kiel: Entrepreneurship and Digitalisation

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We traveled to Kiel, where we captured deep insights from a city that, as a digital champion, had to adapt quickly. How do you keep your StartUp community alive if people cannot meet personally?

More: https://youtu.be/-QxhW-Gx-3M

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 coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Final Report: Virtual Global Exchange

Posted on by erik

The exchange was designed to bring together urban practitioners from all over the globe. The goal was to ignite creativity, innovation, solidarity and motivation, while creating and enhancing this global community of practice around the common purpose of combating the global COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences with smart local solutions and strategies.

During the first week, urban practitioners and experts from different municipalities, the civil society, business and academia, presented a total of 56 Good Practices in 18 sessions and gave insights into their experienced challenges and local solutions to deal with the pandemic. The exchange were centered around the nine topics were Public Health, Crisis Management, Economic Response, Housing, Education, Digitalisation, Crisis Communication, Innovation, and Green Urban Recovery.

The second week was about receiving practical “How To” capsules with practical exercises on topics that came up repeatedly during the exchange events such as: social media usage, digital tools, and how to plan for virtual meetings. Finally, the newly learned mindsets and tools could be applied in a 4-hour solution design workshop.

Weimar: Economic response to COVID-19

Posted on by erik

Weimar, a city that attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world every year. Watch how did the local city guides, hoteliers and small shop owners react to the lockdown? And what did the local authorities do?

Mehr: https://youtu.be/SxLgSY2aW6g

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 coming soon on our COVID-19 page.

Waste to positive energy in Mafraq governorate in Jordan

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The establishment of the composting plant to produce organic fertilizers was part of the plan for solid waste management in Jordan. The project was jointly planned by the Ministry of Local Administration and the UNDP in its first phase, and then it received technical and financial support from the GIZ in its second and third phases. The project aims to serve Mafraq governorate which hosts a large number of livestock farms, through the collection and treatment of animal manure to produce organic fertilizers to be used in agricultural land in the city.

Towards the Just City in Kenya

Posted on by erik

In the next 25 years, Africa’s urban population is set to double. By 2040, the majority of Africans will be living in cities. There are numerous reasons for this: climate change, violent conflicts and the hope of finding work or education, although this list could easily be extended. Urbanisation thus constitutes one of the greatest transformations facing Africa in the 21st century.

Despite the diversity of the African continent, however, they are so far mostly “unjust” cities that people are moving to. The majority live in informal settlements and work under precarious conditions, mostly in the informal sector, without employment contracts and social security.

Towards the Just City in Kenya is the first publication of its kind that explores the conceptualisation and application of the “just city” concept in Kenya. The authors explore the concept from various dimensions, namely:

  • Conceptualisation of the just city in Kenya.
  • Locating the just city in the constitutional, policy, legislative and institutional context.
  • Discussion of spatial justice in the context of planning and housing; and
  • Interrogating practical ways in which cities express injustice and how these can be practically addressed, with examples from the public transport sector.

The study offers recommendations on how the just city concept can be realised in Kenya, looking specifically at urban institutions, citizens’ rights, housing policies and urban public transport systems.

With its just city project, FES Kenya and its partners facilitate dialogues through working groups which bring together civil society, trade unions, Members of County Assemblies, Government representatives, and academia working in urban centres of Kenya with the objective to jointly work for a just city.

Local Economic Development and Job Creation in MENA

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Local Economic Development (LED) remains a top priority for the MENA countries as a driver for economic stability and job creation for a region with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. While many resources are invested in fostering local economic development in the MENA countries led by governments, however, there is often a lack of systematic access to practice-oriented solutions.

More than 40 local urban practitioners from 22 municipalities and 10 countries from the MENA region and Germany took part of the virtual dialogue event organized by the Connective Cities project. The dialogue event consisted of five virtual sessions held between the Sep 29th – Oct 7th 2019, focusing on facilitating the exchange of know-how and experiences through peer-to-peer learning among municipal representatives and urban practitioners. Moreover, the dialogue event aimed at enriching the analysis and planning capacity of the participating municipal representatives to address existing challenges of implementing LED and job creation programs.

Throughout the Dialogue event, participants showed tremendous commitment to the program with a level of excitement that remained high till the last day of the dialogue where they learned how to present their LED project concepts in less than 3 minutes; an activity that reflected their understanding of project development process as well as the peer-to-peer exchange methodology.

This report reflects in detail the main results of the virtual dialogue event.

Principles for Better Cities

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We are now living through a period during which we are both struggling to find adequate ways to characterize the dominant urban challenges and to respond adequately to those challenges. It is indicative of this complexity that we live in a period that is simultaneously being criticized as ‘the Anthropocene’ and, more optimistically, called ‘the Urban Age’. This is the era in which humans have had a profound impact upon the earth’s ecological systems. It is also the period during which the planet has become overwhelmingly urbanized. Likewise, social relations are ever more global, and thus, at one level, diffuse. To address local challenges, global targets have been set up to inspire and guide common efforts in sustainable development.

Arguably, responding well to the current challenges is best achieved by a set of integrated principles that firstly link highlevel aspirations to on-the-ground practical guidelines. Secondly, it is best realized through recognizing global and generalizing patterns while being sensitive to local particularities and priorities. Thirdly, it requires simple and aspirational principles at the top level but, at the same time, a grounding in more complex detail as the process goes deeper.

Principles for Better Cities is a collective response to that set of tensions. The document attempts to meet those contradictory needs by outlining a set of layered principles (Part I) while providing a method for translating between other existing charters, frameworks and sets of principles such as the Sustainable Development Goals (Part II).

Women’s Training and Development Center in Hay Al-Andalus municipality in Libya

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The Centre for Women’s Development and Training was planned as a socio-economic project that aims at women’s economic empowerment and promoting female entrepreneurship. The center provides job matching services and capacity development courses that include trainings on various scientific and social topics as well as recreational activities that target the wellbeing of the beneficiaries.

The project is part of the European Union and Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)- funded “Support to Municipalities” programme in Libya, which is implemented by GIZ in cooperation with the Libyan Ministry of Local Governance and the Municipality of Hay Al-Andalus. Other key stakeholders included the local civil society, the office of women’s empowerment in the presidential council, the Ministry of Labour and businessmen in the municipality.