Category: Start-up promotion

Startups and Innovation: Labour Market Opportunities and Prospects for Young People

Posted on by burkhard
Connective Cities invites two experts from your municipality to participate in the international exchange of expertise in Bremen and the subsequent learning process

 

Do you support the startup scene in your municipality? What opportunities do you offer young people in the job market? What challenges do you face in your work?  The City of Bremen is already well-connected on this topic—including internationally. Now, in cooperation with Connective Cities, the city invites you to join five other German and six international municipalities in Bremen to exchange expertise on startup initiatives and incubators, as well as municipal incentives and support programs for startups and new businesses.

Opening new perspectives and promoting skills development are equally important for young people in Germany and the Global South; the opportunity to enter the labour market is essential. In Bremen and Bremerhaven, the number of startups is high by national standards. The startup scene is vibrant, innovative, and well-connected. The Bremen Senate Chancellery also already has valuable international contacts: its partner cities Windhoek (Namibia) and Durban (South Africa) contribute experience with their own startup centres and instruments for startup support.

The goals of this dialogue event are to learn together by sharing good practices at the local level, to discuss challenges through peer consultations, to develop solutions to the challenges identified, and to foster networking among participants.

We look forward to the participation of two experts from your municipality, particularly from the fields of economic development, labour and social affairs, or youth work.

Further information: Call for Participation [PDF, 2 pages]

Application deadline: 26 April 2026

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Marcella Sobisch, Project Coordinator, Connective Cities, marcella.sobisch@engagement-global.de,
+49 (0)228 20717 2658 and connective-cities@engagement-global.de .

Local Economic Development through Skilled Immigration and Migrant Entrepreneurship

Posted on by burkhard

How can local governments take an active role in shaping skilled labour immigration and support migrant entrepreneurship in their municipalities?

This interactive online session by Connective Cities, on 25 March 2026, from 10:00 to 12:30 CET , will bring together German and international municipal practitioners to exchange experiences, learn from practical examples, and discuss innovative approaches to promoting local economic development through skilled labour immigration and migrant entrepreneurship.

Participants will benefit from good practice presentations and discussions, which will:

  • showcase effective municipal strategies for fostering successful and fair skilled labour immigration and migrant entrepreneurship
  • raise awareness of local governance challenges and opportunities
  • highlight transferable solutions for different local context
  • Strengthen local governments’ capacity to leverage their scope of action to support skilled worker immigration and migrant entrepreneurship as drivers of local economic development.

 

Event language is English.

Free of charge. Registration is necessary:

Event registration

Contact:

Nikola Krause
+49 228 20 717-2922
nikola.krause@engagement-global.de

Kampala, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg join forces to strengthen social entrepreneurship

Posted on by erik

All across the world, there are more and more social entrepreneurs combining their business activities with a commitment to the common good – be it climate or environmental protection, social participation or reducing poverty.

For local authorities, this relatively new target group for local economic development agencies has great potential to contribute to sustainable development. But many cities, municipalities and districts are still in the early stages of promoting social entrepreneurship. Kampala in Uganda, Karlsruhe in south-west Germany and Strasbourg in France have joined forces to promote social entrepreneurship in their cities and help entrepreneurs form networks.
 

The Kampala – Karlsruhe – Strasbourg triangle of cooperation

‘I see a great deal of potential for collaboration,’ says Khasalamwa Lucia from the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). Representatives from the three cities have identified that the challenges facing social entrepreneurship are very similar in Kampala, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg – despite their social and economic differences. They each have a lack of needs-based training, mentoring programs, opportunities for exchanging expertise, and start-up financing for (potential) entrepreneurs. Political frameworks such as tax reliefs and suitable legal forms for businesses are also not yet fully developed.

Municipal Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic – MENA region

Posted on by erik

In the wake of the Pandemic, municipalities in the MENA region in both urban and rural areas need to rethink their modes of operation and accelerate their shift towards building resilience during the recovery process. In an effort to support municipalities that are members of the Connective Cities network in the MENA region, four thematic working groups were established as part of Connective Cities program ‘Municipal Recovery from the Pandemic.’ Objectives of this working group include promoting practice–oriented knowledge exchange between municipal and urban practitioners, facilitating peer learning on sustainable and innovative approaches to build resilience in cities through biodiversity and environmental protection, digitalisation of municipal services, and promoting social entrepreneurship for circularity. The program has resulted in the development of concrete urban solutions. Another outcome was the creation of partnerships between municipalities as well as with private sector actors to articulate the proposed solutions and scale up the impact. This report summarizes the main achievements until February 2022.

Turning social business ideas into reality with yooweedoo

Posted on by erik

Founders of social start-ups – so-called social entrepreneurs – have a one-stop contact point in Schleswig-Holstein: the yooweedoo programme. Based at Kiel University, yooweedoo facilitates social entrepreneurship with workshops, project advice, an ideas competition and an active network for sharing lessons learned.

Social entrepreneurship enriches municipalities

Posted on by erik

At the virtual dialogue event held on 20, 21 and 23 September 2021, over 45 participants from 10 countries took a look at social entrepreneurship from a range of municipal perspectives. They found that this rather new target group for local business development has a great deal of potential for municipalities. Innovative examples from Kiel, the municipality hosting the virtual event, as well as from the UK and Uganda, showcased the wide range of funding opportunities and the great benefits that can arise when municipalities and social entrepreneurs work together.

So far, many municipalities have given barely any thought to social entrepreneurship. The dialogue event provided them with a good first impression. The international dialogue and examples from around the world also inspired many participants to take concrete action to promote social entrepreneurship.

Kiel – the true champion of social entrepreneurship

Posted on by erik

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:

https://youtu.be/pi95yRpKu5U

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.
     

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.