Category: Local economy & industrie

Municipal expert exchange to COVID-19- compact

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Topics: Public Health & Crisis Management / Economy, Housing & Education / Digitalisation & Communication / Innovation

Time: 23 November – 3 December 2020

Cities worldwide are severely affected by the impacts of COVID-19. Unlike national governments, municipalities are in close contact with their citizens and are responsible for the implementation of measures decided by governments to reduce the spread of Corona infections.

Cities worldwide also have collected important experiences, which will be of immense relevance in the global fight against the virus. The crisis has shown how important the resilience of municipalities is: this directly applies to local crisis management and disaster preparedness as well as to the need for constantly adaptive urban planning. The current crisis has shown and proven once again that resilience is an essential capacity of municipalities.

To continue tackling the challenges of the pandemic in the future and to find suitable solutions to minimise its negative impact, it is now necessary to learn from and share experiences that will support the joint development of further measures. In the framework of its COVID-19 Municipal response dialogue, Connective Cities is organising a virtual global exchange series on “Municipal Response to COVID-19” from 23 November to 3 December 2020 and kindly invites you to be part of this series of events. This international exchange effort takes place in cooperation with engaged urban practitioners, municipal experts as well as local experts from academia, civil society and business.

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Call for solutions until 9 November: #SolutionsForCities

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Worldwide cities face similar challenges. This has become even more visible through the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic situation has generated inspiring creativity and solidarity. How can we transfer innovative solutions from the pandemic to the future? How can we promote sustainable urban development for the common good? To tackle these questions, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community initiated the international, digital ideas competition #SolutionsForCities.

In a two-day virtual Challenge Lab, current challenges of cities were identified together with German Smart City model projects and with partner cities of the International Smart Cities Network (ISCN). These challenges will be published on the platform www.solutionsforcities.de with the Call for Solutions from October 28th.

Call for Solutions from October 28th to November 9th 2020

The Call for Solutions is a global call for the submission of digital solutions for the common good. It is aimed at international companies and start-ups, as well as local authorities, research institutions and projects, and civil society. The Call for Solutions opens on October 28th 2020 during the Smart City Day at the Smart Country Convention 2020! Until November 9th 2020, digital solutions can be submitted on the platform www.solutionsforcities.de as response to the published urban challenges.

Scalathon from November 23rd – 25th 2020

After the Call for Solutions, the participating cities or municipalities select the most suitable solutions for their challenges and compete in the Scalathon as a team with the respective solution providers.

The Scalathon is the core of the ideas competition and will take place from November 23rd – 25th 2020. During the three-day virtual workshop, selected solution providers will work closely together with the respective city or municipality, further develop the digital solutions and adapt them to the concrete local challenges.

Urban Gardening: Urban green spaces for social and economic resilience

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Connective Cities, together with partners from 5 districts of Berlin/Germany and other 10 municipalities in 6 countries, had prepared a dialogue event on Urban Gardening in Berlin from April 22nd to 24th. Due to travel and contact restrictions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event was unfortunately postponed until the first half of 2021.

A virtual exchange was prepared together with the original participants on September 22, with the aim of bringing together the participants of the dialog event to discuss aspects of urban gardening, the relation between Covid-19 and urban gardening policies and challenges, as well as to warm-up for the next year`s dialog event.

The exchange focused on the role of urban gardening in building social resilience and included three input presentations that inspired rich discussions. Dr. Carolin Mees was the keynote speaker and shared her experiences with urban gardening development and policies in New York City. She was followed by Paul Yeboah, who presented a good practice from Ghana. A civil society project called “Ghana Permaculture Urban Garden Project” to promote sustainable urban gardening and food production in the municipality of Techiman. The third contribution was provided by Cornelia Mirke from the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf with a beautifully produced short documentary on the history and current role of urban gardens in the district.

The documentary can be watched under the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69jKSmA9P8c.

South-East European Local Governments in Post Covid-19 Socio-Economic Recovery

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South-East European (SEE) local governments (LGs) have been and will certainly remain at the forefront in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic social and economic crisis. In serving and protecting their communities they have been facing unprecedented challenges in multiple dimensions. SEE local governments have been responding to these challenges with a strong spirit of solidarity, putting their citizens lives before everything else and working tirelessly to provide support to the most vulnerable.

The crisis required local governments to take timely measures to shut down selected local services, quickly switch to remote working practices and digitalise administrative services, expand programs for securing citizens healthcare, expand social protection and care for a significantly higher number of vulnerable people, take measures to allow the smooth implementation of online or long-distance learning, etc. In the aftermath of the control or minimisation of the first wave of infection SEE local governments have taken specific ad hoc measures to support the survival of their local communities and economies.

The purpose of this survey is to help improving the understanding over the impact of the COVID-19 crisis at the local government level in South-East Europe, identifying effective and innovative social and economic recovery strategies and ultimately helping formulating concrete policy proposals to inform advocacy efforts of NALAS member Local Government Associations.

C40 Mayors’ Agenda for a Green and Just Recovery

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As the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, mayors’ immediate priority is to face this unprecedented crisis and protect lives. At the same time, the city leaders who together established the Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force are leading in taking the first steps towards recovery. They have committed to providing the swiftest and strongest possible rebound for their citizens and reaffirmed commitment to the principles of the Global Green New Deal — to protect our environment, strengthen economies and build a more equitable future – and reach out to other cities, youth, unions, business and civil society to join in this effort.
[…]
By taking a sustainable path at this critical juncture, by respecting science, fostering unity and embracing a spirit of innovation and purpose, cities will secure the best recovery they can and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Amid the devastation of this global pandemic, mayoral leadership has never been more important.

Nine principles for a green and just recovery are elaborated that can support cities’ recovery efforts.
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Call for participants: International exchange of experiences: lessons learned in the Covid-19 crisis

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August – December 2020

Cities worldwide are still experiencing the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic throughout all their municipal departments. In addition to public health care, municipal services must be maintained during the crisis. Local governments must also ensure their own ability to function properly. Some consequences of the pandemic, such as halting economic development, hit local authorities first. Municipalities are currently having to learn to cope with new situations very fast. But the crisis has also shown how important the resilience of municipalities is: this directly applies to local crisis management and disaster preparedness as well as the need for continually adaptive urban planning and development towards increasing the resilience of cities. The current crisis has shown and proven once again that resilience is an essential capacity of municipalities.

Many cities and municipalities have found solutions to the new challenges and developed new strategies. In order to better address the issues related to the pandemic, it is now necessary to share and possibly develop these solutions and strategies together.  
From August to December 2020, the international community of practice for sustainable urban development Connective Cities is organising a series of virtual exchange formats on measures, challenges, and solutions to overcome the corona crisis in cooperation with engaged urban practitioners (municipal experts as well as local experts from academia, civil society and business).

The series of virtual exchange events targets German and international urban practitioners working on various aspects of municipal strategies to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Presentations of good practice examples will encourage the participating stakeholders to exchange ideas. Developing customized and practical solutions for relevant affected cities can also be an additional and beneficial outcome of the series in the context of a follow-up cooperation.

More information: Detailed and regular updated schedule of events

Cities Policy Responses

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This note was developed by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) in collaboration with the OECD Working Party for Urban Policy and the OECD Champion Mayors Initiative for Inclusive Growth. It is an update of the earlier versions released on 27 March and 13 May, which expands the examples of measures taken by cities to respond to COVID-19 and recover from the economic and social crisis. The note provides analysis on issues related to the economic, social and environmental impacts, lessons learned in terms of digitalisation, mobility, density, urban design and collaborative governance, and action-oriented guidance to build back better cities, building on previous work on urban resilience. Short and medium term responses provided by cities are clustered around six categories: i) social distancing; ii) workplace and commuting; iii) vulnerable groups; iv) local service delivery; v) support to business; and vi) communication, awareness raising and digital tools. The note also includes updated information on how cities are progressively exiting the lockdown.

COVID-19 in African cities

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“COVID-19, a global pandemic declared by the World Health Organization (WHO), is crippling the global economy and upending people’s lives thereby threatening sustainable development across all its dimensions. Africa is also facing the dire consequences of the crisis, necessitating timely response, recovery and rebuilding policies and strategies. Globally, urban areas are the epicenters of the epidemic accounting for most of the confirmed COVID-19 cases. UN-Habitat in collaboration with UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG), African Development Bank (AfDB), and Shelter Afrique have joined hands to produce this new report: COVID-19 in African Cities: Impacts, Responses and Policies. The report proposes several interventions to promptly and effectively address the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic in Africa at the urban level led by national and local governments supported by international and regional development institutions.”

Call for participants: Municipal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

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A series of virtual events will be organised with the focus on municipal response to the pandemic. This municipal knowledge-exchange activity aims at analysing and discussing practical examples from municipalities in MENA, Sub Saharan Africa and Germany. The event will thus provide a platform for learning how to plan, manage and evaluate effective measures to curb the impacts of the pandemic. It will also be possible to discuss individual questions with urban practitioners. Municipal representatives from both political and technical levels are invited to participate in the exchange.

Thematic focus of the events

1. Public health and municipal administrative processes:

All countries evoked the public health legal framework and the WHO guidelines to enforce measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Nevertheless, the pandemic has revealed shortcomings in municipal capacities to overcome its implications. Investing in digitalizing municipal administrative processes, IT systems as well as the overall healthcare infrastructure is being prioritized by many localities. Countries have also applied a combination of measures and technologies to monitor and control the situation at both the local and national levels. This session will focus on the possible strategies and measures implemented by public health and administrative municipal actors.

2. Municipal service delivery including water, sanitation and solid waste management:

Maintaining high standards of hygiene requires adequate provision of urban services such as water, sanitation and solid waste management which are key in combatting the spread of the virus. In many regions, the pandemic has heightened the existing shortcomings in the provision of these services. Some municipalities have provided temporal measures in order to improve the service delivery. Urban informal settlements in particular, are struggling with the situation, especially where social distancing rules cannot be effectively enforced. This session will focus on municipal service providers in the water and sanitation sectors.

3. Economic impact:

The pandemic has negatively impacted the economy on all levels. Most countries resolved to partial or complete lock down that resulted in paralyzing many economic sectors. It is in those cities that imposed the strictest lock down measures that the negative economic impacts are most apparent as per initial observations. A significant part of the labour markets in developing countries is informal and is comprised of daily wagers who have suffered immensely from the lockdown measures that impacted their livelihoods and ability to pay for services. These measures have also had a negative impact on the revenue stream for the municipalities. On the flip side, some economic sectors are witnessing growth. For example, many cities are relying on local manufacturing enterprises to produce medical equipment like masks, protective gear and ventilators which they would import in the past. This session will focus on possible measures to cushion the negative economic impacts of the pandemic on the local level.

More information: Call for Participants

Contact

If you wish to participate kindly email Dr. Muna Shalan (muna.shalan@giz.de) for MENA region, Sophia Kamau (sophia.kamau@giz.de) for Sub Saharan Africa and Alex Wagner (Alexander.Wagner@engagement-global.de) or Thiago Garcia (Thiago.Garcia@engagement-global.de) for German cities and counterparts

So coronavirus will change cities – will that include slums?

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for David Sanderson, it’s hard to see how the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to any better outcomes for the close to a billion or so people who live in fast-growing, low-income, informal settlements, or slums, that cram cities throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. These settlements are some of the densest and most poorly serviced places on Earth.

The Ebola outbreak of 2014-16 killed over 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and had devastating impacts on economies, lives and health-care systems. However, yet evidence of post-Ebola improvements in urban planning are hard to find. The coronavirus — just one more tragedy for many who live in slums?

Read full article at The Conversation