With the continued growth of Jordan’s urban population as a consequence of the Syrian civil war, municipalities are struggling to cope with the increasing amounts of solid waste. Against this background, Connective Cities – in the framework of the “Municipal know-how for host communities in the Middle East” programme – brought together municipal actors from both Jordan and Germany for a Study Tour and Project Workshop in North Rine-Westphalia to enhance joint learning, develop concrete project ideas and strengthen bilateral cooperation between participating cities. This documentation contains a brief introduction to major aspects of integrated solid waste management, summarises insights presented and highlights the key outcomes of the joint workshop.
Category: Municipal services
Connective Cities Local Project Planning Workshop
Urban transport planners and representatives of civil society and private sector from Chiang Mai Municipality in Northern Thailand and from Germany gathered on July 12-14, 2017 for a three-day workshop to discuss and advise the urban mobility planning of Chiang Mai and identify practical solutions for embarking on a low carbon mobility strategy.
This short report provides summary of the workshop, describing particular challenges faced by Chiang Mai, featuring good practices and baseline studies presented during the event as well as showcasing solutions developed in a joint work of experts.
Taller de Proyecto de Connective Cities en América Latina
Ante la creciente urbanización en América Latina, las ciudades se ven enfrentadas a grandes desafíos de la movilidad urbana. También las ciudades de municipios alemanes, en muchos casos se ven frente a desafíos similares. Estos desafíos se refieren a temas como la integración de barrios menos privilegiados, al transporte eficiente entre vivienda y trabajo para los ciudadanos o al aseguramiento de un sistema de transporte en favor de un desarrollo económico local. Al mismo tiempo se busca garantizar una buena calidad del aire, mejorando así la salud de los ciudadanos y el clima urbano.
En respuesta a la demanda por parte de expertos de la práctica municipal latinoamericana y alemana, Connective Cities organizó en 2015 un evento en Bogotá Colombia acerca del tema Movilidad Urbana. Durante ese evento, se expresó la necesidad para la realización de otro taller con el enfoque en los sistemas integrados de movilidad y sus relaciones con inclusión social y mitigación del cambio climático. Ante esto, Connective Cities ofrece en mayo de 2016 un taller referente a Sistemas Integrados de Movilidad para Ciudades Inclusivas y Amables con el Clima. El presente documento resume los resultados de dicho taller.
4th Connective Cities Asian Dialogue Event
Road transport accounts for over 80% of the total transport emissions in Asia. If no countermeasures are taken, CO2 emissions resulting from the transport sector are projected to rise by 70% by 2050. At the same time, 64.5% of Asia’s population will be urban by 2050. Therefore, the extremely rapid increase of urban population in Asia and the rising CO2 emissions resulting from the transport sector lead to a high demand for climate-friendly means of urban transport.
The 4th Connective Cities Practitioners’ Workshop, which took place from 27 to 29 September 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand, brought together representatives from China, Georgia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Germany to exchange on the varied and complex tasks of sustainable urban mobility and climate change focusing on climate-friendly means of urban transport to reduce air pollution.
Planning Integrated Solid Waste Management at Municipal Level
Rostock hosted and co-organised the event, and provided conference rooms in Rostock’s city hall. Representatives of the city gave interesting insights into the city’s solid waste management strategy and presented innovative projects on how to organise waste management in an environmentally safe and efficient way. They also organised highly informative site visits to illustrate different aspects of the city’s waste management system.
The Dialogue Event was attended by about 35 urban practitioners from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Italy, France, Austria, Zimbabwe, Albania, and Germany. Two waste management experts respectively from the German Association of Cities (Deutscher Städtetag) and from the German Association of Local Public Utilities (Verband kommunaler Unternehmen e.V.) also contributed to the three-day exchange. Discussions benefited greatly from the vast experience of participants with different regional perspectives.
The publication documents the main results of the event. It contains a brief introduction to major aspects of Integrated Solid Waste Management and summarises local experiences presented at the event. The report also highlights key outcomes of the peer learning and action planning sessions. Action planning resulted in the development of four project ideas to improve waste management in different cities. These ideas are outlined briefly at the end of the publication.
The documentation also seeks to inform readers about the way Connective Cities works. It describes the approach as well as the methodology used at the event and explains how the initiative supports joint learning, knowledge exchange and municipal cooperation across the world.
City region food systems and food waste management
Rapid urban growth; growing food and nutrition insecurity; unbalanced food availability, distribution and access; environmental degradation, resource scarcity and climate change; unsustainable production and consumption patterns, including generation of food waste – all of these have important developmental implications for both urban and rural areas alike. It is increasingly recognised that in order to respond to these challenges, integrated territorial development and balanced urban-rural linkages must be pursued for the benefit of both urban and rural populations. City region food systems (CRFS) offer concrete policy and programme opportunities within which these developmental issues can be addressed and through which rural and urban areas and communities in a given city region can be directly linked. These specifically address Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 11a – to support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas – and are instrumental in linking SDG 11 with SDG 2 (on sustainable agriculture and food and nutrition security) and SDG 12 (on sustainable production and consumption).
This publication documents thirteen case studies from city regions around the world which are developing CRFS projects, programmes, and policies, including those related to the prevention, reduction and management of food waste. Lessons learned from the case studies for sustainable development of CRFS call for local, city regional, and (sub) national governments to institutionalise city region food systems, providing them an institutional setting and budget, linking them to larger city region development plans, and monitoring their developmental impacts across urban and rural areas.
Operationalizing the Urban NEXUS
This study “features an essential step ahead in putting the NEXUS intopractice for a sustainable urban future by delivering an approach, which encourages new ways of thinking and action in institutions, policy making and society at large.”
“The aim of this publication is to provide a conceptual foundation and hans-on approach that serves to inspire, identify and implement NEXUS solutions for integrated, resource-efficient development in metropolitan regions. It shall thereby spark exchange, debate, and learning across sectors and scales.”
Innovative measures of community-based monitoring as an instrument for inclusive urban development
The GIZ sector projects ‘Program Millennium Goals and Poverty Reduction’ and ‘Policy Advice for Urban Development’ jointly support – on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) – CBM as an instrument for inclusive urban development. The objective is to improve monitoring and impact evaluation of inclusive urban development programs, to enhance decision-making and management processes of municipalities and strengthen the dialogue between them and urban poor groups. The joint measure includes a pilot project in Ethiopia and a survey in Bolivia as well as two studies by the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI). The report at hand summarizes and reviews the findings from the three studies and a review of the CBM pilot project in Ethiopia. It gives tentative recommendations to development cooperation and urban development experts for future application of CBM as an instrument for inclusive urban development, and assesses the potential of CBM as a contribution to urban indicators with regards to the post- 2015 debate and MDG/SDG monitoring.