In the event 25 urban practitioners and experts from 6 countries exchanged on innovative and efficient financing approaches to build climate resilient and low-carbon cities. They were united by the fact that all of them are working at the forefront of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in their cities. The event was jointly organised by Connective Cities, TURBOCLIC (Transformation – Urban Opportunities – Climate Change), an initiative from GIZ’s sector networks TUEWAS (Transport Environment Energy and Water in Asia) and SNGA (Governance Asia).
Category: Public space
Integration of nature based solutions in land use planning
The citizens of Durban are proud of their “green” metropolis. The fact that public spaces have been kept green or have been restored to their natural state is the result of a movement with its origins in the 1980s, the “Open Space Network”. In this podcast, Sabelo Nkosi, responsible for biodiversity planning at eThekwini Municpality, describes the work of the network, in which communities, science, SMEs and the city administration are equally involved. The green spaces not only provide biodiversity, they also mitigate the impacts of climate change and help people adapt more easily.
Watch the video on YouTube:
The Integrated Development Plan of Livingstone Municipal Council, Zambia
Prior to the introduction of the Integrated Development Plan in 2015, all departments of Livingstone Municipal Council had their own isolated planning process, resulting in a waste of resources. In 2015, an integrated planning approach was introduced for a 10-year period with broad participation of residents. Stan Mwanakayaya, Director of Urban Planning at Livingstone Municipal Council, describes the experience of the first five years in this podcast.
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Cities Challenge: 2030 Agenda meets Urban Climate Action
What does a climate-friendly, inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable city look like in practice? In 2019, GIZ’s CitiesChallenge 2030 ideas competition set out to showcase and support examples for this all over the world. More than 30 projects replied to the calls for application. GIZ and BMZ selected four winning projects to be Urban Living Labs:
- In Portoviejo, Ecuador, women in a poor peri-urban settlement acted as guardians to support the vulnerable and the sick, working together with the municipal disaster management department. With the help of students and experts from universities and professional organisations, they managed to secure paths and public spaces from landslides.
- In Jordan’s capital Amman, an NGO created microforests in high-density, precarious neighbourhoods. This triggered cross-sectoral cooperation between stakeholders, who together tested novel planting methods to improve air quality, combat heat islands and create rainwater storage.
- In Windhoek, Namibia, slum dwellers on the outskirts of the city created a neighbourhood park that invites people to stay and play while protecting their homes from seasonal flooding. They also planned the future development of their own settlement through a participatory process, supported by the municipality.
- In the Serbian capital Belgrade, food service operators and digital start-ups in the Serbian capital Belgrade saved food from being destroyed. Instead, they made it available to families in need while improving urban food security and reducing the burden on landfills.
These four Urban Living Labs show some of the many ways that interventions in cities bring local governments, experts, communities and entrepreneurs together. By working together with local partners, they improved the resilience and quality of life for vulnerable groups, ensured access to public services, used resources more sustainably, and promoted climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Tianjin Daqiuzhuang Eco-City: green, ecological and low carbon
Daqiuzhuang has traditionally been an important industrial site, especially for the steel industry.
The Sino-German Tianjin Daqiuzhuang Eco-City has developed an overarching indicator system with 20 ecological indicators, 50 percent of which are from the areas of energy saving and emission reduction. Modern concepts and technologies from Germany serve as a reference and the Energy and Climate Protection Management System (EKM) of the German Energy Agency (DENA) as a basis. The modern indicator systems for regional development of the China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, the Xiong’an New District and the Beijing Municipal Administrative Centre are also used as a basis. The Eco-City indicator system is divided into three areas: green ecology, liveable life and innovative production; of which 11 are control indicators and 9 are leading indicators. The indicator system thus guides the construction and development of the Eco-City throughout its life cycle.
Tackling drug addiction and drug use through an innovative partnership
Drug addiction or drug use disorder is a major issue facing our cities and in fact, all parts of societies. During South Africa’s toughest lockdown, an innovative partnership with the city government, academics, NGOs, businesses, the police led to the setting up of a rehabilitation centre inside the iconic Moses Mabhida Stadium for homeless people with drug use disorder called Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre.
Beyond Climate
When planning and investing in infrastructure projects, innovative cities bundle together a larger set of overarching objectives in the social, economic, environmental, health and governance realms. Integrating multiple benefits in climate infrastructure projects tends to enhance their political and financial/ fiscal viability, scalability, and replicability. Identifying and planning for benefits during early project development stages increase the project’s success, both in delivering positive environment and human-centred impacts, as well as in mobilising political buy-in and connecting with finance.
This report aims to show that project preparation facilities (PPFs) can and should aid in integrating climate action with other, highly synergetic development and cooperation objectives.
Wiesbaden: sustainable urban logistics
The increasing number of delivery vehicles is congesting our city centers and is causing more CO2 emissions. In the Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden (Germany), the situation was getting so bad that the city had to take action. The city government introduced the Green City Master Plan. One focus of the plan: Urban Logistics. Learn in our video how the city brought together different stakeholders and how delivery and pick-up traffic were optimized by a team of urban logistics experts.
Watch video at YouTube: https://youtu.be/-evOxsOsyn0
More information: Nachhaltige Stadtlogistik Wiesbaden (in German)
Capacity building for gender equality at the local level
Local governments and their local government associations play a large role in advancing gender equality at the local level through policy and programming. Local government associations also play a core role in awareness raising on and implementation of gender equality measures
The study aims to provide an overview and an inventory, highlighted by concrete cases, of what is happening in the field of promoting gender equality in the international work of the UCLG membership.
With this publication the CIB Working Group Secretariat explored how UCLG’s political gender strategy can be included in the many of projects and programmes. At the same time, it provides instruments and tools that will help UCLG members to implement gender strategies in their work. The brochure consist of guidelines, technical tools as well as twelve case studies, composed to demonstrate how local government development cooperation projects can concretely improve gender equality at both the local and regional level.
Kruševac’s Vision – “A city accessible to all”
The Vision of Kruševac’s SUMP is that the urban environment and traffic should contribute to the city’s development. The aim is to make traffic accessible to all, regardless of age, gender, income, physical or mental ability. The target from the Agenda 2030 is „80:20“, namely that citizens will walk, cycle or use public transport to cover 80% of the trips they need to make.