As a second milestone of the Deep Dive process, a workshop was held in Nairobi from 4 to 7 March 2024. The workshop marked the transition from the phase of sensemaking of the local contexts towards prioritization of challenges and solution options. Participants representing the cities of Nairobi, Aswan, Mombasa, Lviv, Lüdenscheid and Heidelberg discussed the observations and findings from the initial participatory field research including insights into how stakeholders and relevant actors perceive challenges related to the phenomenon of urban heat. Additionally, participants had the opportunity to learn about projects and initiatives implemented in Nairobi that are relevant to building resilience to urban heat.
Tag: Import-Events-09-06-25
Municipal Energy Efficiency Projects Workshop in MENA
The international community of practice for sustainable urban development, Connective Cities in the MENA region, organized a virtual projects workshop under the topic “Municipal Energy Efficiency Projects in the MENA Region” on the 14 and 15 September 2021. The workshop was preceded by a day on financial advisory services for municipal energy efficiency projects in the MENA region.
The workshop has been a follow-up to the dialogue event held virtually in May 2021. This project workshop aimed at facilitating exchange of know-how and experience through peer learning among urban practitioners in MENA and Germany, supporting the project owners to define a roadmap and appropriate measures to progress with the development of the project ideas into bankable project proposals (technical advisory), as well as supporting consensus building among different stakeholders engaged in the planning and implementation of the project ideas, and determining future support needed to implement project ideas, which includes support from the Connective Cities network and German municipalities.
Nine Municipalities from Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Tunisia presented their project ideas and had a chance to further develop them in the fields of: improving energy efficiency in municipal buildings, energy efficiency via reduction of fuel consumption in waste management and energy efficient street lighting.
Climate Resilient Urban Development in Southeast Europe
From October 26th until November 6th 2020 around 30 urban practitioners from 11 Southeast European cities (from 8 different countries Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Belarus, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Germany) came together virtually to exchange their experiences and expertise in the field of Urban Mobility and Green Urban Infrastructure. Especially challenges in waste management, transportation and public lighting system and water revitalization were discussed intensively, as they represent pressing issues for many Southeast European cities.
The aim of the workshop was to jointly work out comprehensive project plans which can be the basis for technical and financial proposals for funding. The workshop focused on the following topics:
- Green Infrastructure – based on the notion that protecting and enhancing nature and natural processes are consciously taken into consideration in the context of spatial planning and territorial development.
- Urban Mobility – developing and implementing sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMP) including private as well as public transportation.
The event was a follow-up to the virtual dialogue event conducted in June 2020 with representatives of 24 municipalities as well as international experts. Where, based on innovative methodologies such as Design Thinking, participants from 9 countries worked on their first project ideas.
These two weeks of synchronous and asynchronous workshops were participated by the officials from institutions, representatives from urban networks that share the project’s objectives, and experienced professional from the civil society and the private sector, who work in the thematic areas as well as academia in the field of urbanism, spatial planning, geography, climate change and other disciplines. During the workshop, also donor organizations were invited to get to know the projects, to answer questions of the municipalities and to support financial proposals and grant applications written in a professional way.
Climate Resilient Urban Development in South East Europe
More than 40 local urban practitioners from 24 municipalities and 8 countries, fitting under the EU’s regional dimension of Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans, intensively exchanged their experiences/municipal expertise within 2 weeks of digital experience on the topic of “climate resilient urban development” and jointly developed solutions and project ideas. They followed the invitation of Connective Cities to an unprecedented and unique experience: Virtual Dialogue Event: “Climate Resilient Urban Development” on 8-19 June 2020.
It has been increasingly understood that rapid urbanization and climate risks mean greater vulnerability to urban development. Many cities worldwide face significant challenges arising from natural hazards. The Southeast European region is no exception, whereas the climate resilient urban development becomes a central pillar of local sustainability policies. Most of the countries in the region continue to face environmental and climate change challenges.
This event offered a virtual platform to discuss these challenges and supported municipalities in developing locally adapted solutions for climate challenges; in exchanging cities’ significant experience of developing successful possible options and good practises; in transforming innovative urban project ideas into digital solutions especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, as this latter continues to impact heavily the lifestyle at all levels including the sustainable urban development workers and it’s needed to adapt to more innovative and agile ways of working for future crises responses.
During the 2 weeks asynchronous and synchronous digital experience participants listened to inspiring Keynote presentations from leading European scientists and shared insights with peers in carefully curated Peer2Peer collaboration and exchange formats. They learned how to collaborate digitally and got acquainted with some tools, methods and the overall mindset Design Thinking.
The project has built a Network, an exchange platform of urban players, which provides a systematic access to practice-oriented solutions for sustainable urban development by facilitating change and providing mutual support.
Climate just and climate proof urban development
As a prelude to the new learning process of Connective Cities in Latin America, the dialogue event “Climate just and climate proof urban development” took place in Niterói, Brazil, from 26-28 November 2019. Cooperation partners of the event were the city of Niterói and UCLG Learning.
The 32 participants in the event, mainly local practitioners, came from 17 cities in six countries: Brazil, Germany, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico. All participants work in their cities or projects on the topic of climate resilience/climate adaptation in the context of sustainable urban development. The aim of the event was to exchange experience and knowledge among local practitioners on the subject, to get to know good practices and to give mutual advice to colleagues, as well as to develop project ideas for further processing in subsequent events.
During an excursion, the group first got to know some of the current and completed projects of the Niterói Municipality in situ, and then gained further insights during a meeting with the Mayor Rodrigo Neves.
Challenges of organising flood management
Under the slogan “Challenges of Organising Flood Management”, the 6th Dialogue event of the international community of practice Connective Cities was carried out. Between 9th and 11th February 2015 representatives from municipal, state, and national institutions from Germany, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, China, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ireland and Pakistan met in Cologne to exchange on their local experiences.
The objectives of the event were to strengthen the knowledge exchange between German cities and cities from emerging and developing countries, as well as from other industrialised countries, in order to identify good practices, to start a mutual learning process and to develop common project ideas.