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.
Some of these virtual meetings will have a specific regional focus, while others will have a global approach and will be open to participation across the world regions.
The thematic areas of the event series are:
The working language of the event series is English. Interpretation into another language will be provided if required and depending on the regional focus.
If you would like to participate in one of the virtual exchange formats or share your experiences, we look forward to hearing from you.
If you are interested or have any questions, please contact us:
Contact for German participants
Alice Balbo, alice.balbo(at)staedtetag.de, +49 (0)221 37 71 573
Alexander Wagner, alexander.wagner(at)engagement-global.de, +49 (0)228-20717-455
Thiago Garcia, thiago.garcia(at)engagement-global.de, +49 (0)228-20717-633
Contact for international participants:
Fatina Toukan, Fatina.Toukan(at)giz.de
Paulina Koschmieder, paulina.koschmieder(at)giz.de
25.08.2020 - Civil society initiatives for pandemic response
Target group: municipalities from Germany and the MENA region
26.08.2020 - Crisis Management "Work in crisis teams and operational planning"
1pm-4pm CEST, Languages: English and German
Target group: German and international municipalities
27.08.2020 - Pandemic response in refugee hosting cities
1:30-3pm CEST, Languages: Arabic and English
Target group: municipalities from Germany and the MENA region
28.09.2020 - Experiences with contact tracing and outbreak management, part 1
Target group: German and international municipalities
07.10.2020 - Digitization of municipal services
Target group: German municipalities and municipalities from the Southeast European region
14.10.2020 - Prevention of infections through awareness, distance and support of the informal sector, part 1
Target group: German municipalities and municipalities from the Latin American region
14.10.2020 - The role of innovation in mitigating the effects of the pandemic
Target group: German municipalities and municipalities from the MENA region
27.10.2020 - Municipal services in the pandemic period: water and waste management, part 1
Target group: German municipalities and municipalities from the sub-Saharan Africa region
28.10.2020 - COVID-19 Response Dialogues: Communication in the crisis
Target group: German and international municipalities
29.10.2020 - Municipal services in the pandemic period: water and waste management, part 2
Target group: German municipalities and municipalities from the sub-Saharan Africa region
04.11.2020 - Municipal services in the pandemic period
Target group: German and international municipalities
05.11.2020 - Prevention of infections through awareness, distance and support of the informal sector, part 2
Target group: German municipalities and communities from the Latin American region
10.11.2020 - Economic Impact and Economic Recovery, part 1
Target group: German municipalities and communities from the sub-Saharan Africa region
11.11.2020 - Economic development in times of crisis
Target group: German and international municipalities
12.11.2020 - Economic Impact and Economic Recovery, part 2
Target group: German municipalities and communities from the sub-Saharan Africa region
17.11.2020 - Municipal Crisis Management and Green Recovery in Southeast Europe (SEE) and Caucasus
Target group: German municipalities and communities from the region of Southeast Europe
23.11. - 03.12.2020 - Municipal Response to COVID-19
Connective Cities Virtual Global Exchange: 8 topics, 12 events, 30 expert contributions, many Good Practices
09.12.2020 - Final Event: Experiences from the COVID-19 Response Dialogue Series
An overview of the experiences and lessons learned over the past five months in the event series.
Target group: German and international municipalities
Interested? Have a look also at the reviews of past events!