The city of Trujillo is working on a public transport reform. Connective Cities supported the process by conducting a project workshop on the topic of “Planning sustainable urban development and improvement of public transport in Trujillo”. 20 practitioners from various departments of the municipal administration of Trujillo, representatives of the city of Cuzco as well as a Colombian and two German municipal public transportation experts took part in the event. After analysing the current situation, presentations of Good Practices gave insights on various examples. After peer-to-peer advisory sessions, project proposals were developed on the last day.

The Connective Cities Practitioners´ Workshop was addressed to host communities in Jordan and German Municipalities. The 34 participants, eight from Germany and 26 from Jordan, who came from municipalities, politics, universities and the civil society, exchanged their experiences on the topics of integrated district development, energy efficient and climate friendly districts, the development of public and green spaces as well as climate neutral and sustainable water management and developed six project ideas. Good examples from Krefeld, Munich, Würzburg, Berlin and Hamburg, as well from Karak, Jerash, Bayyoudha and Amman gave insights to gained experiences.

The Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) and the international city platform Connective Cities in cooperation with Naga City Municipality welcomed representatives of communities from India, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines as well as international experts from Germany and Australia to a Good Practice Laboratory for Effective Urban Infrastructure Planning in Naga City and Manila, Philippines, November 20-23, 2017. At the end of the three days, participants through peer-to-peer counseling knew initiatives, best practice experience, and various types of support to strengthen cities' skills and capabilities getting acquainted with the preparation of bankable urban infrastructure investment projects.

The international Community of Practice “Connective Cities” and the municipal company Stadtreinigung Hamburg brought together 23 institutions from Germany, Jordan, Moldova, Morocco, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine and Zimbabwe, in order to facilitate the experts’ exchange on Climate Protection through Circular Waste Management. The participants presented their good practices and local challenges and jointly developed new project ideas. For their implementation, Connective Cities will support the concretization and further planning, e.g. through expert assignments and webinars.

Despite investments in cycling, such as the development of a network of bicycle paths, the proportion of cyclists in Skopje is still very low. The city of Skopje presented their cycling concept in a dialogue event in Bremen on sustainable mobility in July 2017. During the workshop the participants analyzed the city's cycling challenges, enhanced working relationships between and among different stakeholders and developed recommendations for measures to increase the number of cyclists in Skopje. 

A total of nine municipalities and municipal companies from Germany applied at the end of last year for the organization of an international dialogue event. Two new topics were included in the 2018 annual program: The city of Bonn has set the theme "Municipal Approaches to Inclusive and Accessible Urban Development". The city of Nuremberg will host a dialogue event on "Digital City - Opportunities and Challenges". The dates of the events can be found on our website shortly.

The Connective Cities team would like to take this opportunity to thank all participants in the call for the very good submissions. We are confident that in addition to Bonn and Nuremberg, we will be able to integrate all other municipalities and municipal companies that have submitted a topic into our activities.

The District Secretariat of Women geo-referenced 17,708 points in Bogotá regarding factors that threaten the safety of women in public places by using cellular devices. The research routes were defined jointly with diverse groups of women and information collected on 8 variables: illumination, openness of the space, visibility, number of people occupying the space, presence of public or private security, gender diversity, condition of the walkway and proximity to public transport. The technology was developed by ALS SafetiPin in India and the methodology was transferred from New Delhi and adapted to the Colombian context.

From 22 to 27 November 2017, Connective Cities organized a study tour on the subject of "circular economy in Germany" for Turkish municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg as part of the "Municipal Know-how for the Middle East Initiative" and in cooperation with  UCLG-MEWA (Middle East and West Asia Section of UCLG). Following the study tour, the Turkish delegates had the opportunity to participate in the Connective Cities dialogue event on "Climate protection through circular waste management" in Hamburg in order to develop concrete ideas for projects at local level.

Given the rapid growth of cities and their transformative role in mitigating greenhouse gases and adapting to the effects of climate change, cities face enormous challenges in the design and financing of resource-conserving and resilient infrastructure projects. This event is geared towards urban practitioners with an interest and first-hand experience in sustainable urban mobility and climate change. Municipal actors include representatives from cities and projects concentrating on the management of urban mobility/transport as well as representatives of different stakeholder groups, such as local government and administration, private business, civil society, and science and research. Related networks from the region are also welcome. All participants are expected to engage proactively in the practitioners’ workshop by presenting their experience, highlighting examples of good practices in their municipality and/or identifying concrete challenges they face. Connective Cities is organizing the event in collaboration with local and international partner organizations that will share their own experiences on this topic. 

The upcoming Ninth Session of the World Urban Forum from Febr 6-13, 2018 in Kuala Lumpur will be the first session to focus on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda adopted in Habitat III.

To support this agenda Connective Cities will hold a training event on “Urban Practitioners’ Networks for Better Urban Services – The Cases of Urban Mobility and Urban Renewal”.

The training event represents an applied capacity development approach via networking among urban practitioners. Exchanging experiences in the fields of Urban Mobility and Urban Renewal, which serve as practical examples, participants of this workshop will learn about sharing of good practices for urban solutions and apply the peer-to-peer-advisory method in two thematic fields of interaction.