Schlagwort: Import-Documents-10-06-2025

Improving Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Provision of Water, Wastewater & Urban Mobility Services in Sub Saharan Africa

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Between the 7th and 18th of September, 2020 in intermittent virtual sessions, about 43 participants from 24 cities and representing 7 African countries and Germany, congregated to share best practices and develop project ideas in the afore-mentioned areas

With the ever-increasing population and urbanization in most countries in Sub Saharan Africa, the demand for basic services also increases yet the municipalities and cities have not been able to match the supply to demand. A lot of challenges ail these sectors but there are efforts to sustainably sustain service provision.

The objectives of the dialogue event were to:
1. Facilitate exchange of experiences based on good practices of public service delivery among urban practitioners from municipalities in Sub-Saharan Africa and Germany,
2. Facilitate peer-to-peer advisory services to address the current challenges of public service delivery in the cities of the participants and create new knowledge,
3. Develop the capacity of the participants to analyse existing strategies and to formulate project ideas and envisaged solutions for efficient and effective public service delivery, and
4. Define future support measures to strengthen project development and implementation skills as well as ongoing exchange through the community of practice, Connective Cities.

The countries involved in this dialogue event were; Ethiopia, Ghana, Germany, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The event was a starting point for action planning for project ideas to be developed.

This report is the documentation of the virtual event.

SDG-Indikatoren für Kommunen

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Nachhaltigkeit ist weder Modewort noch Plattitüde. Sie lässt sich anhand messbarer Kriterien umsetzen und gestalten. Gefragt sind ein stetiges Vorausdenken und vor allem handeln. Die globalen und nationalen Nachhaltigkeitsziele sind und waren stets Messlatte für die Kommunen. Die „resiliente Post-Corona-Kommune“, die nun gefordert wird, macht die Dimensionen von Nachhaltigkeit deutlich. Kommunen müssen widerstandsfähig und belastbar gegenüber ökonomischen, ökologischen oder sozialen Herausforderungen und Krisen sein. Wenn es darum geht, die Nachhaltigkeitsziele der Agenda 2030 der Vereinten Nationen (Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs) zu erreichen, nehmen die Kommunen als Lebensort der Menschen eine zentrale Rolle ein.

Die Arbeitsgruppe „SDG-Indikatoren für Kommunen“ hat sich der Aufgabe angenommen, einen Indikatorenkatalog für Kommunen zu entwickeln, der es ermöglicht, den Stand aller 17 Nachhaltigkeitsziele regelmäßig vor Ort zu untersuchen. Damit kann ein wesentlicher Beitrag zum Aufbau eines an Nachhaltigkeitsfragen ausgerichteten Vorgehens in den Kommunen geleistet werden.

Der mit dieser Broschüre vorgelegte, grundlegend überarbeitete Katalog enthält eine handhabbare Zahl an Indikatoren, die gemeinsam mit kommunalen Praktikern entwickelt und erprobt wurden. Dieser Indikatorenkatalog stellt dabei einen Baukasten dar. Jede Kommune entscheidet für sich, welche und wie viele Indikatoren sie ihrer Arbeit mit den Nachhaltigkeitszielen zugrunde legt. Die „Steuerungsrelevanz“ wird damit jeweils vor Ort entschieden.

The New Leipzig Charter

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„The Leipzig Charter of 2007 has inspired urban policy in Europe and beyond. Its core message to promote integrated and sustainable urban development is as valid today as in 2007. Nowadays though, urgent global challenges such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, resource scarcity, migration movements, demographic change, pandemics and rapidly changing economies have a direct and local impact on towns and cities throughout Europe. They may also intensify disparities in our societies. In addition, digital technologies are drastically transforming society, creating potential political, social, ecological and economic benefits. However, these technologies also trigger profound new challenges such as the digital divide, lack of privacy, security issues and market dependencies. In response to these challenges the original Leipzig Charter has to be refocussed.

The need for sustainable transformation is underlined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustain- able Development, in particular Sustainable Development Goal 11 which is dedicated to making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Agreement and the European Commission’s Green Deal. The Green Deal aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent in the world and Europe as a whole has a strong responsibility as well as the collective ability to achieve this goal. The New Leipzig Charter provides a policy framework to envision and realise these European and global agreements at the urban scale.“

The Value of Sustainable Urbanization

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„The world we live in has been transformed in a manner not witnessed in recent times. In a rapidly urbanizing and globalized world, cities have been the epicentres of COVID-19. The virus has spread to virtually all parts of the world; first, among globally connected cities, and now, through community transmission and from the city to the countryside.
The World Cities Report 2020 shows that the intrinsic value of sustainable urbanization can and should be harnessed for the wellbeing of all. The report provides evidence and policy analysis of the value of urbanization from an economic, social and environmental perspective, including the unquantifiable value that gives cities their unique character; and also explores the role of innovation and technology, local governments, targeted investments and the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda in fostering the value of sustainable urbanization.“

Used Vehicles and the Environment

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Millions of used cars, vans and minibuses exported from Europe, the United States and Japan to the developing world are of poor quality, contributing significantly to air pollution and hindering efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. The UNEP-report shows that between 2015 and 2018, 14 million used light-duty vehicles were exported worldwide. Some 80 per cent went to low- and middle-income countries, with more than half going to Africa.

The first-ever report of its kind, calls for action to fill the current policy vacuum with the adoption of harmonized minimum quality standards that will ensure used vehicles contribute to cleaner, safer fleets in importing countries.

A Mayors Dialogue on Growth and Solidarity: reimagining human mobility in Africa and Europe

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Cities are at the forefront of human mobility, reducing carbon emissions and fostering social cohesion within diverse urban communities. The world is looking to city leaders to provide ideas and solutions that can be adequately resourced and that work on the ground.

Cities participating in the Mayors Dialogue on Growth and Solidarity highlighted several current and future policy priorities, with two overarching goals.

  • First, encouraging inclusive and sustainable urban growth, both in the more immediate recovery from Covid-19 and in the longer term.
  • Second, enabling social inclusion and access to services for all residents regardless of status, with a particular focus on vulnerable populations.

Inter-city cooperation takes different forms, such as long-term bilateral partnerships and city-level networks. The Dialogue will act as a broker for international partnerships, helping pairs and clusters of cities test innovative approaches to finding solutions for pressing urban challenges and catalyse new ideas, elevating mayors and cities as regional and global leaders.

Transport for under two degrees – the way forward

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The transport sector is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions at present. It accounts for approximately one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and hence figures prominently in efforts to transform the energy economy and protect the climate. Without a scaled-up global mitigation effort, it will not be possible to reach the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. A low-carbon transformation of the global transport sector is the next necessary step in the global energy transformation.

Germany’s Federal Foreign Office has commissioned the project “T4<2° – Transport for under two degrees”, a global foresight study on the decarbonisation and transformation of the transport sector to identify challenges and opportunities for a sustainable, low-carbon transport sector. The findings provide decision-makers with a clear vision and specific recommendations on how to achieve decarbonisation of the sector and orchestrate international efforts for a global transport system transformation.

Phasing out plastics

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Plastics today feature in every part of our lives and are found everywhere. The global realisation that plastics are an environmental problem has focused on plastic waste and pollution, but plastics are also problematic in terms of the global climate emergency, because almost all plastics today are made from fossil fuels. 

Building on recent literature about plastics and climate change, this report explores the potential for extensive emission reductions in the plastics sector. Using a scenario approach, we present an assessment of the technical feasibility of phasing out the production of new fossil plastics by 2050, based on detailed analysis of the potential to transform the use of plastics in four sectors – automotive, construction, packaging and electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).

South-East European Local Governments in Post Covid-19 Socio-Economic Recovery

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South-East European (SEE) local governments (LGs) have been and will certainly remain at the forefront in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic social and economic crisis. In serving and protecting their communities they have been facing unprecedented challenges in multiple dimensions. SEE local governments have been responding to these challenges with a strong spirit of solidarity, putting their citizens lives before everything else and working tirelessly to provide support to the most vulnerable.

The crisis required local governments to take timely measures to shut down selected local services, quickly switch to remote working practices and digitalise administrative services, expand programs for securing citizens healthcare, expand social protection and care for a significantly higher number of vulnerable people, take measures to allow the smooth implementation of online or long-distance learning, etc. In the aftermath of the control or minimisation of the first wave of infection SEE local governments have taken specific ad hoc measures to support the survival of their local communities and economies.

The purpose of this survey is to help improving the understanding over the impact of the COVID-19 crisis at the local government level in South-East Europe, identifying effective and innovative social and economic recovery strategies and ultimately helping formulating concrete policy proposals to inform advocacy efforts of NALAS member Local Government Associations.

Water and Climate Change

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Climate change affects – and is affected by – global water resources. It reduces the predictability of water availability and affects water quality. Climate change also increases the occurrence of extreme weather events, threatening sustainable social-economic development and biodiversity worldwide. This, in turn, has profound implications for water resources. As such, climate change exacerbates the ever-growing challenges associated with the sustainable management of water. Conversely, the way water is managed influences the drivers of climate change.

The 2020 edition of the UN World Water Development Report addresses the critical linkages between water and climate change in the context of sustainable development. It also serves as a guide for concrete actions to address these challenges. It outlines actions, supported by examples from across the world, in three areas: first, enabling people to adapt to the impacts of climate change; second, improving the resilience of livelihoods; and, third, reducing the drivers of climate change.