Connective Cities
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT
NEWSLETTER - EDITION No. 32, September 2020

Dear Readers,

3 months have passed since our last newsletter at the end of May. At that point, the Covid-19 pandemic was just taking off, many countries were in the middle of lockdown and the number of infected people skyrocketed in many countries. Still most of us did not expect, that the pandemic would hit so hard, in so many countries, that it would turn our lives upside-down and would cause so much hardship to many people on this planet.

Many cities have faced enormous challenges during that time. Cities have tried with all means to build their health facilities and staff up, tried to break infections chains. They had to convince the population on the necessity of new and often very strict regulations, had to look after vulnerable people during lockdown - to name just a few aspects.

Connective Cities has adapted a lot too! Due to the fact, that travelling in order to get together in workshops around the world became completely impossible, the choice was to stop with our activities completely or to adapt them to virtual formats. We have chosen the latter and had made the experience that despite all current challenges, municipal experts were and still are very enthusiastic to exchange - even if just virtually.

Connective Cities has therefore set up a virtual platform and has implemented already four intensive and interactive virtual dialogue and planning events over 3 to 10 days with impressive and very interesting results of the virtual working groups and showcasing many good practice presentations!

We also have started our series on Covid-19 Municipal Response Dialogue with the objective to exchange on lessons learned but also to develop solutions jointly in order to face this crisis. Six virtual events have been already implemented as for example “Pandemic Response in refugee-hosting cities” or “Work in crisis teams and operational planning” to name just two.

The essence is: the Covid-19 pandemic has not stopped the readiness and enthusiasm of urban practitioners to work on the improvement of livelihoods in their cities. Furthermore, Corona has shown, that in challenging times it is even more important to reach out to each other and to work jointly on our common challenges.  Connective cities is ready to support you in this process with lots of new - for the time being virtual - exchange and learning events and virtual space to network in all world regions and we are looking very much forward to meeting you there!

Stay safe and healthy!

Best regards,

Your Connective Cities Team

Review
Climate-proof and Resilient Urban Development
Connective Cities virtual workshop: Project planning of municipal adaptation measures in Latin American cities

29 participants from eight different countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Germany, Spain, USA) came together virtually to exchange experiences and knowledge. Project ideas were elaborated by revising strategic approaches with peer support and reflecting on examples from municipal practice.

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Climate Resilient Urban Development in South East Europe
Conective Cities virtual dialogue event, 8-19 June 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has connected cities more closely, not separated them! This virtual event is only the beginning of our future collaboration and longer-term cooperation to discuss the challenges around the topic of climate resilient urban development and to support municipalities in developing new project ideas among like-minded people.

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Municipal Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Connective Cities virtual event series from 29.06. to 07.07.20

More than 40 municipal representatives from around 30 cities in MENA, sub-Saharan Africa and Germany took part in the virtual event series on municipal responses to the COVID 19 pandemic: In detail:

Virtual Event I: Public health and administrative municipal processes

Virtual Event II: Provision of Municipal Services

Virtual Event III: Economic impacts and recovery

Work in crisis teams and operational planning
Lessons learned in the Corona crisis

On August 26th Connective Cities held the first global exchange of experiences on lessons learned from the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thirty municipal health practitioners from Brazil, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany, Georgia, Jordan, Lebanon, South Africa and Zimbabwe discussed the topic "Work in crisis teams and operational planning". Good practices were presented by Greater Amman Municipality, Jordan, Mbombela, South Africa and Germany.

The exchange is part of the virtual event series “International exchange of experiences: lessons learned in the Covid-19 crisis” and aims to facilitate the exchange of concrete municipal action related to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Insights
Documentation: Avoiding, Collecting and Recycling Plastic Waste – The Contribution of Municipal Waste Management Systems
Connective Cities Dialogveranstaltung from 3 to 5 December 2019 in Hamburg, Germany

The documentation describes in detail the format of the dialogue event, the good practices and results of the working groups as well as the planned further steps to implement the developed project ideas.

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Niteroi Resilience Plan
Intensive administrative cooperation for effective disaster prevention

The municipal government of Niteroi, Brazil, has developed a resilience plan to directly and indirectly strengthen the municipal civil protection. The resilience plan is of great importance for the city and has changed a lot.

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Towards ecological urban development in Palestine
The green town of Ajja

For the Palestinian town Ajja, transitioning into a sustainable growth path was a result of a comprehensive vision by its municipal council backed up by the local population to build resilient municipal infrastructure that utilizes renewable energy sources and promotes sustainable management of the town’s resources.

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Promoting female employment in the water sector services in Jordan
Insights from the City of Mafraq

Despite societal and structural challenges that impede women’s participation in the Jordanian labor market, a pioneer program in Jordan has resulted in promoting female employment in the water sector services in refugee-hosting cities.

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International exchange of experiences: lessons learned in the Covid-19 crisis
Continuously updated

Events, videos and current news to fight the pandemic in a municipal context.

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outlook
International exchange of experiences: lessons learned in the Covid-19 crisis
Connective Cities invites German and international urban practitioners to a virtual event series

Municipalities currently have to learn at breakneck speed to master new situations. But the crisis has also shown how important it is for municipalities to be resilient: this applies to direct crisis management as well as to appropriate urban planning that is geared to resilience.

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Virtual exchange on establishing an organisation of informal resource collectors in Mitrovica, Kosovo
Developing structures for better organisation of the informal waste sector together with the informal waste collectors.

Connective Cities is organising several online sessions in the coming months in which experts will discuss with the Kosovar city of Mitrovica how to successfully establish an organisation for informal waste collectors.

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Local Economic Development and Job Creation in MENA
Connective Cities Virtual Dialogue Event from 29.09.2020 to 07.10.2020

Beyond the Immediate Response to the Economic Impacts of the Pandemic: urban practitioners from the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) and Germany are cordially invited to take part in the Connective Cities virtual dialogue event.

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Sustainable and resilient, regional and intermunicipal land management
Call for Participants: Connective Cities Dialogue Event from 18 to 20 November 2020 in Trier, Germany

Challenges and opportunities for growing urban and regional centres: The event is geared towards both German and international municipal actors working on proofing their land management plans and strategies for their cities.

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Climate Resilient Urban Development in Southeast Europe
Connective Cities' virtual planning workshop from 26 October to 5 November 2020

The planning workshop aims to further develop project ideas by revising strategic approaches with the support of leading international experts, urban scientists or development cooperation workers.

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Connect
Experts
Finding experts - registering as an expert
The expert database of the Connective Cities web portal facilitates networking of municipal professionals from Germany and other countries worldwide, interested in a global exchange of their expertise. 
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Good Practices
Practical examples from experts for experts
Benefit from our constantly growing collection of successful projects for sustainable urban development, through using it as an inspiration and learning from the experience of practitioners.
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Connective Cities is a joint project of:
Association of German Cities
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Service Agency Communities in One World

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Contact: Ricarda Meissner
Email: ricarda.meissner@giz.de
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