The motto of the municipality of Bijeljina, a city of ca. 100.000 inhabitants in the north-east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is “the City of Future”. It is with this approach that the city has been focusing since 2017 in promoting local sustainability. Public spaces have already been made more inclusive and sustainable. A follow-up exchange is planned for spring 2021.

The Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia benefits from the experience of the renaturation of the Ruhr area, which was shaped by heavy industry. Important aspects such as biodiversity, stream development as well as the development of rivers as recreational areas and citizen participation in these projects were presented and discussed.

What does asset management mean in practice in the face of rapidly growing cities and scarce resources? About 25 municipal practitioners from ten cities in Germany, the Palestinian Territories, Tanzania and Uganda discussed this issue.

The goal of the two-week intensive exchange of experiences was to spark creativity, innovation, solidarity and motivation while expanding our Global Community of Practice to work together to address the global COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences with smart local solutions and strategies.

In economies largely dependent on the informal labor market, many people have lost their livelihoods. Governments have been torn between protecting lives and making a living. What can economic recovery look like? What are the options for the tourism sector? More on the exchange:

COVID-19: Economic impact and recovery.

Impacts and options for the tourism sector

Effective waste disposal as well as water supply is crucial for ensuring a hygienic environment for any population. Due to rapid urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa, this was a major challenge even before Corona. An exchange of experiences in times of pandemic. More on:

Water supply

Solid waste management and circular economy

Six good practices from Essen and Stuttgart (Germany), Aracaju, Niterói, Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Naucalpan (Mexico) were presented during the two events. Around 100 municipal practitioners from more than 20 Latin American and European cities shared experiences around the topics of infection chains and prevention measures, as well as on the topic of crisis communication.

The high engagement and full cooperation of the municipality and all relevant stakeholders was key in the success of this good practice example: creating a supporting environment to ensure the promotion of female employment and entrepreneurship for women.

Developing an investment model for this pilot project to introduce the produced fertilizer to the market will lead to new jobs, reduce greenhouse gases and improve soil quality.

The modernisation of administrative processes and municipal services through digitisation makes an important contribution to achieving "open administration" and to the transparent management and faster implementation of municipal projects.

Until mid-March, we'll introduce you to the people behind some of the projects that helped address the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 in several communities around the globe. Some of it is already online.

The Global Mayors Challenge 2021 is open to all cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The deadline for applications is 21 March 2021.

The Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance calls on European water and sanitation companies to enter into partnerships with water utilities in third countries via the EU-WOP Programme.

Connective Cities is pleased to announce that the review of the submitted proposals resulted in the selection of three topics for 2021. Three dialogue events will be held in 2021 in cooperation with the City of Bonn, City of Wiesbaden and City of Kiel. The topics of the dialogue events will be "Strengthening local implementation of the SDGs through reporting and monitoring", "Sustainable urban logic" and "Social entrepreneurship: field of action for local business development? What are the potentials for cities and how can cities promote this sector?

Following the experience of offering the Covid-19 Response Dialogue Series in 2020, in which approximately 800 people from 344 different communities participated, Connective Cities is currently designing new formats. In 2021, we will offer many opportunities for participants to plan collaborative projects focused on a sustainable post-pandemic future, as well as continue to share innovative municipal actions.

Save the Date: The first two-day Response Dialogue 2021 will be held in late March on the topic of "Covid-19: The Local Implementation of Vaccination Strategies and related Communication in Municipalities." More to come on our website soon!