Around 50 participants from Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Armenia, Jordan, Sweden and Germany took part in the kick-off event and agreed on goals, principles of cooperation and core topics.

Experts from Kutaisi in Georgia, Lviv in Ukraine and Kruševac in Serbia met virtually with German colleagues and shared advice on topics such as bike sharing, traffic redistribution and public transport for rural areas in vicinity of metropolitan areas.

Urban gardening is a trend in urban areas and has very different manifestations. Municipal practitioners from 9 countries and 16 cities discussed this new diversity of approaches and experiences in depth and jointly developed solutions and project ideas.

The dialogue event - highly attended by 60 participants from 19 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and Latin America - focused on issues of data availability and data collection systems for SDG monitoring, data-driven policy development, and the quality of citizen dialogue, including stakeholder engagement.

Participants at the regional event presented ten good practices from cities in Subsahara Africa and Germany on the key topics of integrating nature-based solutions into land use planning, land information systems, and participatory and inclusive land use planning. In addition, four peer consultations were held and seven project ideas were developed.

The dialogue event focused on energy efficient solutions, innovative renewable energy sources and perspectives arising from the EU Green Deal. Furthermore, the participants received information on multi-donor initiatives for the financial support of municipal projects in the field of CO2 reduction. Please also check out the concept paper "Sustainable urban energy planning in Southeast Europe" and related infographics.

The regional dialogue event for the MENA region aimed at promoting the exchange of expertise on good practices for planning and implementing energy efficiency projects. In addition, municipal representatives were provided with analysis and planning tools to better address existing challenges in implementing their projects.

The issues of crisis communication, better reconstruction in pandemic times and community-based disaster risk management were the focus of the workshop on crisis management.

The workshop on smart city development was dedicated to digital innovations and the acceleration of digitalization processes in pandemic times.

The implementation of this project, unique in Belarus, proves the multiple benefits of using green technologies on the premises of social institutions. Such projects not only reduce energy consumption and environmental impact, but also have social benefits.

The city, which received the UNESCO and UN-Habitat "Inclusive and Sustainable City" award, promotes the participation of women and young people in urban development. Another success story is the field of local economic development.

The public "Dr. Hafiz Abd-Nabi" school was designed and built according to energy efficiency standards and is naturally ventilated, heated and cooled. Students and the staff were engaged in the planning process and have benefitted from the awareness raising activities on green building design.

This detailed report describes the results of the several days lasting project workshop, where six municipalities from the MENA region analyzed the challenges of their LED projects in more detail and developed further solution and financing options.

How can we gain people's trust and reach vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and refugees, with important information on vaccination? Experts from all over the world discussed these and other questions and presented their good practices on this, e.g. from Bogotá (Colombia), Stari Grad (Serbia), Stuttgart, Krefeld (Germany), and Kiryat Shmona (Israel).

Over the past 21 months, Connective Cities has built a vibrant core network in the MENA region. To showcase the achievements and pave the way for the further growth of the network, the launch event will take place on 15 June 2021.

Connective Cities, together with the City of Wiesbaden and UN-Habitat, is organising a three-day dialogue event on 19, 20 and 22 July 2021 and cordially invites German and international municipal stakeholders from local governments, municipal enterprises, civil society, business and academia.

What are the potentials for municipalities and how can they promote social entrepreneurship? Connective Cities together with the German city of Kiel cordially invite municipal experts to the international dialogue event to discuss approaches and solutions in relation to social entrepreneurship projects in urban and regional development in an exchange of experiences.