A well-working community life and a democratic urban society can only flourish if public spaces are safe and accessible and offer all citizens the opportunity to participate in urban life without any risks. Good examples from Barcelona, Stockholm and Zarga (Jordan) show how this can be achieved successfully.

Municipalities in the MENA region have demonstrated impressively how they tackle recycling and circular economy challenges by improving their cooperation with social enterprises. Find inspiration for your urban solution from the innovative project ideas!

The discussions focused on how to deal with prolonged droughts, floods, the marketing of organic products and the management of micro-gardens. Participants agreed that smaller projects and community-based initiatives are increasingly becoming important. Brazzaville's educational project "Each child a garden bed" attracted particular interest among the German colleagues.

The cities of Eltville am Rhein in Germany and Tunuyán in Argentina are internationally known for their wine production and hospitality. Therefore, adaptation to climate change is a key issue for both cities. The exchange was so beneficial that the cooperation has now been formalised by a joint Memorandum of Understanding.

One of the successful achievements is the Smart City Poznan app. It is a mobile tool for communication between the residents of Poznan and the city administration. The app not only forwards important information to citizens, but also allows them to report problems in their neighbourhood and register their initiatives.

Palestinian local authorities take on social and humanitarian responsibility. The construction of a field hospital prevented the state medical centres in Ramallah and Al-Bireh from being overburdened by an increasing number of people infected with COVID-19. 

With a crowdfunding platform, the British district of Sefton involves the local community and the local economy in the process of initiation, implementation and financing of social projects. This encourages the citizens' own initiative and ensures a better quality of life.

The platform's various means of communication enable easy networking of all actors and simple real-time communication. The VoluMap app links the work of volunteers with the work of the municipality in real time. Digitalisation significantly supports crisis management.

We spoke to Josephine Miliza, co-founder of TunapandaNET, to find out how the NGO has scaled up its activities to ensure that people in Kibera, an informal settlement in south-west Nairobi, have a reliable internet connection - and thus access to crucial information during the pandemic.

Due to the consequences of the pandemic, the participation of citizens is limited. This can jeopardise the success of sustainable mobility projects. For this reason, the Connective Cities working group "Sustainable mobility after COVID-19" has developed a prototype toolbox for citizen participation with tools that can also be used during and after the pandemic.