Dear readers,

The year 2024 has begun and with it our annual planning. Even if everything has not been yet finalized, we would like to take this opportunity to outline where our content will be focused.

We will continue the ongoing regional learning processes:

In sub-Saharan Africa, we will continue to explore the topic of "flood management for risk-informed urban development" in greater depth, including through expert missions to participating cities from February to April and through virtual workshops. The final event of the learning process is planned in Gabarone, Botswana, in May 2024.
The "Renewable energies for local economic development" working group will also be continued.

At the beginning of March, the six participating municipalities in our "Heat in the City" Deep-Dive will meet for the second time in Nairobi.

In South-eastern Europe, we will further develop specific project ideas as part of another event on the learning process "Options for renewable energies at municipal level".

We will also continue our municipal exchange between Ukraine and Germany through further events.

As our event on "Climate-friendly construction with organic and recyclable materials" in Potsdam was met with a great deal of interest, we will be further exploring the topic through a virtual workshop on "CO2 balance, circular construction and circular economy" in February. Expert missions are also being considered on this topic are also being considered.

We will also be initiating new activities and processes:

In the MENA region, we will initiate two new working groups on the topics of "tourism promotion" and "local economic development".

Two new working groups are also planned in South-eastern Europe. The topics are "Strengthening the rights of the LGBTQAI+ community" and "Mining towns".

In sub-Saharan Africa, a working group on "Sustainable affordable housing" will be launched shortly.

For our dialog events in Germany, we are currently evaluating the proposals submitted for our call for topics, and the results for which will be published shortly.

This is just the first step. Further working groups and workshops will follow. Stay tuned!

And as always, in this newsletter we have compiled a review of recent events, insights into good municipal practice and an outlook on events that have already been scheduled.

We wish you an inspiring reading

Your Connective Cities Team