Context
As part of the National Urban Development Policy, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI) is supporting international cooperation in the area of urban development. The memorandum Urban Energies – Urban Challenges serves as the foundation for this work. Created in 2012, the memorandum sets out key tasks for sustainable urban development in the global context, addressing specific issues along with modern forms of cooperation.
Working on the basis of existing cooperation agreements, such as with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), with the South African Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) and the Ukrainian Ministry for Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services (MinReg), BMI aims to expand and further develop internationally oriented forms of learning and exchange. In so doing, BMI contributes to realising the foundations for sustainable urban development as envisioned in the Leipzig Charter. At the same time, it ensures that the conditions are optimised for implementing the National Urban Development Policy and other relevant federal programmes. Through strengthening municipal actors and city-to-city cooperation, a direct contribution to the realisation of the New Urban Agenda and the Agenda 2030 is achieved.
Objective
By exchanging and jointly developing innovative approaches to the current challenges of integrated urban development, partners at the municipal and national levels from Germany, South Africa, Ukraine and the USA identify new solutions that can be applied to the regulation, performance and financing of public and social tasks in sustainable urban development in a globalised world.
Approach
Apart from regular expert and study tours organised for urban development practitioners and policy-makers, the project focuses on establishing and expanding three trans-continental learning networks that each connect six to seven municipalities. Networks are already in place between Germany and the USA, Germany and South Africa as well as between German and the Ukraine. Participants spend 18 to 24 months acquiring knowledge from one pilot project per city. The participating cities introduce their pilot project as a case study in the context of ‘living labs’. Over the course of the entire intervention, participants jointly enhance their knowledge in these labs, advising one another, developing their ideas and putting them to the test. Guided by the project team, they support the implementation of the pilot projects in their partner communities through mutual on-site visits and virtual peer advisory meetings throughout the entire period.
In addition to providing mutual support for the actual pilot projects, the work carried out by the networks has an impact beyond the circle of participants. The project team and network members share and discusses insights gained from the projects with representatives from the national government level within the three countries. This knowledge is then integrated into the partners’ national urban development policies and programmes. The results of the concrete projects are also presented at conferences such as BMI’s annual Federal Congress on National Urban Policy and shared with other municipalities via organisations such as the Association of German Cities.