40 IUC North America & European Cities gather in Brussels in November 2019 to learn & share sustainable development approaches

The International Urban Cooperation (IUC) programme is funded by the European Union and provides a platform for cities to share solutions to common problems facing urban areas. It is part of a long-term strategy by the European Union to foster sustainable urban development. The North America regional program of the IUC is supporting 20 cities from across Europe in their parings with 20 cities from Mexico, the US and Canada.

The group was in Brussels in November 2019 to participate in the 3rd International Urban Cooperation program city-to-city event. Over 200 local and subnational actors from around the world shared knowledge and presented innovative and inspiring examples of local sustainable development and climate action.

IUC-NA also brought together representatives from 39 of the 40 participating cities from North America for immersive workshops just before and after the larger event.

Eleven first-round city pairs presented the challenges, achievements and results of their city-to-city cooperation. These cities first came together in late 2018 and their partnerships culminated with this event.

Canada– European city pairs

Burlington — Växjö (Sweden). Burlington is creating an Urban Park Strategy that is accessible and inclusive. The city aims to provide opportunities to enhance physical activity and a green network system of natural, open spaces and parks areas to improve the physical and mental health of residents. The cooperation with Växjö focused on building the capacity of municipal staff on sustainable development measures in the face of climate change. For Växjö, they focused on creating a vision for green infrastructure and a list of actions for implementing that vision for a regeneration area of the city. Both cities used the opportunity of the partnership to create a platform of peer exchange in their respective projects and found great value in the learning exchanges and technical visits between their cities. In addition to a number of technical visits, the pair conducted six webinars that drilled down into specific sustainable urban development topics (for e.g., stormwater management, low carbon cities) and are planning to continue working together.

Fredericton-Parma (Italy). Fredericton and Parma developed a joint project to examine gender equity in leadership roles in municipal government. The study examined the impact of assumed barriers to female participation in local government leadership positions. Fundamental to the success of the pilot project was the development of tools and methodologies that can be used in future studies to examine different interventions and can be tailored for other under-represented groups. As a result of the IUC Project, barriers were identified in both municipalities as well as the necessary changes to policies and practices to ensure that gender lens is applied to future work.

Montreal-Manchester (UK). Montreal and Manchester worked together with a focus on smart cities and regional / urban innovation, competitiveness and technology integration, and social inclusion and gender equality. Manchester reported gaining a deeper understanding of specific actions they could take to create a more inclusive economy — actions that they integrated into their recently completed economic development strategy. The pair also completed a social economy research project and technical visit on social procurment as well as shared learning and peer feedback on policy areas including affordable housing and decentralization. Participants reflected that the program was an excellent way to develop a relationship between cities. They wished they could have found better ways to include colleagues beyond local government and would have liked to have implemented a pilot project through their cooperation.

Ottawa-Malmö (Sweden). Malmo and Ottawa sought to advance innovative solutions and identify economic development opportunities in response to priorities related to energy and climate change. Their key learning outcomes included business opportunities for five local cleantech companies. Both cities identified the partnership as helping to understand new concepts and methods to accelerate sustainable urban development including how to better engage local business in sustainable development through the Business Improvement Districts/Areas concept as well as testing WWF’s One Planet Living Planning Tool. The pair felt that the IUC Program was a very successful program while noting that it takes time to establish working relationships. Allowing flexibility around the inclusion of new areas of interest was very important for their cooperation.

Guelph-Rijeka (Croatia). The focus of the cooperation between Guelph and Rijeka was on energy management, greenhouse gas reduction, economic development, and smart city innovations like open data. Representatives visited one another for technical visits and capacity building and traveled together to Murcia, Spain to learn more about certification under the ISO 50001 energy management system. They also learned about business accelerator programs and participated in the Intelligent Community Forum Smart Cities Global Summit in New York City.

Windsor-Vitoria Gasteiz (Spain). The areas of cooperation for the cities of Windsor and Vitoria Gasteiz were low-carbon transportation options such as active transportation and increasing public transit use. Their objectives were to reduce the environmental impact and noise from transport, increase the accessibility of public spaces and reduce the space used by cars to improve the public realm for pedestrians and cyclists. The exchanges between Windsor and Vitoria-Gasteiz allowed delegates to discuss urban planning matters and to exchange ideas and advice based on the participants’ knowledge of the local context. The visits also allowed staff to look at other sustainable urban development areas such as the nature conservation strategy of both cities. Attending high-level conferences such as the Vancouver Ecocities Summit was also paramount for getting to know other cities’ successful experiences and for developing new contacts. The update of the Vitoria-Gasteiz Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) benefited from the knowledge exchange and has influenced Windsor’s SUMP that was developed as part of the IUC program. Windsor is exploring the opportunity to conduct a pilot project involving the soil remediation technology (phytosude) that a Vitoria-Gasteiz expert presented to the city during a technical visit.

Mexico– European city pairs

Colima -Galaţi (Romania). This pairing has focused on the topics of urban resilience. Colima is working on waste management and mobility and Galati is creating public policy on urban resilience and increasing public participation in the design of public space. In addition to two Learning Exchanges, the cities participated in capacity building events such as ICLEI’s Resilient Cities Forum in Bonn and the ISWA Congress in Bilbao, Spain. They also developed two technical visits to drill down on their cooperation objectives. Colima intends to identify and participate in financing programs to implement their Downtown Mobility Plan and Urban Solid Waste Management Program developed through the IUC program. Both cities are planning to identify and implement pilot actions related to the initial areas of cooperation with the financial assistance of relevant EU programs. For both cities, participating in the IUC program has been a positive experience with tangible results.

Chihuahua-Zaragoza (Spain). The cities worked together on defining their city visions, sustainable urban mobility, economic development, and accessibility, with the objectives of advancing strategic planning, improving sustainability at the economic, social, and environmental levels, strengthening economic development, and fostering entrepreneurship, business, and trade relationships. The cities worked together to deliver a city forum geared towards city stakeholders involved in urban development. They also created a series of webinars led by IUC partner city experts. With knowledge gained through the partnership, Chihuahua developed and drafted a New Urban City Plan. Zaragoza delivered its annual intensive training course for public servants outside of Spain — in November in Mérida, 26 students from five countries participated in courses in strategic urban planning and management. The cities also focused on economic sustainability as their Chambers of Commerce connected the economic sector and local entrepreneurship programs in both cities in order to exchange good practices.

Mérida-West Athens (Greece). Mérida and West Athens worked together on sustainable urban mobility planning and participation. Through the partnership, West Athens built its capacity in the elaboration of a social participation strategy in mobility planning while Mérida increased its capacity for urban mobility planning at a strategic level through the development of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan. This included establishing a local task force group and conducting participatory and inclusive processes. Mérida and West Athens reflected that key components to their successful participation included long-term planning, a shared vision, strengthening technical capacities, partnerships and alliances, trust building, recognition of local strengths and knowledge exchange. A concrete result for Mérida is that the city now has developed a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan at a strategic level, using the EU mobility planning methodology, with contributions from international and national consultants, and involving key local stakeholders in open participatory processes.

MA Guadalajara-Hamburg (Germany). The two cities focused on waste management and citizen participation processes, building models and experience in using new technologies in public administration and in public services. Their objectives were to strengthen and develop municipal capacities in urban solid waste management learning from the “Energy Hill” project in Hamburg. For both cities, fruitful and relevant knowledge exchange took place over the course of learning exchanges and technical visits. Hamburg learned from Guadalajara how to organize technical requirements to execute a working and functional data system for citizen participation. Likewise, Hamburg has is implementing an integrated GIS-based system for civic participation (DIPAS ) and this is of interest for Guadalajara. Hamburg will prepare several funding applications for EU sustainable development grants through Horizon 2020. Hamburg has already included Guadalajara in two Horizon 2020 applications as ‘associate partner’ and will be included in future projects.

US — European city pairs

Austin-Metropolitan City of Bologna (Italy). The pair focused their cooperation on the circular economy, innovation, creative cities, and smart cities. To boost the circular economy, both cities exchanged knowledge and experience. For Austin the focus was on climate resilience. Austin and Bologna participated in Austin’s SXSW Cities Summit and the Open Government Partnership Summit, where they met civic leaders and creative innovators from all over the world to discuss, learn and strategize to address common pressing issues. For Bologna, the visit to Austin’s forefront initiatives was inspirational and pushed them to innovate and transfer some elements into their work. During the pairing activities, both cities had the opportunity to explore different ways to face similar problems and challenges. This allowed them to enrich their knowledge, discovering different points of view, methodologies, and solutions, collecting ideas, and stimuli to improve. Through the cooperation process with Austin, Bologna also created a pilot project to improve its support services for innovative companies, particularly in the context of the circular economy and learning about open government initiatives.

City pairing delegates were given the opportunity to reflect on the presentations and to discuss in small groups. Those city pairs who started in the second or third wave (i.e., early or mid-2019) found it very useful to hear about the challenges, activities, opportunities and results from the earlier pairs as they are in the midst of their own cooperative action planning processes. Many of the city representatives discussed how they would like to partner with other cities in the IUC-North America cohort who are facing similar challenges.

Small working groups on key IUC-NA themes:

The participating cities were divided into the three core thematic networking themes for working group discussions on Urban mobility, Circular Economy / Urban Waste Management and Inclusive economic development.

Key Takeaways form Sustainable Urban Mobility Working Group:

The Sustainable Urban Mobility group shared their experiences in changing user behavior through methods ranging from storytelling to the regulation of micro-mobility modes; from public-private partnerships to the financial and operational challenge of mobility across state and national borders. The group proposed having a series of webinars to address these topics further. Delegates also exchanged contact information to seek technical advice — the cities of Edmonton, Strasbourg, and Santa Monica have already started exchanging information on electric vehicles.

Key Takeaways from the Circular Economy Working Group:

The Circular Economy group focused on job creation opportunities, particularly for social entrepreneurs, and on developing legislation to put the onus on manufacturers to deal with their own waste. They also explored spaces and programming such as “fix it” clinics and tool libraries. At the macro level, national governments could develop plans by identifying the most difficult industries (e.g., food, textiles, etc.) and look to close the loop, develop targets for reducing waste or creating industrial symbiosis opportunities (i.e., the waste of one industry as the input to another, clustering and locational advantages). There was some discussion of exercising caution in creating new platforms. While they can be beneficial, (for instance, by-product exchange platforms), they should be carefully planned to avoid overlap and competing options. The group found that switching mindsets and economic models away from the consumption model back to scarcity is one of the biggest first steps.

Key Takeaways from the Inclusive Economic Development Working Group:

The Inclusive Economic Development group discussed the range of challenges facing cities as they strive to create more inclusive and equitable local economic development. Baltimore has been working to get city-wide public input on its Inclusive and Equitable Economic Plan which includes capacity building in local communities and being intentional about how the city’s recourses and opportunities are distributed across neighborhoods and areas of the city. Manchester has been working in a similar way on its Inclusive Economic Plan which moves away from past economic development plans which have focused almost exclusively on technology and growth. Birmingham (USA) is facing many challenges related to inclusion and equity in the city and is also in a process to refocus economic opportunities in the city for a shared benefit for all. For Chihuahua an important element of inclusive economic development is gender equity and monitoring inclusion across sectors as well as recognizing the need to provide accessible education and training to increase a wider participation in the economic activities. For Montreal the focus as they move towards inclusion is on Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and how the city can support SMEs more effectively. Participants all agreed that their cities need to step up efforts to create more inclusive local economic development and would welcome further opportunities to collaborate with one another.

What participants had to say

This article was written by the Lisa Cavicchia, IUC Coordinator for Canada. For more information on the program, see https://iuc.eu/