UN Sustainable Development Goals: Bremen and Bremerhaven welcome partner municipalities

Participants included partners from Cherbourg (France), Dalian (China), Durban (South Africa), Frederikshavn (Denmark), Groningen (the Netherlands), Haifa (Israel), Izmir (Turkey), Kaliningrad (Russia), Pune (India), Riga (Latvia), Windhoek (Namibia), as well as representatives from Cameroon and the Western Sahara. More than 200 policymakers, administrators and civil society actors attended the opening of the conference in Bremen Town Hall.

The Mayor of Bremen, Dr. Carsten Sieling, welcomed the participants together with his opposite number from the maritime city of Bremerhaven, Mayor Melf Grantz.

Bärbel Dieckmann, President of Welthungerhilfe, reminded participants that results had already been achieved in many areas with the Millennium Development Goals. What we need to do now, she added, was build on this through the global Sustainable Development Goals. Swift action is called for, to which municipalities can make a key contribution with their problem-solving approaches.

Dirk Schwenzfeier, BMZ Officer for Municipalities and the Private Sector, praised the conference's approach of linking the work of municipal partnerships with the 2030 Agenda, which the Ministry sees as a contract for the global future.

The conference focused on four of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals: quality education (SDG 4), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12).
These formed a recurrent theme during the excursions and in the best practice examples. In small groups the participants explored Bremen and Bremerhaven, where they came across a wide range of activities: from the packaging-free shop to carsharing, from the 'Überseestadt' in Bremen to the wind farm in Bremerhaven.
On day two the conference focused on the manifold lessons learned in the partner municipalities: quality monitoring of schools in Riga, harnessing the ecological value of empty urban spaces in Haifa, paths toward the Smart City in Dalian, management of informal settlements in Windhoek, dealing with rural-urban migration in Izmir and sustainable tourism in Durban. There was much to report, to share and to learn. Nor did the participants fail to mention the challenges. On the contrary, they took the opportunity to ask the advice of their colleagues from all over the world.
The partners intend to meet again in two to three years to report on their progress in implementing the SDGs, and perhaps widen their focus to include more of the total of 17 SDGs that form the 2030 Agenda.