Addressing the challenges of climate change together as partners

Berlin, 16 to 17 November 2021. Since the end of 2019, the coronavirus had meant that all workshops and network meetings for these participants had had to take place online. The participants were therefore delighted to meet once again in person, at least for the results workshop. The pandemic, which has been ongoing since March 2020, has made cooperation between the ten climate partnerships particularly difficult during this seventh project cycle. This is because physical meetings – normally an important basis for working together successfully as partners– have no longer been possible during this time.

In order to nevertheless create an opportunity for this all-important dialogue and joint work, over the last eighteen months the project team and participating climate partnerships have moved the missions online. Instead of field visits, working sessions in town halls and joint social evenings within the partnerships, this phase has focused mainly on virtual marathon meetings.

Despite all the adverse circumstances, the result is impressive: Through their motivation and dedication, the climate partnerships have developed high-quality programmes of action.

Among the 50 participants of the results workshop, who included mayors, the hosts were able to welcome to Berlin in person delegates from nine German municipalities, one Ghanaian, one South African and one Argentinean municipality. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, no other delegations from the other municipalities were able to attend the results workshop in person.

As in the previous project phase, partner municipalities from the two continents of Africa and Latin America are again participating in the seventh phase of the municipal climate partnerships. This should also strengthen South-South exchange.

For a group work session on forward planning of first joint activities and the next visit in each of the climate partnerships, the other African and Latin American partner municipalities joined the meeting online.

Day one was devoted to an intensive presentation of the programmes of action drawn up over the last two and a half years.

Here, a poster exhibition provided a good overview of all climate partnerships, showing their work results and main topics. After that, each partnership presented selected concrete measures that they intend to implement in the short to medium term following completion of their programmes of action. These examples reflected the full range of activities of the municipal climate partnerships.

Day two began with a presentation by Dr Markus Groth from the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS). In his keynote speech, he presented some interesting aspects of local adaptation to the impacts of climate change, with a focus on challenges and possible solutions. After that, the group work on forward planning began.

The topic of sustainable waste or wastewater management plays a central role in many partnerships. The climate partnership between the District of Reutlingen (Germany) and Ulundi (South Africa), for example, has already held its first public recycling workshop with around 100 participants. The next planned project in Ulundi will involve the use of waste collection trucks, followed by the manufacture and use of plastic sand bricks. The project will be implemented as part of a project partnership with Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Several climate partnerships are planning projects in the field of reafforestation and sustainable forest management. One example is the climate partnership Bad Berleburg (Germany) – Morogoro District, (Tanzania), which plans to train farmers in sustainable agro-ecological methods at an agricultural school.
Sustainable water management is the focus of the climate partnership Gersthofen (Germany) – Baringo County (Kenya). Here, 4,200 inhabitants, several schools and a hospital will be supplied with drinking water for the first time.

Several municipalities are planning environmental education measures. They plan to establish or step up school exchange activities. Solar energy is also a topic addressed by several partnerships, though this is not the top priority for any of the climate partnerships in this phase.

The climate partnership Karlsdorf-Neuthard (Germany) –Guabiruba (Brazil) has placed sustainable mobility on its agenda, and would like to begin by implementing a project for the construction or retrofitting of bus stops with green roofs and/or facades.

Some partnerships have even already submitted project proposals. Two examples are Münster (Germany) – Monastir (Tunisia) (proposing a recycling centre and composting plant in Monastir), and Neu-Isenburg (Germany) – Kwadaso (Ghana) (proposing the planting of 40,000 trees for climate change mitigation and adaptation). These partnerships plan to realise their measures through the 'Programme to Support Municipal Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Projects' (FKKP) and the 'Partnership Projects for Sustainable Local Development ' (Nakopa) programme. Both programmes are delivered by the Service Agency.

Fortified and motivated by their dialogue with the other municipalities, and with fresh ideas, the climate partnerships will now embark on the next stage, which involves implementation and the continuous improvement process. To implement concrete measures from their programmes of action, the climate partnerships will be able to use Engagement Global's support programmes, which are delivered by the Service Agency. These include for instance Nakopa, FKKP and the Small-Scale Projects Fund.

For the coming year, the Municipal Climate Partnerships project will also be offering a further support measure. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, at least one or even two missions were cancelled. The meetings held online could only partially make up for this loss. Consequently, the project will allow all ten climate partnerships one additional mission in 2022, in order to discuss further steps and hone their programmes of action.