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Local authorities urged to join EU process for improving quality of life in cities at Bonn event

26 April 2018 09:00 - Bonn, Germany

The Italian municipality of Bologna called for local authorities attending Open European Day 2018 in Bonn (Germany) today to join them in contributing to the EU Urban Agenda

The municipality of Bologna (Italy) and the European Investment Bank called for the local governments that met at the Open European Day event in Bonn to contribute to a new Action Plan on land use planning and nature-based solutions. Bologna leading one of twelve such partnerships, eight of which include the European Investment Bank.

Giovanni Fini, City of Bologna, said: “The main aim of the partnership is to contribute to the forthcoming European policies on urban development. This is a truly challenging activity and it will only succeed if we can involve as many other European cities and local authorities as possible.”

The Open European Day was first held in 2013 and is known among municipal climate practitioners as the place to meet other local governments and swap methods and opportunities for implementing climate change adaptation and urban resilience measures.

155 local government representatives, climate change adaptation experts and local and national government representatives joined the climate adaptation conference in Bonn to meet other city representatives for peer-based discussions.

Reinhard Limbach, Deputy Mayor of the city of Bonn, hosts of the event, said: “To be prepared for future incidents, we must create suitable technical infrastructure and work on an innovative, nature-based strategy… I find it so important to come together and to make use of the elaborated European system, to benefit from the exchange with our direct neighbours.”

As the event, organised by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and the European Environment Agency, has grown over five editions, European institutions are seeing the value in joining the conversation with local governments. The 5th edition was supported by the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and Ramboll and co-organised by the European-funded Smart Mature Resilience project, RESIN – Climate Resilient Cities and Infrastructures and PLACARD. The event is held annually.

English

2018