Resource Category: URBAN TRANSFORMATION
The Twin Transition Stencil Report offers a flexible framework that was developed by the UNDP Innovation and Digital team to support cities in designing and managing integrated green and digital transformation portfolios. The report responds to a common challenge faced by municipalities across Europe and Central Asia: translating high-level green and digital policy ambitions into coherent strategies, practical implementation pathways, and interventions that reflect local priorities and constraints.
Drawing on the experience of ten cities in Armenia, Kosovo[1], North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Ukraine, part of the City Experiment Fund (CEF), the report documents how CEF defined the Twin Transition, and how municipal teams used portfolio-based approaches to move beyond isolated projects toward adaptive, learning-oriented urban transformation. It introduces key concepts such as portfolio intent, areas of interest, positions, and options, and highlights various practices including experimentation, community listening, and sensemaking to support adaptive governance and long-term, sustainable urban development.
The City Experiment Fund is a UNDP-led initiative that collaborates with cities across Europe and Central Asia to tackle complex urban challenges through strategic innovation and experimentation, with financial support from the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic.
[1] References to Kosovo shall be understood in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
The course ” Funding and Finance for Municipalities: A Hands-on Guidance to Improve Project Funding” aims to address and respond to the challenges faced by municipalities in accessing the funding and finance needed to deliver infrastructure projects and sustainable development initiatives. The course will address the challenges of main revenue sources for municipalities, common bottlenecks to accessing funding and finance at a local level, and provide a foreseen solution, better understanding of the enabling conditions to improve access to funding and finance at the municipality level and identification of practical ways to do so.
Municipalities globally are pivotal in delivering essential public services and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, securing adequate resources and funding for these initiatives remains a persistent challenge. This challenge is especially acute for municipalities in secondary cities within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, which include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG), a joint EU and UNDP initiative, aims to support these local governments in overcoming such challenges. While the initiative has made strides in developing economic plans and transformative projects, the task of attracting sufficient investment remains difficult.
This course aims to identify the primary obstacles municipalities in the EaP face in accessing diverse financial resources and propose solutions and recommendations for tackling these obstacles. The findings emphasize the need for enhanced resource mobilization strategies to empower municipalities to fund and implement their development goals successfully.
Municipalities globally are pivotal in delivering essential public services and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, securing adequate resources and funding for these initiatives remains a persistent challenge. This challenge is especially acute for municipalities in secondary cities within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, which include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
The Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG), a joint EU and UNDP initiative, aims to support these local governments in overcoming such challenges. While the initiative has made strides in developing economic plans and transformative projects, the task of attracting sufficient investment remains difficult.
This research aims to identify the primary obstacles municipalities in the EaP face in accessing diverse financial resources and propose solutions and recommendations for tackling these obstacles. The financing research is directly aligned with UNDP’s strategic priorities by focusing on enhancing the financial management, resource mobilization, project delivery, and transparency of local governments. It aims to equip municipal officials with the knowledge and tools needed to effectively manage their finances and projects, and in turn, contribute to the achievement of sustainable development at the local level.
In a rapidly evolving urban landscape, traditional methods of addressing interconnected urban challenges are becoming increasingly inadequate. As a result, urban development practitioners are exploring innovative ways of working to tackle systemic urban issues. One such solution is the portfolio approach, a dynamic and multi-faceted strategy that redefines the way we address urban challenges. This approach is seen as complementary to traditional project management, offering an additional tool for tackling more complex problems. But what impact does this new approach have, and is it truly transformative? Our latest publication, City Snapshots, offers a glimpse into these groundbreaking practices, showcasing their application, areas of influence, and potential outcomes.
Based on the upfront experience of seven UNDP Country Offices, this booklet not only highlights the value of innovative development but also consolidates key learnings to communicate this work to urban practitioners within and beyond these programs and communities. Ultimately, the publication aims to ignite a conversation among diverse stakeholders and teams working on urban transformation, creating a community that will serve as an inspiration and learning space to harness the growing interest for innovation in urban development.
The portfolio approach itself offers a new way to tackle complex urban challenges, creating a network of intervention options that examine problems from multiple angles, allowing for flexibility and adaptability. Nine municipalities in the Europe and Central Asia region have embraced this approach, demonstrating tangible and significant advantages. This presents an opportunity for other municipalities to explore and implement portfolio practices, opening new possibilities for addressing urban issues.
City Snapshots is your invitation to explore urban development innovation and discover how these pioneering practices are leading to positive, sustainable outcomes in cities across Europe and Central Asia.
City Snapshots delves into UNDP Europe and Central Asia’s urban transformation initiatives – City Experiment Fund (CEF) and the Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG) – employing the portfolio approach across various cities, contexts, and problem spaces. Funded by the Slovak Transformation Fund, UNDP’s CEF is a joint effort by UNDP and the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic to support cities in applying the innovative portfolio approach to tackle complex urban challenges, while M4EG is a joint EU & UNDP initiative to support mayors and their teams in the Eastern Partnership region. The M4EG offers resources, networks and learning opportunities to explore new trajectories of growth, and to make towns and cities more attractive for people and investment.
Cities are confronting unprecedented challenges and traditional linear approaches are no longer sufficient to address overlapping, interconnected issues efficiently. But there is an effective way to navigate these complexities and foster positive transformations – involving communities in various ways, to be able to take part in decision-making processes. As this people-powered approach gains momentum and yields promising outcomes, the Innovation Team at UNDP Europe and Central Asia, in collaboration with the Agirre Lehendakaria Center, has been working to develop a toolkit to share tools and processes that help municipalities and other stakeholders engage better with the community to enable holistic engagement and transformation. This new publication titled Co-creating Urban Transformation: A Guide to Community Listening and Engagement for Future-fit Cities is for anybody looking to adopt community-oriented practices and methodologies.
Originally developed as a resource for local authorities taking part in the Mayors for Economic Growth network, a programme jointly funded by the EU and UNDP, and inspired by listening experiences from the City Experiment Fund, the guide’s tools, exercises, and insights are adaptable to different urban contexts and are appropriate for a range of partners driving transformative change at the local level. At its core, the new approach revolves around co-creating urban transformation portfolios through iterative community listening processes. This serves to fortify social cohesion and resilience, particularly during times of crisis and uncertainty. The guide emphasizes that trust is cultivated through direct public engagement, while listening in a meaningful way can galvanize a cultural shift that clears a path for positive change.
The practical adaptation guide is composed of six sections that span the theory of change behind community listening to the development of portfolios. It also delves into the components that facilitate community listening and sensemaking, including how to use ecosystem mapping, data collection matrices, and collective interpretation. The guide also provides step-by-step instructions to equip municipalities and other actors with the tools, templates, and exercises necessary to integrate community listening and engagement seamlessly into their daily operations.
Download the full toolkit for more in-depth explanations and real-life field experience examples.