The Pact of Free Cities

Website of the Pact of Cities (https://www.pactoffreecities.com/)



Last week when I got ready to follow the 2nd UN-Habitat Assembly in Nairobi from my Berlin office I realized that the mayor of my home town wasn't going to Nairobi but to Warsaw. I became curious and started a research. Kai Wegner, the new Governing Mayor of Berlin visited Berlin's partner city Warsaw and there he attended the conference of the Pact of Free Cities - an association of now 34 cities founded by the Mayors of the Visegrad Four capitals (Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava and Budapest) in 2019. It is a global network of cities determined to stand up for progressive values and fight against nationalistic populism.

The website of the association states: 'In the past few decades, cities re-emerged as hubs for progressive policies and pragmatic problem-solvers, positioning themselves against the reluctance, inability or slowness of national governments to rise to global challenges. The Pact of Free Cities has been created to highlight the growing importance of cities in preserving and protecting democracy and open society. The vision for the Pact is to build a value-driven mayoral network, agile to adapt to the ever-changing political environment and bring about meaningful change.' (https://www.pactoffreecities.com/). Member cities include Berlin, Paris, Gdansk, Rome, Vienna, Kyiv, Gdnask, Barcelona and Brussels but also Los Angeles and Taipei. The Berlin mayor was impressed by the dialogues and solidarity but also shocked when all of the sudden on the phones of the Ukrainian mayors an air defence alarm sounded.

[1] Der Tagesspiegel, 6 June 2023: https://epaper.tagesspiegel.de//webreader-v3/index.html#/479992/44-45

Berlin's new Governing Mayor Kai Wegner in Warsaw on 5 June 2023

Global Declaration of Mayors for Democracy

The Pact of Free Cities is not the only initiative of cities and mayors in support of Ukraine, freedom and democracy. One of the outstanding initiatives is a collaborative effort of the Global Parliament of Mayors, the Pact of Free Cities, and GMF Cities  agreed already in March 2023 on a Global Declaration of Mayors for Democracy. By end of April 2023 it already was signed by 249 mayors. [2, 3, 4, 5]

PREAMBLE

In recognition of the critical role cities play in strengthening, advancing, and adapting democracy on-the-ground every day;

Inspired by the robust initiative and cooperation of the mayors of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, who saw the growth of illiberal forces eroding democracy in their respective countries, and came together to develop and sign the Pact of Free Cities in 2019, committing themselves to govern in steady alignment with the values of democracy;

In solidarity with cities around the world, including in Ukraine, who are defending the rights of individuals, communities, cities, and nations to determine their own democratic futures;

In recognition of the essential role of democratic transformation to encourage sustainable development, address the climate emergency and deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals; and

In appreciation for the global Summit for Democracy (December 2021) and
emanating from the commitments of mayors at its Mayors Delivering Democracy Daily event, and to propel this year-of-action forward to the next Summit for Democracy;

In a collaborative effort with the Global Parliament of Mayors, GMF Cities, and the Pact of Free Cities;

Today, we mayors join together to advance the following Global Declaration of Mayors for Democracy.

[2] GMF Citis of the Global Marshall Fund of the United States: https://www.gmfus.org/gmf-cities

[3] Global Parliament of Mayors: https://globalparliamentofmayors.org/

[4] Global Declaration of Mayors for Democracy: https://www.gmfus.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/GDMD.pdf

[5] Signatories of the Global Declaration of Mayors: https://www.gmfus.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/Signers.%20Global%20Declaration%20of%20Mayors%20for%20Dem.pdf

UN agencies committed to promoting equitable urbanisation, including in Ukraine

UN-Habitat's scoping mission to foster support activities

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) carried out a first Scoping Mission to Ukraine already between 2–14 October 2022. A total of 38 meetings were conducted with a variety of stakeholders in Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts.

The main findings of the scoping mission are:

1. UN-Habitat can support more area-based and integrated assessments of physical and human impact of
the war, using its urban expertise and its urban profiling approach informed by digital data platforms,
tailored to the local contexts. This should support the short-term emergency and longer-term recovery and
returns, where possible and needed.

2. UN-Habitat can support the development of urban recovery frameworks, as a backbone for the complex
local and regional recovery planning called for by the government, helping to sustain decentralisation
gains made and aligning also bottom-up urban recovery efforts with nationally driven recovery planning.

3. The focus should be on the smaller hromadas that have less capacity and experience. Technical support
is best pooled into municipal support units, anchored in pre-war capacity building efforts, that can cover
multiple localities, allowing for live learning and knowledge sharing including with the better capacitated
bigger cities. A key contribution lies also in providing urban planning support, working closely with
networks of Ukrainian professionals.

4. The above requires an in-country presence of UN-Habitat as soon as possible. A wide range of potential
partnerships have been identified that would allow for nimble and efficient operations, adding
international expertise only where needed.

Currently, a larger project is in preparation by UN-Habitat.

[6] UN-Habitat Scoping mission to Ukraine: https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2022/11/ukraine_mission_report_oct22_public.pdf



UNECE is stepping up support for Kharkiv and Mykolaiv

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) officially kicked-off on 5 June 2023 its UN4UkrainianCities project “UN4UkrainianCities: Enhancing urban planning in the cities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv in Ukraine by supporting to the implementation of the new master plans and facilitating investments in sustainable urban infrastructure”.

Since April 2022, at the request of the Ministry of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, UNECE has been implementing two pilot projects in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. The UN4Kharkiv and UN4Mykolaiv Task Forces, coordinated by UNECE and bringing together 16 UN entities and international organisations, have so far supported the work of international and Ukrainian architects, engineers and other experts in the development of draft reconstruction Master Plans for the two cities. 

Scaled-up under the broader UN4UkrainianCities initiative, the support to be rolled out between June 2023 and the end of 2024 will take this work forward with a view to “operationalize” the reconstruction efforts after the end of the war and to facilitate investment in sustainable urban infrastructure. This will be supported by USD 5 million funding by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. These efforts will help the cities to “build back better” following a balanced, evidence-based, participatory approach that links emergency and long-term strategic objectives. [7]

The project will comprise five components: 

1. Support to revisions of the national policy framework for the integrated urban planning; and development of an online platform containing a Toolbox for reconstruction of Ukrainian cities 
2. Economic and social assessment: impact survey-based assessment of the socio-economic impact of the war on Kharkiv and Mykolaiv 
3. Formulation of pilot projects and identification of investors: Support to the implementation of reconstruction master plans for Kharkiv and Mykolaiv 
4. Capacity building and public involvement in planning rebuilding of the cities
5. Monitoring of implementation and investments: development of an investment tracker.
   
   

[7] UNECE press release: https://unece.org/media/Housing-and-Land-Management/press/379482

And all this is happening while the destruction of the Russian war against Ukraine is going on and people are killed.