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City of first flight: official start of the project partnership with Tyre
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Hassan M. Dbouk, Mayor of Tyre (left), with Mayor Corine Mauch and the director of UN-Habitat Lebanon Tarek Osseiran (right)
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As part of the first visit by a delegation of officials to Zurich from the Lebanese city of Tyre and from UN-Habitat Lebanon, Mayor of Tyre Hassan M. Dbouk, his Zurich counterpart Corine Mauch and Tarek Osseiran, director of UN-Habitat Lebanon, signed a common memorandum of understanding which sets out the core points of the project partnership between Zurich and Tyre, on Lebanon’s south coast. The two cities have thus officially begun their cooperation.
The aim is to support the city of Tyre and help it to better overcome the local challenges it faces in relation to the Syrian refugee crisis. Over the next two years, Zurich will be providing around CHF 350,000 to create additional expert positions in Tyre for the further training of municipal employees, for expert exchanges and in particular to implement concrete measures. The city of Tyre and UN-Habitat meanwhile will be providing contributions in kind and human resources to the partnership.
Now that the cooperation is under way, the next step is to establish priorities and concrete activities for the project partnership. Action is required in virtually every area of the city’s services, with some 260,000 people currently living in the greater Tyre area, of whom 120,000 are Syrian and Palestinian refugees. The cooperation will be driven by a very urban sense of pragmatism, which focuses on the overall well-being of the local population.
Christina Wandeler, Foreign Affairs, Department of the Mayor
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Musical exchange with the Nordic north
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Finnish guests in Zurich (left to right): Orchestra manager Laura Clewer, director of the Espoo Music Institute Paula Jordan, MKZ director Erich Zumstein and deputy rector Seung-Yeun Huh
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Zurich Conservatory and School of Music (MKZ) enjoying an international exchange with Finnish music schools
As one of the biggest schools of music in Europe, the MKZ is entitled to update its curriculum of subjects at any and every time. The ability to step back and take a broader view of things is important in this regard, which is why director Erich Zumstein and Seung-Yeun Huh, deputy rector in charge of the scholarship programme at the MKZ, travelled this autumn to Finland to visit the music schools at Helsinki and Espoo. The exchange brought to light much common ground and led to two representatives of the Espoo Music Institute returning the favour with a visit of their own. The MKZ is planning intensive cooperation in the near future both with this institution and the East Helsinki Music Institute, in the form of a Scandinavian tour for the Zurich Youth Symphony Orchestra and teacher exchanges, to share various facets of music education in a mutually beneficial atmosphere.
Rainer Fröhlich, Zurich Conservatory and School of Music, School and Sports Department
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Sustainable and city-compatible mobility planning in Ukraine
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On 19 October, a delegation of city councillors and experts in regional development from the cities of Chernivtsi, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Lviv came to Zurich as part of a project on integrated urban development in Ukraine. The project is the brainchild of the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ), and is co-financed by the German and the Swiss governments. A specialist from the Civil Engineering Office explained to the visitors the cornerstones of the city’s mobility and traffic management policy via the Urban Traffic Programme «Stadtverkehr 2025», and went into particular detail on various subjects such as promoting public transport, parking space management, capping the expanding number of private vehicles, concepts on how the various modes of transport can coexist and improvements to the urban environments. Certain illustrations of what has already been implemented were able to be viewed at the on-site inspections that concluded the visit (for example the improvements to Bullingerplatz). Discussions also centred around the political and internal administrative processes for traffic management and urban environments.
Link to Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ)
Link to the Urban Traffic Programme «Stadtverkehr 2025» (in German only)
René Huber, Civil Engineering and Waste Management department
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Zurich-Kunming cooperation under way and integrated into SSLCC
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The delegation of experts from Kunming visiting the city model at the city planning department
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In June 2017, Kunming was the first of six Chinese cities to sign, along with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, represented by the Development and Cooperation department, the participation agreement for the «Swiss-Sino Low Carbon Cities (SSLCC)» project. Technical cooperation between Zurich and Kunming was integrated at the same time into this new programme. The aim of the SSLCC is to contribute to a «greener» and more sustainable urbanisation in China and collate the findings of existing pilot projects in terms of innovative technologies, provide «capacity-building» for those responsible for urban planning and provoke political dialogue on all levels. It will thus enable the authorities in the Chinese various cities to benefit from Swiss experience in the relevant planning, research and implementation steps.
Within the scope of the SSLCC, the City of Zurich is providing advice and expertise for the implementation of two pilot projects in the city of Kunming. The first project focuses on awareness measures in the education sector in terms of energy efficiency, while the second is to provide input for Kunming’s 2050 development strategy.
The SSLCC expert visit of Zurich from partners from Kunming took place from 6 – 8 November 2017. The three-day event provided an opportunity to discuss the status of the pilot projects and the next steps of the cooperation, while meetings were also held with those involved from a perspective of public transport, including the Zurich Transport Authority (ZVV) and Transport Office (AfV), and regional planning, such as the Canton of Zurich Office for Spatial Development (ARE). The next expert visit is planned for April 2018 in Kunming.
Christina Wandeler, Foreign Affairs, Department of the Mayor
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Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year 2018
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The Foreign Affairs team of the City of Zurich Urban Development department would like to wish you all an enjoyable and relaxing holiday season with your families, and of course a Happy New Year. We should like to take this opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown over the past year, and wish you all the best for 2018!
Anna Schindler, Head of the Office of Urban Development, Yves Bisang, Stefan Ege, Martin Harris, Christina Wandeler, project managers Foreign Affairs
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