Winning Innovations From the Global Mayors Challenge
The 15 winners were picked out of 631 applicant cities for creating ambitious urban innovations amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
(Bloomberg) -- A digital marketplace that supports tree planting, a citywide mutual aid network and a smart waste system that will improve urban water quality are among the winning projects of the 2021-2022 Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge.
The 15 winners were picked out of 631 applicant cities for their work creating ambitious urban innovations in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Jan. 18 announcement from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Spanning six continents, the chosen projects seek improvements in the areas of economic recovery and inclusive growth, health and well-being, climate and environment, and gender and equality.
Each winner will receive $1 million and expert support to develop its program during a three-year implementation period and beyond. In doing so, the challenge’s organizers say, the projects will demonstrate just how vital cities can be to providing solutions to key global issues of sustainability, equity and inclusion.
“Cities can implement innovative ideas at a pace that national governments simply can’t match,” said Bloomberg Philanthropies founder and former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (majority owner of CityLab parent Bloomberg LP). “Our fifteen winners offer bold, achievable plans to improve health, reduce unemployment, empower women, and more. Collectively, they have the potential to improve millions of their residents' lives — and the most successful solutions will inspire cities around the world to embrace them.”
Many of the winning projects are to some extent responses to the crisis. The city of Paterson, New Jersey, for example, developed its winning program to offer fast-tracked, 24/7 treatment to people experiencing Opioid Use Disorder when it noticed a sharp rise in overdose deaths since the advent of Covid. Amman, Jordan, likewise developed “reachability maps” to identify gaps in access to essential services, such as food and health care, when the city was unprepared to deliver these services to all of its communities during lockdown.
Others reflect a growing awareness of a need to tackle gender and racial inequalities. Colombia’s capital Bogota, for example, plans to create “care blocks” to support overstretched and under-rewarded female caretakers, encourage reductions in women’s unpaid care work and train men to do household chores. In another project touching on this area, Rochester, Minnesota, will engage with communities, employers and labor organizations to design pathways to improve access for women of color to the city’s growing construction industry.
Now in its fifth round, the 2021 Mayors Challenge is the first to take on a global reach, as previous challenges focused on one region: the U.S. in 2013 and 2018, Europe in 2014 and Latin America and the Caribbean in 2016. Past winners include Stockholm’s program to convert garden waste into biochar and district heating and Guadalajara’s plan to cut corruption through increasing transparency in real estate transactions.
“The Mayors Challenge shows that there can be a positive legacy to emerge from all the hardship of the past two years — and that it’s happening in our cities,” said James Anderson, who leads the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies. “Now we turn to help these mayors implement their ideas, evaluate, and spread the ideas that produce big impact.”
The 15 winners of the most recent Global Mayors Challenge are Amman, Jordan; Bogotá, Colombia; Butuan, Philippines; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Hermosillo, Mexico; Istanbul, Turkey; Kigali, Rwanda; Kumasi, Ghana; Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.; Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.; Rochester, Minnesota, U.S.; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Rourkela, India; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Wellington, New Zealand. They were picked from a group of 50 Champion Cities announced in June.
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