Call for Participants Urban Practitioners Dialogue and Workshop between Turkish and German Municipalities in the framework of the Municipal know-how for host communities in the Middle-East programme and Qudra Programme Municipalities Options towards Integration of Refugees and Social Cohesion 20-22 November 2018, Istanbul, Turkey Background Qudra Programme, UCLG-MEWA and Connective Cities would like to invite urban practitioners from Turkey and Germany to the Urban Practitioners Workshop on Municipalities Options towards Integration of Refugees and Social Cohesion, to be held in Istanbul on November 20-22, 2018. The Qudra Programme is a regional action financed by the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis, the 'Madad' Fund and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) seeking to strengthen resilience for Syrian refugees, IDPs and host communities in response to the Syrian and Iraqi crises. The programme is jointly implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Expertise France (EF), Spanish Agency for International Development (AECID) and Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA) in programme partner countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and North Iraq. The programme has five Specific Objectives (SOs): improving education infrastructure; expanding vocational skills; strengthening social cohesion; enhancing local administrations, and facilitating dialogue and dissemination. Facilitating Dialogue and Dissemination (SO5) module of Qudra acts as connector, knowledge broker and facilitator, cross-cutting all the modules and countries. This is achieved through utilizing various constructive dialogue formats for interactive knowledge sharing, best practices exchange and collaborative learning in a participatory and inclusive manner. Among many other formats, Refugee Friendly Municipalities concept plays an essential role by providing a platform for knowledge exchange and mutual learning between municipalities in the region and EU countries. QUDRA cooperates with United Cities and Local Governments Middle East and West Asia Section (UCLG-MEWA) for the implementation of Refugee Friendly Municipalities concept. UCLG-MEWA as one of the nine sections of UCLG World Organization, representing more than 100 years of experience in building cooperation among local governments and gathering the local governments of the world under one roof; UCLG-MEWA aims to ensure the effective representation our local governments at international platforms, to establish strong governance structures and to follow up the localization of international agendas in the MEWA region. Connective Cities offers demand-oriented services to facilitate worldwide networking between urban practitioners for an application-oriented exchange of experiences, joint learning and the development of innovative urban projects in and across urban sectors. The upcoming event in Turkey is taking place in the framework of the Municipal know-how for host communities in the Middle-East Programme. The initiators of the international community of practice Connective Cities are the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the German Association of Cities (DST) and Engagement Global ggmbh / Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW). Both German and Turkish municipalities have comprehensive experience in promoting social cohesion, through creating a supportive environment and putting it into the focus of strategies for social inclusion. This dialogue/workshop aims to provide a constructive dialogue platform for interactive knowledge sharing, best practices exchange and collaborative learning in a participatory and inclusive manner. The international workshop on social inclusion strategies offers an appropriate format for exchanging
municipal experience and identifying successful strategies for one or more of these challenges and develop project ideas for the local implementation and further collaboration of Turkish and German municipalities. At the same time, there is a potential for both German and Turkish municipalities to learn about the management of refugee influx in different contexts. Why Integration and Social Cohesion? Social cohesion is essential to any form of communal life within a society. It is defined according to everyday aspects such as trust, joint action, (missing) social norms, a sense of home and satisfaction within the community. Thereby, the topic of social cohesion cuts across two persistently important societal aspects: social inequality and diversity. While social inequality describes the unequal access to social valuable goods like education, job opportunities or income, it establishes a vertical hierarchy of better and worse according to socio-economic rankings and positions. Diversity in turn refers to the differences in the thinking, attitudes or preferences of people. Thus, diversity does not include a vertical hierarchy, but rather a prevailing horizontal social distinction according to e.g. gender, nationality, or religion. As communities with high or low social inequality and diversity can manifest either high or low social cohesion, the main task becomes to define the correlation of social inequality, diversity and social cohesion. From these correlations, finally result the challenges for municipal and urban planning as well as for the social transactions with the subject of migration. Experience tells that a proactive and responsive approach in addressing the challenges has helped preserve social cohesion in the early stages. Integration and social inclusion of refugees within host communities has helped maintain a sense of social harmony for the longer-term. Challenges for Social Cohesion in Turkey Given the impacts of the Syrian conflict, the persistent refugee crisis is placing an extraordinary burden on host countries and communities. As a neighbouring country, Turkey received a majority of the more than 5 million people that have fled the country. Moreover, almost 90% of the refugees in the MENA region and Turkey are hosted in urban and rural local communities. With this sharp increase in population, municipalities are facing various challenges including service delivery capacity, local economic development and job opportunities as well as maintaining social cohesion and integration. Acknowledging this pressure on the host municipalities, a package of mutually supportive measures is needed, placing increased social cohesion in line with municipal service provision and the creation of economic opportunities for both, the local host communities and the refugees. Social cohesion impacts on the health and well-being as well as on the capabilities and economic performance of the communities. With an increase of the personal well-being, as well as access to education and employment, a major first step towards successful integration can be achieved. Challenges of social cohesion in German cities and municipalities German municipalities also face various challenges because of the heavy influx of international refugees, as they are obliged to provide regular support for refugees in accordance with the national asylum law. Especially in terms of housing, food, child and youth care, education, work, health, mobility, security, environment and finance, effective action at the community level are needed. Even though there are fewer refugees in Germany and per municipality than in Turkey, this task poses a challenge in the absence of funds, staff, financial resources or public institutions. There are bottlenecks in the provision of affordable housing, and the integration of refugees into local labour markets and social tensions in many places is a challenge. This is strengthened by a lack of cultural exchange between refugees and local communities.
Addressing these challenges requires interdisciplinary action at the formal and informal levels. Therefore, German municipalities work closely with local organizations, associations and volunteers. Although coordinating the various actors poses a major challenge, local and regional resources have been mobilized, complementing the limited opportunities at the state level. A special focus is on local, regional and government programs and events, which strengthen the dialogue between refugees and the host population and thus contribute to a better understanding between the different population groups. Thus, the integration of refugees into the host society and the creation of social cohesion between the different social groups are promoted, whereby receiving communities can grow economically in the long run and become socially resilient. Objectives and expected results The presented issues cannot be addressed in a general manner. It has to be acknowledged that every host community faces different manifestations or effects of a common challenge with regard to the particular local context. Inclusive approaches and practices via education may improve refugees access to job markets, whereas a refugee assembly may help integrating refugees into local decision-making mechanisms and processes. Nevertheless, the exchange of successful experiences and sharing of gathered know-how among municipalities becomes the key to develop contexts further and to find new innovative solutions to help reduce the burden on each community to improve the livelihood and increase social cohesion. In this sense, the workshop is geared specifically towards defining locally grounded strategies for increased social cohesion between local communities and refugees in Turkish municipalities that aim to - Improve integration by supporting language learning, skills development, and intercultural learning via extracurricular activities and adult education; - Facilitate social integration of the refugees by means of joint activities for higher liveability and increased social interaction in the communities; - Expand the municipal public service system for both host communities and refugees by mobilizing social commitment and improving coordination with governmental systems in service delivery; - Facilitate activities which support the integration of refugees into the labour market. The workshop s substance will comprise thematical inputs on the core elements of social inclusion strategies, based on existing good practices, as well as training modules to facilitate the elaboration of strategies for the participants municipalities and the identification of project proposals to implement the strategy. The outputs of the workshop will be locally specific approaches towards social inclusion and cohesion, resulting into a number of concrete project ideas developed by the participating municipalities. Project ideas between a German and a Turkish municipality will have the possibility to be further supported and set up as joint bi-lateral municipal projects, which could receive advice and funding for their implementation through the financial instruments of the Middle East Initiative. Work process The work process involves the following steps:
1. Exchange of Good practices (by means of poster presentations) of local social inclusion among municipal practitioners from both Turkey and Germany to provide insights into the specific success factors and the lessons learnt. 2. During peer-to-peer sessions, participants will discuss actual challenges of social inclusion and advise each other on how to apply them for the elaboration of local solutions. Based on the discussions, concrete project ideas which focus on specific needs, challenges of and opportunities for social inclusion in the respective municipalities shall be elaborated. Those ideas can be forwarded to future collaboration between Turkish and German municipalities. Participants Local participants shall include representatives of different stakeholder groups, such as local government and administration, private sector, civil society, and academia who will contribute their know-how and expertise to identify the underlying challenges in the local context. Small teams representing different stakeholders from one municipality, e.g. local government and administration, private sector (service providers), civil society, academia would be desired A total of 40 participants from up to 15 Turkish and German municipalities shall be invited to participate. Contact GIZ - Connective Cities: Dr. Manfred Poppe, Senior Project Manager; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), manfred.poppe@giz.de Ingrid Rösner, Senior Advisor; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) (ingrid.roesner@giz.de) Engagement Global: Benjamin Jeromin, Connective Cities Project Manager, benjamin.jeromin@engagement-global.de GIZ/ QUDRA: - Dagmar Blickwede, SO5 Module Team Leader (dagmar.blickwede@giz.de) Elif Dönmez, SO5 Advisor, Qudra Programme (elif.doenmez@giz.de) UCLG - MEWA: - Muhammed Mahlı, Senior Project Officer, UCLG MEWA (m.almahli@uclg-mewa.org)
Factsheet: All information at a glance Type of Event Time / Place / Duration Dialogue Event Municipalities Options towards Integration of Refugees and Social Cohesion 20 th 22 nd November,2018, Istanbul, Turkey Thematic Focus - Improve integration by supporting language learning, skills development, and intercultural learning via extracurricular activities and adult education; - Local activities for increased social interaction in the communities to facilitate social integration of refugees; - Expansion of the municipal public service systems for both host communities and refugees; - Measures to facilitate the integration of refugees into the labour market. Participants - A total of 40 participants from up to 15 Turkish and German municipalities Small teams representing different stakeholders from one municipality, e.g. local government and administration, would be desired Objectives / Benefits Methodology Language - Facilitating exchange of experiences among municipal practitioners from Turkey and from Germany - Analysing the local context, identifying challenges and elaborating strategies for social inclusion - Formulating concrete project ideas and envisaged solutions for resolving challenges on social inclusion The workshop substance will comprise subject matter inputs on the various core elements of social inclusion, based on existing good practices from among participating municipalities, and methodical input for identification of project proposals to implement social inclusion programmes at local level. 1. Good practices of local social inclusion from both Turkey and Germany provide insights into the specific success factors and the lessons learnt. 2. During peer-to-peer sessions, participants will discuss actual challenges of social inclusion and advise each other on how to apply them for the elaboration of local solutions. 3. Based on the discussions, concrete project ideas which focus on specific needs, challenges of and opportunities for social inclusion in the respective municipalities shall be elaborated. Those ideas can be forwarded to future collaboration between Turkish and German municipalities. The event will be held in English and Turkish with translation, as required.
Contact See above WORKSHOP PROGRAMME Day 1: 20 November 2018 Getting Started: Introduction and Exchange on Good Practices Following the words of welcome by cooperation partners and after the participants and organizers of the workshop have introduced themselves, the framework for the workshop will be outlined by discussing the main themes and questions for the days ahead. In the afternoon, participating municipalities from Turkey and Germany are going to present their Good Practices, which illustrate practical strategies and approaches towards greater social cohesion and integration. Local good practices are supplemented by relevant practical experience from German municipalities. Through an exchange among participants, the preconditions, approaches, challenges and lessons learned will be discussed. Time Agenda Contents 09:00 Registration and Networking 09:30 Welcome remarks Words of welcome by: UCLG MEWA Connective Cities GIZ BMZ (tbc) EU Delegation (tbc) Directorate General of Migration Management(tbc) Presidential Ooffice? (tbc) All 10:15 Agenda and objectives of the workshop Moderator 10:30 Coffee break Introduction of participants 11:00 -Panel Discussion What challenges do municipalities face for the inclusion of refugees? - 4-5 Selected Mayors under the moderation of an expert selected by UCLG-MEWA and QUDRA
12:00 Gallery Walk of Good Practices Brief introduction to good practices by presenters 12:30 Lunch 14:00 Presentation of Good Practices on Social Inclusion and Cohesion Topic 1: Improving integration by supporting language learning, skills development, and intercultural learning via extracurricular activities and adult education; Presentation in working groups, discussion and reflection on lessons learned and potentials for adaptation Topic 2: Local activities for increased social interaction in the communities to facilitate social integration of refugees 15:00 Coffee break 15:30 Cont. Good Practices on Social Inclusion and Cohesion Topic 3: Expansion of the municipal public service systems for both host communities and refugees Presentation of good practices in working groups, discussion and reflection on lessons learned and potentials for adaptation Topic 4: Measures to facilitate the integration of refugees into the labour market 17.00 Wrapping up of the day Summary of main findings by working group moderators and evaluation 19.30 Welcome Dinner
Day 2: 21 November 2017 Understanding Challenges: Peer-to-Peer-Advisory Session On the second day, participants will present and discuss actual challenges on social cohesion and integration from their cities in small groups. Afterwards, all participants - or peers - in the group will be invited to give their feedback, ideas and remarks on the presented issues. This peer-to-peer exchange, in which all participants are considered as experts, serves to better understand and analyse the individual city contexts as well as to identify first ideas for interventions to address the presented issues. A set of questions will help to steer discussions in an analytical manner in order to prepare for the subsequent action planning session. Time Agenda Contents 09:00 Registration and Networking All 09:30 Introduction 10:00 Actual challenges on social cohesion in municipalities: Definition, analysis and peer-to peer advisory 11:00 Coffee break 11:30 Cont. Challenges in the municipalities: Analysis and peer-to peer advisory Recap of day one Agenda for the 2 nd day Introduction: What is meant by challenge? Short consultation in municipal teams about challenges 1st Round of challenges (4 challenges to be discussed) Analysis of the challenge with guiding questions Peer-to peer advisory 2nd Round of challenges (4 challenges to be discussed) Analysis of the challenge with guiding questions Peer-to peer advisory 12:30 Lunch 14.00- Methodical input: Action planning tools Moderator 14.30- Working on project ideas and action plans Based on the discussions so far: identify options for project ideas to be developed
Working on concrete project ideas of municipal or cross-municipal, thematically focused measures 15.00- Coffee break 15.15- Cont. Working on project ideas and action plans As before Excursion: Site visits of projects (tbd) Departure from hotel lobby 16.00 Field visit of projects 19:00 Dinner
Day 3: 22 November 2017 Action Planning Process The third day of the workshop sets out to provide participants with a strategic vision and tangible results towards improving social cohesion and integration in their cities. The approach is based on action planning, which is an output-oriented, actor specific planning process. The session includes methodological input for the whole group and intensive planning sessions in smaller groups, which may be composed either topic-specific (e.g. addressing a specific component of cohesion according to challenges identified on the previous day) or city-specific with a team from one city. Time Agenda Contents 08:30 Registration and Networking All 09:00 Introduction Recap of day two Agenda for the 3 rd day 9:15 Final Revising of Project ideas Learning from the site visit and project proposal 09:45 Presentation of project ideas Presentation by municipalities and discussion 10.45 Prospects for further engagement with Connective Cities and the Municipal Know how Initiative 11.15 Coffee break Presentation of support instruments for long term cooperation by Engagement Global /SKEW 11:30 Commitments for further collaboration Presentation of support instruments for long term cooperation by Engagement Global /SKEW 12:30 Lunch break 14:00-18.00 Guided Tour Guided Tour to Hagia Sophia and selected historical sites for interested participants