The European Commission is looking for cities’ partnerships to promote integrated urban development

A call was published by European Commission’s DG International cooperation and development (DEVCO) on Monday 29 October 2018 under the title “Local Authorities: Partnerships for sustainable cities“.

Objectives

The global objective of this Call for Proposals is to promote integrated urban development through partnerships built among Local Authorities of the EU Member States and of partner countries in accordance with the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development.

Partnerships will support Local Authorities from partner countries to address sustainable urban development through capacity building and service-delivery. Peer to peer exchanges of Local Authorities are at the heart of this approach. Actions could support the building of new partnerships or contribute to upscale long-lasting partnerships and cooperation relations.

Specific objectives

The specific objectives of this Call for Proposals are to:

• Strengthen urban governance
• Ensure social inclusiveness of cities
• Improve resilience and greening of cities
• Improve prosperity and innovation in cities

The proposed partnerships must address the first specific objective (urban governance) and at least one out of the three remaining objectives (social inclusiveness, greening of cities, prosperity and innovation).

Priorities

The proposals must clearly indicate and explain how they address the following three priorities:

• Contribution to the achievement of SDG 11
• Peer-to-peer learning and/or exchanges of public officials
• Multi-stakeholder and multi-sector approaches

The integration of at least one of the below listed additional priority will be considered as an added-value:

• Triangular cooperation
• Smart cities
• Job creation

Budget

The call is backed by a total budget of €53,151,603 divided into geographical allocation of funds by lots:

• Lot 1: Partnerships for sustainable cities in Sub-Saharan Africa
  Total available: €23,651,603.00
• Lot 2: Partnerships for sustainable cities in Asia and the Pacific:
  Total available: €10,000,000.00
• Lot 3: Partnerships for sustainable cities in Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean:
  Total available: €10,000,000.00
• Lot 4: Partnerships for sustainable cities in the Neighbourhood East and South:
  Total available: €9,500,000.00

Candidates will be requested to submit proposals for projects with total EU contribution between EUR 2,000,000.00 and EUR 5,000,000.00.

Eligibility and deadline

Eligible applicants include:

• Local authorities
• Associations of local authorities, including city networks

Deadline for submission of proposals is 6 December 2018 at 12:00.

All questions on the call must be addressed to EuropeAid-161146@ec.europa.eu.

Please note that DG Devco is organising an information session on the practical aspects of the application process at the EuropeAid InfoPoint (43 Rue de la Loi) on 7 November, 2018, at 10:00 (Brussels time). As places will be limited, please send an email to europeaid-c5@ec.europa.eu, indicating: name, surname, nationality and email address and organisation (max. two participants per organisation) by 5 November. The information session will also be live streamed and available here.

More information

Complete information about the published Call for Proposals is available online in English.