01 December 2011
The Cites Programme website is undergoing a change of look and content and functionality. We are very excited. The new website is complete but we are currently in the process of changing domain hosting. The temporary address for the new website is www.citiesprogramme.com 
08 June 2011
After four years of dedicated work, the community from the Chocolatao slum in Porto Alegre have new homes and for many its brought new livelihoods and opportunities. May 13 marked the inauguration of the new Chocolatao, home to around 200 families or 600 people.
Residencial Nova Chocolatoa was opened by Prefeito Jose Fortunati (left) and the event included the project’s many partners, including Mario Porto Fonseca of Solucoes Usimanas, lead partner in the building of the community’s new recycling facility. Cities Programme manager, Elizabeth Ryan had the privilege of participating in the event and says the time with the community during this moment of great change was incredibly moving, the results a credit to the collective will of many to bring dignity to the lives of the people of Chocolatao. Community leader, Fernanda (left) melted the crowd with her empassioned speech at the inauguration ceremony. She will manage Nova Chocolatao’s beautiful new childcare facility.
Vania Goncalves de Souva from the Prefeitura de Porto Alegre has worked with the community for four years and is committed to continuing this work. Vania is pictured (left) on the last day of Vila Chocolatao with Mario, who has lived at Chocolatao for thirty years. She says “resettlement or settlement is an important, a fundamental big step towards the emancipation of the community ...the new house is important because it improves the living conditions. But the point is… to continue capacitating, empowering the community to bring change into their lives to be able to cope with the rights and duties in the new life. We know, even after the resettlement we have to continue working with the community to seek together the true social inclusion”. Vania is currently working with researchers from the Cities Programme and Australian University, RMIT to help map the history of the project and develop a model for application in other settings.
For some the improvement has been immediate. Bete - pictured below in front of her shop in Vila Chocolatao and then receiving the keys to her new shop from Prefeito Fortunati - is very pleased with the change in her life. She recently reported delight at the beauty of rain falling on the window of her new shop - a first time experience.
Pictured below is long time Chocolatao resident who now has a wheelchair accessible house and sealed roads at Nova Chocolatao. He is also pictured with Cezar Bussato, Secretary of Political Coordination and Local Governance, Prefeitura de Porto Alegre and project champion. Cezar says Chocolatao’s inclusive and consultative model will now be applied to other communities the City is working with. This includes focusing on health, employment and training as well as housing.
The new recycling centre at Nova Chocolatao (below) is a major source of employment for the community who were traditionally catadores, or street pickers. The City has changed its garbage collection and disposal practices so that refuse is delivered to the workers at Chocolatao instead of them collecting from the streets and bringing home the rubbish to sort, a major health and safety risk which resulted in tragic fire a number of years ago. All facilities will be managed and operated by Chocolatao community members. The Recycling Centre manager is pictured below being interviewed by local media.
A network, ‘Vila Chocolatao Sustainability Network’ was an important governing collaborative force in the years of preparation to move. It included members of health, education and law services, the Chocolatao community and the private sector. Teresa, another community leader is pictured below with friend Mario and Marcio Milleto Mostardeiro, from the City of Porto Alegre in the old community space that was used for network meetings when it was wet (they were otherwise in the adjacent park) and childcare. Teresa is also pictured in her new home at Nova Chocolatao with husband and adopted son on the day of the inauguration.
The relocation has not been without its challenges. A number of families moved to Vila Chocolatao after the project’s census date and a range of alternative accommodation was required to be negotiated for these people.
Below is the Brasilian WebTV feature on the Chocolatao move. Also see ABC Radio Broadcast on Chocolatao on the ‘Future Tense’ Program - ‘Bigger Cities, Bigger Slums’
15 March 2011
IBM has announced that Milwaukee is among 24 cities worldwide to receive a Smarter Cities Challenge grant, which will give the city access to top IBM experts and technology to potentially expand local, cutting-edge urban agriculture efforts around the globe.
The winning project, Sweet Water Organics urban aquaculture is one of a suite of water-related projects that Milwaukee is working on as an Innovating City in the UN Global Compact Cities Programme; reflecting the far reaching engagement of this leader city.
The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants, valued at about $400,000 apiece, are aimed at helping cities improve one aspect of city life. Issues addressed by winning cities include health care, education, safety, social services, transportation, communications, sustainability, budget management, energy and utilities.
More than 200 cities in 40 countries competed for the 24 grants. The IBM grant in Milwaukee specifically will look at how water management and aquaculture intersect, and whether there’s a sustainable economic model in Sweet Water Organics, an urban fish and vegetable farm that mimics the Earth’s natural ecosystem in an industrial building in the Bay View neighborhood. Harnischfeger Industries once used the building to make mining cranes.
Cofounded by roofing contractor James Godsil and business partner Josh Fraundorf, Sweet Water Organics is the first commercial test of Will Allen’s innovative aquaculture model for perch – an eco-friendly system that produces fish and vegetables in a closed system that conserves water. Growing Power, the nonprofit urban farm at 5500 W. Silver Spring Drive, unveiled the system three years ago.
James has big aspirations and unlimited enthusiasm for the enterprise and says that Sweet Water Organics may well be the world’s first enterprise involving the transformation of a century old factory building into an aquaponic fish produce farm as well as an art, science, and earth friendly innovation center.
“Sweet Water is a hybrid enterprise growing farmers and, through the power of the internet, aspiring to diffuse aquaponics innovations, large and small, across the planet, especially to arid and rain forest nations. He believes “every city deserves a Sweet Water!”
Sweet Water is raising tens of thousands of yellow perch and plants in simulated river beds, and harvesting information for hands-on education in science, technology, engineering, and math. Sweet Soil, is also being developed through large scale composting.
The Milwaukee team welcome the IBM alliance. “It’s my understanding that IBM wants to help Milwaukee advance itself as one of the world’s smartest cities by virtue of our commitment to learning to feed ourselves,” Godsil said. “We’ve formed a grand alliance around creating a 21st-century, Earth-friendly industry that reminds me of the grand alliance formed when we shifted from wheat and alfalfa and corn to dairy – a much higher added-value form of agriculture with technology surrounding it.”
From left: Claus Dunkelberg from the Milwaukee Water Council with some of the Sweet Water Organics team: Chaya Nayak, James Godsil and Jess Hull.
For more information see www.sweetwater-organic/press and https://smartercitieschallenge.org/index.html
22 February 2011
On February 22 the Clean Water America Alliance announced the winners of the 2011 U.S. Water Prize for watershed-based approaches toward water sustainability. Milwaukee, one of the fourteen Innovating Cities in the United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme was one of the five to receive this prestiguous award.
The Clean Water America Alliance recognised the Milwaukee Water Council (Wis.) specifically, for “establishing public-private collaborations that advance water technology and promote economic development. As a result, the Milwaukee area is becoming known as a ‘World Water Hub’.”
Executive Director of the Milwaukee Water Council, Dean Amhaus sees enormous benefit to the region from its sustained, collaborative focus on water.
“Milwaukee’s global leadership in water technology has offered the region a level of distinctiveness that every place is seeking to achieve. This unique asset will clearly help in attracting water professionals to study and work in the region which in turn will be critical in the creation, expansion and attraction of water-related businesses. The bottom line offers great economic development opportunities for our region along with building a tremendous level of pride for our citizens”.
Milwaukee are tackling fifteen complex projects related to water in its work as a lead Innovating City in the UN Global Compact Cities Programme. In addition to private sector and university collaboration, projects include urban aquaculture, phosphorus, stormwater, and sewage treatment, water policy and governance and community perception and use. These involve a number of lead organisations and cooperation across borders and sectors.
Given Milwaukee’s location on the Great Lakes, which holds twenty percent of the world’s freshwater supply, the importance of this collaborative work cannot be underestimated.
The U.S Water Prize is valuable, deserved recognition. Clean Water America Alliance President Ben Grumbles explained that the “five water champions reflect the diversity of America and set a shiny example for innovating, integrating, and collaborating from coast to coast to sustain America’s most precious liquid asset.” Other U.S. Water Prize winners include the City of Los Angeles, National Great Rivers Restoration & Education Center, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and the Pacific Institute.
U.S. Water Prize winners will be honored in a special ceremony on May 9, 2011, at Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.CWAA.us. 
A recent UNGCCP visit with Milwaukee Water leaders. From left: Claus Dunkelberg (Milwaukee Water Council); Professor Sam White (University of Winsconsin Milwaukee); Elizabeth Ryan (UN Global Compact Cities Programme); Paul Krajniak (Discovery World); Dean Amhaus (Milwaukee Water Council)
19 January 2011
In the coming decades, cities face increasing challenges as they endeavour to tackle the complex challenges of sustainability. Meeting these
challenges involves intelligent optimisation of precious human and natural resources, coupled with some degree of prescience around where those resources are best deployed. Recently the term “intelligent city” has been coined to describe an urban system capable of planning, adapting to and growing within its
environmental conditions.
To help cities develop this kind of capability, Accenture has teamed with the Global Compact Cities Programme to develop what we have termed an “Intelligent Cities Simulator”. The purpose of this software system is to simulate the effect of particular programs, interventions and actions on key urban indicators.
Modelled indicators include both general indicators such as CO2 emissions, HDI and Liveability indexes, and program-specific metrics, such as water consumption, recycling rates and proportionate energy mixes.
The simulator provides a useful, high-level pre-planning heuristic, directing attention towards possible side effects and unintended consequences of interventions, prior to (and possibly pre-empting) the undertaking of more detailed cost-benefit analyses. It also takes into account actual urban conditions, through city profiles which capture demographic, environmental and other statistics, and which then show, through the selection and configuration of programs, the differential effects of those programs.
The development of the simulator is an iterative and evolving project. The intention is to learn from the ongoing discussions and critical feedback as the simulator is used around the world. The partnership with the Global Compact Cities Programme enables the engagement with cities across the world as a base to feedback real experiences. In this way we intend to continually develop and expand the simulator to act as a knowledge base and interactive learning tool.
For more information contact Mr Liam Magee, Research Fellow, RMIT University.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
supported by 
