The GovLab | Multi City Challenge

ProjectsMulti City Challenge

Multi City Challenge

As more people move into urban areas, cities face growing challenges from road congestion and pollution to public health and inequality. The Multi-City Challenge is a process by which cities pool expertise from their residents to discover and implement innovative solutions to contemporary urban problems/

Background

As more people move into urban areas, cities face growing challenges from road congestion and pollution to public health and inequality. The Multi-City Challenge is a process by which cities pool expertise from their residents to discover and implement innovative solutions to contemporary urban problems/

The Multi-City Challenge combines: 1) training for public servants to define problems with data and evidence with 2) an open innovation competition to source solutions and then 3) a coaching program for residents and public servants to develop those solutions collaboratively into implementable new policies and services.

Partners

Description

Multi-City Challenge Africa - Promotional video

The GovLab is currently running a Multi City Challenge (https://africa.multicitychallenge.org/) in partnership with UNDP with residents in Accra (1.5 million inhabitants), Ghana; Bahir Dar (750,991 inhabitants), Ethiopia; Kampala (1.5 million inhabitants), Uganda; Kano (4 million inhabitants), Nigeria and Mutare (262,124 inhabitants), Zimbabwe. to address: digitizing the informal economy, building urban resilience, and improving waste management. During September and October, we conducted eight training sessions for public officials of the participating cities on problem definition and open innovation to enable participatory policymaking. With the support of our advisory board of African engagement experts, we are now running the open innovation challenge between now and December 3.

Multi-City Challenge Mexico - Promotional video

In Northern Mexico, The GovLab is working with the five municipal governments (who mayors come from different political parties) to define shared challenges: Hermosillo (812,229 inhabitants) wants to improve the sustainability of its mobility model. Reynosa (pop. 612,183) wants to reduce the daily rate of COVID-19 infections and reactivate the economy. San Nicolás de los Garza (443,273) wants to improve air quality and the quality of life of the elderly. San Pedro Garza García (122,627) wants help developing more sustainable waste management and addressing the educational digital divide. Finally,Torreon (608,836) wants to find strategies to prevent more cases of COVID-19 and to repopulate its city center. Following eight training sessions for public officials, the GovLab ran an open innovation challenge in October. Over two and a half weeks, residents submitted 237 proposals. Ten winners were selected by peer and expert evaluation. Now we are beginning the coaching program to help cities translate the ten winning proposals into action plans.