Rourkela, India

Winner of the 2021 Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge for the city's solar-powered cold storage rooms. The cold storage facilities provide local farmers with a place to store their market produce safe from the heat, which in turn increases produce market viability and farmer income. The cold storage rooms are run by groups of women entrepreneurs and provide women's economic development opportunities at the nexus of agriculture, economy, and renewable energy.

Pictured here, Shanti Mahato, a farmer from a village in the Sundargarh district of Odisha, India owns three acres of land where she grows seasonal vegetables, such as pumpkins, tomatoes, and okra. Once harvested, Shanti brings them to the nearby market to sell to residents; however, lacking a cold storage unit, Shanti is often forced to discard her produce or sell them for a fraction of the price.

As one of the first users of the cold storage room, Shanti has been able to preserve leftover items in the storage unit and sell them during the next market day. She is also able to grow more vegetables to sell to multiple markets, and other small vendors.

Bogotá, Colombia

Winner of the 2021 Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge, Bogotá developed a “Care Block” program designed to reduce women’s unpaid care work, spark cultural shifts that redistribute care more equitably across family units, and formally recognize the skills of family caregivers. In Bogotá, the unpaid care burden falls disproportionately on women, with 30% of the city’s female population providing full-time caregiving, 14% of whom cannot leave their homes due to the conditions of those for whom they care. The Care Block program provides in-home support to people in need of care in Bogotá, which in turn alleviates the often consuming burden of care that disproportionately falls on women. 

Pictured is caregiver Librada Rincón Ortiz, 51, with her mother, Maria Del Carmen Ortiz de Rincón, 81. When Maria was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Librada left her job at a local clothing company and began to sew clothes from home to provide for her mother and seven children of her own. Guided by care experts, Librada works through therapeutic exercises with her mother, building caregiving skills and earning certifications through the care block program that can later be used as proof of working experience for future job searches. 
 

Vilnius, Lithuania

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge for their project – Vilnius is a School – the city of Vilnius is taking lessons learned during Covid to create more resilient K-12 education models, especially those that tap the “city as a classroom”. By allowing students to explore urban phenomena through outside learning, Vilnius is a School is pushing the boundary of when and how education should be delivered. 

Pictured are ninth graders from the Joachim Lelevelis Engineering Gymnasium in Vilnius attending a lesson outside of their classrooms through the city’s Vilnius is a School platform. Students are listening to a "Journalist for a Day" lesson from the editorial team of one of the country’s daily reporting newspapers, Irytas.It, at the Parliament Visitors Centre. lrytas.lt journalists, editors, and reporters introduced their professions to the students by sharing their experiences, and explaining how and what knowledge they apply in their daily work. Students saw behind the scenes, discussed challenges, and career opportunities. They were divided into smaller groups to actively try different aspects of the job, for example learning to be a journalist at the Parliament, asking questions about new laws, or applying their Lithuanian language grammar skills to become editors of a text in the newspaper. The students were very engaged in the lesson, asked a lot of questions, and were enthusiastic about the creative exercise.

Hermosillo, Mexico

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge, Hermosillo’s BICICLANDO program creates green employment opportunities for women with the aim of increasing the rate of recycling in the city. BICICLANDO connects the local community with “bicicladoras” — women who use electric bicycles to provide residential waste collection, recycling, and disposal services directly from households to a Circular Economy Center (CEC), where recyclables are sorted. BICICLANDO also works to improve the city’s cycling infrastructure through the construction and designation of new bike lanes, ensuring that bicicladoras and other commuters can travel safely along service routes.

Pictured here is a moment from a bicicladora’s routine recycling collection route with features from participating residents and businesses from Colonia Modelo, a neighborhood located near the program’s CEC. Bicicladora routes are selected based on demand for recycling services and proximity to the CEC, but the program is working to expand operations to new neighborhoods through the creation of safe, cycling infrastructure improvements like designated bike lanes. The collected recyclables are sold to private recycling companies, which benefits both the environment and local community livelihoods.

Freetown, Sierra Leone

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge, the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, is providing monetary incentives for communities to plant, track and care for living trees to establish a tree-trading market that funds reforestation and supports local livelihoods. Over the past 50 years, Freetown has experienced rapid population growth which has resulted in the loss of millions of trees due to urban development. To counteract these tree losses, Freetown the Treetown harnesses the power of digital tools and community stewardship to replenish ecosystems and protect residents now and for generations to come. 

Freetown the Treetown growers are pictured here at Lumley Beach, a popular tourist attraction which donated land for this cause, planting a variety of trees, including coconut, mango, orange, cashew, almond, guava, pear, apple, breadfruit, and moringa. Apart from being a key site of the city, this planting site was chosen for the economic opportunities it will present for both residents and growers like to sell the fruits from the trees and its aid in re-greening popular tourist destinations like Lumley Beach that will reinvigorate Freetown’s sustainable tourism industry. 

Amman, Jordan

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge, Amman developed the "Amman Is Listening" platform to facilitate better understanding of resident needs through direct citizen feedback and community collaboration with local government. The platform, complete with detailed maps of city services and announcements for upcoming infrastructural and municipal projects, enables two-way communication between residents and the Greater Amman Municipality to improve civic participation and community awareness of local government initiatives. 

Pictured here is a product demonstration of the features offered on the “Amman Is Listening” platform, such as the ability to map resident services within a 15 mile walking radius of the user, and project pages where residents can learn about city projects, implementation updates, and countdowns to their completion. Product demonstration attendees were especially enticed by the prospects of what real-time, city-managed and city-powered map could yield in the benefits of municipal planning transparency. The events function, particularly, drew in audience members looking to take advantage of upcoming, city-run, family-friendly events.

Istanbul, Turkey

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge for their project – Pay-It-Forward – which is fostering city-wide mutual aid through a program that crowdsources contributions to meet basic needs for those in need.

Pictured here are volunteers and staff of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality assembling and delivering earthquake relief packages to those affected by two devastating earthquakes with magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6 that occurred in southern Turkey on February 6, 2023. According to official data, the earthquake killed over 50,000 people across 11 provinces and left roughly 1.5 million people homeless. Along with the human suffering, the earthquake also resulted in a major economic toll on the region. With Pay It Forward already in place, the City of Istanbul together with the innovation team and assistance from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Global Mayors Challenge, quickly pivoted Pay it Forward – which had already expanded since COVID-19 to help other specific needs: students needing educational support, the ones in the need of transit help, families seeking diapers and other necessities – with the added capability of allowing direct, peer-to-peer donations of supplies to get from anywhere in Turkey to families displaced by the disaster. Through a partnership with Metro, a German supermarket chain, donors could use the platform to buy and ship parcels of necessary grocery staples, personal care items and more, to families in the earthquake region.

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge for their project – Rikx – which uses digital tokens to create incentives for local businesses to hire vulnerable residents.  

Pictured is a visit to a social enterprise funded by early rounds of Rikx, Beroepentuin. Rikx financing allows Beroepentuin to employ and skillfully train people disengaged from the labor market, which include troubled youth or formerly incarcerated people among other populations.

Beroepentuin focuses on preparing individuals for the energy transition and career opportunities in the construction and technical sectors. The program provides a unique approach to learning by doing essential skills for energy transition jobs, such as solar panel installation, charging station setup, and electrical and heating systems. Participants include diverse groups with various challenges, such as ex-prisoners, refugees, and long-term welfare recipients.

Rochester, Minnesota, USA

Winner of the 2021 Global Mayors Challenge for their project – Equity in the Built Environment – which aims to bring more women of color into high paying construction jobs by coordinating with contractors and facilitating trainings. 

Diamond Harriel, an Equity in the Built Environment program participant, works with instructor Peggy Buehler as part of the program's Trades Readiness training at Rochester Community and Technical College. Through this program Harriel was trained on various essential carpentry skills, how to read construction blueprints, and how to create accurate scale drawings.

Paterson, New Jersey, USA

Winner of the 2021 Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge, the US city of Paterson, New Jersey is working to address the more than 1,700 opioid-related overdoses that occur each year in the city. Residents experiencing opioid-use disorder face myriad barriers to adequate support. Paterson’s RealFix program works to break down those barriers, offering prescriptions to clients for medically-assisted treatment within 90 minutes to counteract withdrawal and begin the road to recovery, even for those residents who do not have identification, legal status, health insurance, or a way to pay. 

Pictured is a member of the RealFix program team out in the city of Paterson, looking for residents they can aid with accessing opioid-abuse disorder treatment options available to them through RealFix.

Butuan, Philippines

Winner of the 2021  Global Mayors Challenge, Butuan’s AgriBOOST initiative strengthens local food production and combats food insecurity by equipping farmers with predictive data and stabilizing commodity prices to reduce risk.  

AgriBOOST's efforts to enhance agricultural productivity are evident at the Guias Integrated Farm. Through AgriBOOST’s farmer field school, Sheila Maglines, Narjiel Guias, and Carlo Eluyay have learned and adopted various new agricultural management practices to increase productivity at their farm. These practices include transplanting and irrigating eggplant seedlings, training string bean plants, and harvesting mature bitter gourd fruits inside the AgriBOOST-provided greenhouse. This new agricultural productivity showcases how impactful AgriBOOST’s comprehensive approach to sustainable farming is for farmers in the city.

Kumasi, Ghana

Winner of the 2021  Global Mayors Challenge for their response to a local sanitation crisis, Kumasi Sanitation Solutions trains unemployed youth to build low-cost, sustainable toilets for households in need of safe, affordable, accessible, and clean sanitation facilities. The program uses bio-digesters and other technologies compatible with the city's infrastructure to convert waste into organic manure for farms. Kumasi Sanitation Solutions also supports the community in professional development by offering economic opportunities for trained youth artisans.

Pictured is a scene from local landlord Adizah Agan’s housing compound in the city of Kumasi where youth artisans trained through the Kumasi Sanitation Solutions program are constructing a pair of new toilets. These new toilets will directly benefit the 11 families living in his compound, which will grant over 40 residents access to a private toilet for the first time.

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Winner of the 2021 Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge, the US city of Phoenix, Arizona is working to bridge the divide between jobseekers and potential employers with “Mobile Career Units” that provide targeted support to job seekers where they live—including trainings, interview opportunities, translation services, and connections to employers ready to hire them on the spot. 

Pictured is a hiring event held by the Phoenix Mobile Career Unit (MCU) at the Saguaro library. City of Phoenix staff members are pictures interacting with clients and jobseekers, sharing information about the city’s ARIZONA@Work programming, and assisting candidates with writing resumes, filling out employment applications, and refining interview skills. The City of Phoenix’s Aviation Department and Emerging Domestic Market Ventures, a local airport concessions company, were among the hiring organizations that interviewed job seekers at the event.