Hello everyone – My name is Judit Deilinger and I am very pleased to greet you as the incoming CityLinks Director. I have a long-standing history with CityLinks, starting in 2002 when I was working with ten wonderful U.S. cities that were assisting about 50 cities in Bulgaria to improve infrastructure and services and to create economic opportunities for their communities.  This was the first time I witnessed firsthand the power and creativity that local government practitioners unleash when form partnerships and start thinking together to find solutions for urban challenges. The results were remarkable: industrial parks took off, offering new jobs; new infrastructure management systems were applied, saving significant resources for the communities; and local governments embraced the idea of having the opportunity and responsibility to create policies that enable the private sector and civil society to participate in democratic processes while enhancing the local economy. Needless to say, I have been sold on the community partnership concept ever since.

The current CityLinks, as you know, is set to help communities tackle climate impact, provide clean drinking water and better sanitation, and improve food systems for the urban poor.  The past two years of the program have seen great initiatives lifting off, so I can’t resist recapping what we did and giving you a few hints about the future plans.

• We ran a well-received, three-day Climate Leadership Academy, an interactive training and knowledge sharing conference, in August 2013. The Academy, presented by ICMA and Institute for Sustainable Communities specialists, hosted eight cities in Jakarta and was the first half of a two-part pilot partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). And this summer, we will start a follow-on city-to-city partnership program with the participation of two cities from the ASEAN region and two partner cities from the United States.
• We launched another partnership among Ft. Lauderdale (FL) and Broward County (FL); and Durban, South Africa, in July 2013. The partners are exploring models for regional collaboration for addressing sea level rise and ecological services for climate change adaptation. In March 2014, delegates from South Africa will arrive in Florida to observe their partners’ approaches to climate issues and explore technology innovations. During this visit, Durban will also start preparing for its mentor role in a new partnership with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, under CityLinks. The Durban and Dar es Salaam partnership will be kicked off this summer and will contribute to the creation of a network of cities dedicated to addressing climate change in Africa.
• We will continue our webinar series, which will highlight coastal resilience as well as tools to help urban areas to alleviate the climate impact. Stay tuned for additional information by checking the CityLinks website (icma.org/citylinks), and following us on Twitter @ICMACityLinks. If you’re interested in receiving our upcoming CityLinks e-newsletter, please e-mail eelledge@icma.org.  

CityLinks projects and the solutions they develop are as varied as the communities involved, but they have one thing in common: they prove, time and again, that cities are capable of innovation and that partnerships among them greatly enhance their opportunities to put this capacity to work.

I look forward to building on the success of the past two years and expanding opportunities for new communities to participate in the program and create a sustainable path for their future development.