The ambition of the Global Knowledge Exchange Centre (GKEC) for Urban Climate Neutrality is to mainstream actions towards climate neutral and net-zero urban developments on a global level. In this sense, the GKEC will provide support in terms of global outreach for the European Cities Mission as well as contribute to the Urban Transition Mission of Mission Innovation. It will provide effective support and knowledge for local governments and international stakeholders and through this, support European policy such as the European Green Deal and work towards the international commitments of the Paris Agreement. The GKEC will make available evidence and good practice for urban climate neutral and net-zero transitions globally and facilitate capacity building, knowledge exchange and moderated learning for municipalities and key stakeholders. In operational terms, the GKEC will set up actions according to the three impact pathways: 1.Mainstream knowledge and good practice to accelerate urban transitions: The mission platform will be extended towards global use, making available international solutions and good practices and promote financing and funding opportunities to implement integrated urban climate action and net-zero pathways. 2.Offer advanced frameworks and moderated learning across all governance levels to raise awareness of and capacities for CN and NZ policies: Policy advocacy for climate neutral and net-zero approaches will allow aligning of global policies. Capacity building measures for local and regional actors will provide guidelines and support mutual learning to drive systemic change. 3.Establish the GKEC as a forum for international exchange and cooperation on climate neutral and net-zero transitions: Global and regional events accompanied by comprehensive dissemination measures will raise visibility of EU and international good practice and strengthen international cooperation on climate neutrality and net-zero pathways.

RethinkAction puts citizens and decision-makers at the core of the climate change action, by developing a cross-sectoral user-friendly decision-making platform tailored to the needs of different end-users for delivering clear and valuable information on climate change, increasing awareness and attractiveness of mitigation and adaptation solutions centred on land use as a key driver, even critical, to sustain life and to reach objectives in the context of climate change. RethinkAction moves beyond just informing them about the desirable future and what needs to be changed, but guiding them in the decision-making process by showing how to do it through practical land-use based solutions, while at the same time building awareness and attractiveness of new lifestyles and behavioural change, and how barriers can be overcome. By co-creating of the solutions through participatory processes, RethinkAction will unquestionably promote climate change action and acceptability of the measures. RethinkAction platform will allow users to assess land use-based adaptation and mitigation solutions, understand climate change impacts over time, linking local, EU and global scales based on 6 representative case studies, covering the main regional differences related to climate change.

Europe’s urban areas face significant challenges to ensure the availability and consumption of healthy, affordable, safe and sustainably produced food. Such challenges converge within local food environments, but are often neglected by public planners. Promising initiatives taken by municipalities to change the architecture of food choice often fail to become embedded in the wider policy context and to reach deprived and vulnerable groups. Key factors responsible for this are: (1) siloed ways of working and (2) fragmentation of knowledge on facilitators and barriers related to food system transformation. These factors hinder the development and implementation of integrated urban food policies. FOODCLIC will create strong science-policy-practice interfaces across eight European city-regions (45 towns and cities). The backbone of such interfaces will be provided by Food Policy Networks, which will manage real-world experimental Living Labs to build a policy-relevant evidence-base through learning-in-action. Activities will be informed by an innovative conceptual framework (the CLIC), which emphasizes four desired outcomes of food system integration (sustainability co-benefits, spatial linkages, social inclusion and sectoral connectivities). Capacity-building and direct support for intensive multi-stakeholder engagement (including deprived and vulnerable groups) will enable policy actors and urban planners across partner city-regions to develop continuously evolving integrated urban food policies and render planning frameworks food-sensitive. Results will be communicated and disseminated amongst others by extending the novel policy practices to another eight city-regions in Europe and Africa, an online Knowledge-Hub, a high-level Think Tank and partners’ networks. In these ways, FOODCLIC aims to contribute to urban food environments that make healthy and sustainable food available, affordable and attractive to all citizens (including deprived and vulnerable groups).

AFRIFOOD-Links AfriFOODlinks aims to improve food and nutrition security, while delivering positive outcomes for climate and the environment, and building social and ecological resilience in 65+ Cities (15 African and 5 European Implementation cities and 40+ Network Cities) cities by: 1) applying an urban food systems lens to promote shifts to healthy, sustainable diets, 2) transforming urban food environments through real-world socio-technical experiments; 3) promoting inclusive multi-actor governance to empower public officials, small businesses and communities with ownership and agency to shape their food systems; and 4) accelerating innovative, women- and youth-led agri-food businesses to support local value addition and inclusive economic participation. AfriFOODlinks invests in direct food system change in 5 African Hub Cities, and invites 10 African and 5 European Sharing Cities to join the Hub Cities on a mutual-learning journey, to share their innovative food systems and to co-design specific pilot projects for implementation in each Sharing City. Researchers, posted within each of the 20 local governments, will support the city to articulate its identified food system challenges and own authentic approach to improving access to healthy, nutritious food - with a particular attention to vulnerable groups - and reducing food related environmental impacts through food systems intervention. In this way, these implementation cities become flagships - beacons of inspiration for urban food systems transitions across the continent to inspire and share with over 40 Network cities, who are invited to adopt and adapt.

The TRANS-SAFE project will involve national, regional, and city level demonstrations to test different types of innovative and integrated Safe System solutions, complemented by a comprehensive toolbox, capacity development, policy support and replication activities. To maximize impact, the project brings together in a consortium, highly committed cities, road safety agencies and experts from both Europe and Africa. Building on numerous synergistic projects, networks, and a strong technical experience among partners, the consortium will deliver an ambitious project through highly effective and innovative approaches to sustainable road safety development, thereby ensuring that road safety systems and interventions from this project deliver on the recommendations of the Road Safety Cluster of the African-EU Transport Task Force, adopted in 2020. The consortium members have experience and expertise in Africa-related research as well as development-related research in collaboration with local actors in various countries of Africa at many levels. Ultimately, the project will help deliver on the Joint EU-Africa Strategy (JAES) and advance countries' progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).