Come and visit our new section of the website “inspirational people“! Our first article is about Cynthia Contie, a inspirational woman from the USA.
Category: News
Funding for the Ecomunicipality’s program in Ethiopia
Big step for Sustainable Sweden Association! The Ecomunicipality Program in Ethiopia is officially launched and we received the first part of the funding from UN Habitat last week. 🙌
We are very glad to have this opportunity to strenghten sustainable development in Ethiopia. 🌱
To have more information about the project in Ethiopia, please visit the website of Sustainable Sweden Development Ethiopia, the sister association of SSA : https://
U.S. Eco-Municipalities Interested in Sister City Relationship with a Swedish Eco-Municipality
Sarah James, co-founder of the IEMEA and of the first American Eco-municipalities with Torbjörn Lahti, as well as co-writer of the book “The Natural Step for Communities” (2004) with Torbjörn Lahti also, carried out a survey among the American Eco-municipalities with Cindi Contie, who organizes Sustainable Tours for American participants through the Full Circle Discovery. At this occasion, three of those cities (Lawrence Township, New Jersey ; Town of Concord, Massachusetts ; City of Portsmouth, NH) have expressed their will to have a Swedish sister-city. See in the frame below the details Sarah James sent to us.
| U.S. ECOMUNICIPALITIES INTERESTED IN SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH A SWEDISH ECOMUNICIPALITY
October, 2017 Introduction: For the past few months, the Institute for Ecomunicipality Education & Assistance (IEMEA) has been carrying out a small survey of people active in the emergence of ecomunicipalities in the United States from 2005 to the present. Fourteen people from nine ecomunicipalities were interviewed. These included present and former mayors of U.S. ecomunicipalities, city and town managers, and citizen activists and “fire souls” who started or supported ecomunicipality initiatives in their local regions. In three cases, respondents indicated they thought their local municipality might be interested in a sister city relationship with a Swedish ecomunicipality. The following is a description of three US ecomunicipalities who might be interested in such a relationship. If there is interest from particular Swedish ecomunicipalities, feel free to contact Sarah James, IEMEA, at james.s@att.net who can provide more information and local contacts. |
May-June 2017 : an ethiopian delegation participates to a Tour in Sweden
Our partnership with SSDE and the future ethiopian eco-municipalities is making great strides this year !
From the 28th of May to the 5th of June, Sustainable Sweden welcomed an Ethiopian delegation from Arba Minch, one of the 14 cities participating in the Eco-municipality Program in Ethiopia, supervised by SSDE. The delegation was composed of 9 people, members of the Goma Gofa Zone, the Arba Minch Municipality and the Arba Minch University, three major actors in the sustainable development project in Arba Minch. This Tour was the occasion for them to observe longstanding eco-municipalities from Southern Sweden (Falkenberg, Gothenburg, Stockholm) and learn from their practices.
Read the entire story of the Tour here :
By the way, we are glad to announce that a Tour in Ethiopia is being prepared and should take place in the next few months. Stay tuned !
Annual SEKOM meeting and the American Eco-municipalities
On the 15th and 16th of March, the Swedish Association for Eco-municipalities (SEKOM) organized its yearly conference in Luleå, which several representatives from the Swedish Eco-municipalities attended to. This was a great occasion to present all the advances made by the municipalities, as well as expose their vision for the future of the movement.
Cindi Contie, from the Institute for Eco-municipality, Education and Assistance (IEMEA) was the guest of honour for this conference. She gave a presentation on the situation of the Eco-municipalities in the United States, called “American Eco-municipalities after the election : A Chance for Hope and Renewal”.
The whole presentation can be seen here.
March 2017 Tour in the Öresund region
From the 27th of February and the 4th of March 2017, Sustainable Sweden welcomed a delegation of 4 young ambassadors from Montreal, looking to learn about examples of sustainability and social innovation to bring back home and show on the occasion of Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebration, which will be held in May this year. The Tour took the participants to the Öresund straight region, travelling both in Denmark (Copenhaguen, Kalundborg, Skibby) and Sweden (Helsingborg, Malmö).
Find more about the project 375Montreal : http://www.375mtl.com/
Upcoming Open Tour for 2017
Great news for 2017 ! The upcoming year marks the 25th anniversary of the Rio Summit on Environment and Development, and even if much has been made in the objective of creating a sustainable earth, there is still a lot of issues that need to be taken care of.
We are then starting to plan an open Sustainable Sweden Tour for spring or summer 2017. This time, we plan on making this tour accessible to any individual, or organization interested. Anyone interested in taking part in a SuS Tour is invited to contact us to get more detailed information.
Preparing a Sustainable Sweden Tour takes some time, as we have to contact sometimes hundreds of hosts and guests alike. Furthermore, we have to carefully establish a route across all the Eco-municipalities we intend to visit, and plan accommodation for our guests.
More information about the place and the dates will be available as we advance in our planning in the following months.
If you want to participate or have more information, you can write directly to Torbjörn Lahti at : torbjorn(at)sustainablesweden.org
June 2016 Tour in Sweden
Between the 27th of May and the 6th of June, a delegation from Tigray, Ethiopia joined us for a Tour that took place in Stockholm and later Umeå. The participants got to meet with different organizations, companies, and this time even natural reserves, to learn from these examples. Several conferences were also held in order to assess the progress made within the Ethiopian Eco-municipalities´program.
For a fully detailed summary of the Tour, visit the page below. Otherwise you can find a list of all the Tours and a summary of each of them under the menu “About the Tours”
March 2016 : Workshop in Ethiopia with Sustainable Sweden Development Ethiopia (SSDE)
On the 2nd of March 2016, a workshop was held in Addis Ababa and Arba Minch (Ethiopia) by Sustainable Sweden Association (SSA) and Sustainable Sweden Development Ethiopia (SSDE). A total of 26 participants from different organizations and parts of the country attended to this workshop which was dedicated to assessing SSDE’s work in 2015/2016. This meeting was especially important as it coincides with the second Growth and Transformation Plan that includes sustainable objectives and puts an emphasis on the development of rural areas.
Since the first workshop that was held in January 2015 to introduce SSDE’s work to the Ethiopian Eco-municipality network, more than a year had passed, and it was time to re-evaluate the work that had been done in Ethiopia.
Sustainable Sweden Tour for Ethiopia
APRIL 2016
A new Sustainable Sweden Tour is planned for April 2016. It is a Study Tour and preparation for the upcoming ”Pilot Project for Ecomunicipalities in Ethiopia”, which is expected to start during 2016. The Tour is designed as a training program with a combination of theory and field studies. The participants will get a deeper understanding of sustainable development with a special focus on Ecomunicipalities. The host municipalities will be ecomunicipalities who will share their many years of experiences of how to strategically transform their communities in sustainable direction. The theoretical parts of the training will focus on the concept Ecomunicipality 5.0, which will be the frame work for the Ethiopian projects.