The Municipality of Gżira is looking for four Partner Cities, interested in discovering and learning from their experience as part of VARCITIES’ City-to-City Exchange! Located in the Central Region of Malta, Gżira is developing three Visionary Solutions with the support of VARCITIES:

• Visionary Solution 1: Rue D’Argens: Micro-greening Interventions through a Participatory Design Process, engages property-owners and businesses in micro-greening interventions to enhance urban conditions, raise awareness about green solutions, and involve the community.
• Visionary Solution 2: Citizen Science on Air/Noise quality to increase H&WB awareness to measure of air quality at different sites in Gzira’s catchment area collaborating with locals who will host sensors at their properties.
• Visionary Solution 3: Urban Biodiversity, Education and Engagement through a Co-Created Community Garden Project, implementing NbS interventions and citizen engagement initiatives at St. Clare Primary School and Gzira Gardens to integrate a greener perspective into education and culture.

Specifically, Gżira has identified three challenges that VARCITIES is addressing:

• Excessive air pollution and traffic and construction industry noise is a threat for citizens’ well-being
• The main road of Gzira Rue D’Argens is a high traffic road with little vegetation and narrow pavements
• Limited green and limited public spaces for citizens.

The three Visionary Solutions are the key solutions that VARCITIES will support to address these challenges.

Discover more about Gżira’s pilot on their Pilot Page: https://varcities.eu/pilot-cities/gzira-malta/

Gżira’s Partner Cities should share similar challenges and conditions (non-cumulative criteria) and be located in the EU, or in a country associated to Horizon Europe (such as the UK):

• Gżira is located in the Central Region of Malta, characterized by a Mediterranean climate with dry summers and wet winters
• Gżira’s pilot area is facing challenges related to air pollution and traffic consumption, lack of green space, and limited public spaces.

Are you interested in discovering Gżira’s experience in VARCITIES? Is your city facing similar challenges? Do you also want to better track health related data in your city using new IT technologies?

The selection process for the four Partner Cities of the municipality of Gżira is currently on-going. The City-to-City Exchange is expected to start in the first months 2024.

For any enquiries, contact us at contact@varcities.eu

About VARCITIES City-to-City Exchange

To support the replication of VARCITIES approach, each of the seven Pilot Cities engages with four other Partner Cities in City-to-City Exchange to promote and upscale their Visionary Solutions, exchange on common challenges, barriers and experiences. Notably, the City-to-City Exchange aims to cover issues linked with stakeholder engagement, governance, replication, IT solutions and inclusivity.  Through cross-learning, the 4 Partner Cities will participate in an online knowledge exchange with one of the Pilot Cities, supported by VARCITIES’ team, which may also be complemented by site visits. Partner Cities will be invited to join the Healthy Cities Helix, and future collaboration supported by European funding programmes will be explored.